CHAPTER 35
DAISY
The faint sound of running water rouses me from the comatose sleep I had fallen into somewhere around four a.m.
My muscles scream at me as I roll onto my back. I’m confused for the briefest of moments before I register the telltale ache between my thighs, the beard burn tingling all over my body and the events of last night hit me all at once.
Snapshots play out against the back of my eyelids.
Killian dragging me away from Lainey and her brothers.
Click.
Pinning me against the wall in his entryway.
Click.
Him hovering above me as he slid inside.
Click.
His head buried between my thighs.
Click.
Me on my knees in front of him.
Click.
Climbing on top of him in the middle of the night and riding him.
I shoot up in bed, the sheets falling to my waist, leaving my breasts on display. My eyes fly to the closed bathroom door, the sounds of the shower coming from behind it.
Oh my God, what have I done?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whisper, throwing the sheets off me and clambering out of the bed in search of my clothes.
I find my jeans at the end of the bed, along with my socks and boots. My shirt is tossed haphazardly off to the side. My underwear is nowhere to be found, and I spin in a circle, my brow furrowed as a light sheen of sweat breaks out.
I need to leave.
I need to be gone before Killian comes out of the shower and asks me questions that I’m not ready to answer.
I shake my head and pull on my jeans, deciding to forget the goddamn underwear. I bounce on the spot, trying and failing to maintain my balance as I push my leg into the denim.
The shower cuts off abruptly, and I freeze, my eyes landing on the bathroom door right as it swings open and Killian walks out with a towel slung low on his hips.
Jesus, fuck.
My mouth goes dry as my eyes travel upwards from his bare feet, taking in his body in the daylight.
Water droplets roll along the divots of his abs, and I follow their path before they disappear behind the towel.
He uses his other arm to dry off his hair with another, smaller towel so he hasn’t noticed me yet and I watch as the defined muscles of his stomach contract with the movement.
His nipples are pebbled from the cold, and something about the sight of hard nipples on a man does something to me.
Killian turns more toward me slightly and my eyes keep going, moving from his hardened nipples to his chest before they snag on something I didn’t notice last night.
I can’t hold back the gasp that escapes me when I finally realise what it is I’m looking at.
Right there, hanging on a thin chain around his neck and resting just above the daisy tattoo over his heart, is his wedding ring.
My eyes shoot to his, the burn of tears instant.
Was he wearing that last night?
“I’ve been wearing it for four years.” His gruff voice startles me, and I realise I said that out loud.
“W-why?” I whisper, afraid of my voice giving away the emotion I’m barely holding onto.
Killian drops the towel he was using to dry his hair and steps toward me. “Because you are my wife, Daisy. Why else?”
My attention flicks between his face and the gold band. “But I left.”
“What’s your point?”
I open my mouth before quickly closing it again, words evading me as my heart batters against my ribcage.
Killian continues taking slow steps toward me as I stand frozen in the middle of his bedroom, clutching my shirt against my naked chest.
“You left, but you’re still my wife. And I am still your husband. It doesn’t matter how far you run from me, Daisy. That’ll never change. The vows we took? They mean something to me.”
My chin trembles as he cups my jaw in his hand, the heat from his shower radiating off him. I look up into his eyes, soaking in the hurt. I eat his pain as he watches me closely, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.
“Tell me why you left, Daisy.”
I close my eyes, resigned as I drop my head. I want to tell him more than I want my next breath. To just speak the words into existence and finally rid myself of the weight I’ve been carrying for so long.
But I’m terrified.
I’m afraid that the moment I speak my truth – our truth – Killian will no longer look at me the same.
I take a step back, causing his hand to drop from my face. “I can’t,” I say on a broken whisper.
“Why?” he asks, his eyes so broken as he looks at me. “Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep running?”
“I’m not running.” I lie.
“No? So, what do you call what you were doing just now?” He points at the jeans that are unbuttoned around my waist and the shirt I’m holding against my chest.
Running.
Getting as far away from you as possible before I do something stupid.
Panic crawls up my chest, wrapping its fingers around my throat and squeezing. “I-I can’t do this right now.”
“No.” Killian steps closer. “You don’t get to run out on me again.”
“Killian, please.”
“Was it me? Was it something I did, Daisy?” he asks, his tone pleading.
The hurt in his eyes crushes me. I hate that I continue to hurt this man over and over. I hate it even more that he lets me.
I take another step back and he reaches for me, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. “Did you have second thoughts? You could have come to me. With anything.”
“It wasn’t that,” I admit before I can stop myself.
“So, what was it? Please, Dais, just give me something. Why wasn’t I enough for you?”
A lone tear rolls down my face. The crack in his voice makes me want to reach inside my chest and rip my own battered heart out just to prove to him that he’s not the only one this is hurting. This is tearing me to fucking pieces.
I cup his face, catching his own tear as it drops from his eye. “You were enough, Killian. You always have been. I just wasn’t enough for you.”
He frowns, his eyes searching. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that I can’t give you what you want. What you need.”
He steps into me, gripping the back of my neck and resting his forehead against mine. “What I want is you, Daisy. I need you.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand.”
Reluctantly, I pull away. A numbness begins to spread through me as my body sinks back into that dark place it took me so long to crawl out from. I can feel myself shutting down right in front of him and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Killian see’s it too, because his next words are louder, angrier. “Then make me fucking understand!”
Turning my back on him, I pull my shirt over my head, tuck my boots under my arm and make a beeline for the door. “I have to go.”
“I know you were sick,” Killian declares, his words halting me in my tracks.
“What are you talking about?”
I turn toward him and the guilty expression on his face tells me everything I need to know. I let out a dry, humourless chuckle. “Hunter.”
“He was worried about you.”
“He had no right telling you that!” I shout, my anger building.
How fucking dare Hunter tell him that? When did he tell him that? Has he just been sitting on this information for months?
“Well, I’m glad he did. Because you don’t tell me shit. But you told him, Daisy. One of my best fucking friends. You are my wife!”
“Don’t act like I told him any of that because I wanted to, Killian. I had to tell him because of a gap in my resume. And he has violated my privacy by sharing that with you.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I could have found that information out easily enough if I wanted to. This isn’t about Hunter telling me. This is about you and me. This is about why you left me on our wedding day to go galivanting around Montana with Tweedle dum and fucking Tweedle dee.”
I close the bedroom door with such force that the pictures rattle on the walls. “Galivanting around Montana? You think that’s what I was doing?”
Killian stares at me. I stare at him. Our chests heave with angry breaths. My hands shake with rage as I approach him. “You wanna know why I left, Killian?”
I tilt my head, out of my mind with indignation. “Well, the truth is, I didn’t leave. Not by choice, anyway. I wasn’t there because on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life – our lives – I was in the hospital losing our baby.”
***
My mom and Bella laugh freely in the corner of the bridal suite, and I fight to keep a smile off my face as the makeup artist swipes the final layer of gloss over my lips.
Butterflies have been swarming my insides all morning in anticipation of finally getting to marry the man of my dreams in the presence of everyone we know and love.
Technically, we’re already married. Two months ago, Killian and I drove two towns over to the courthouse, where we made our marriage official in the presence of court issued witnesses. We decided not to tell our family and friends that we had gotten married in private.
They wouldn’t understand.
Especially when we’ve been planning our wedding since the moment he proposed to me.
I’ve never been the type of person that enjoys being in the spotlight.
I break out in a cold sweat and lose all train of thought the moment I feel the attention of others focused on me.
And when I shared that with Killian, he suggested we get married in an intimate setting where we can share our vows with each other without the heat of a hundred eyes on us.
I jumped at the offer.
I would have married him the day he proposed if I had known it was a possibility.
Today is entirely for our families. It’s for them to celebrate us. For us to celebrate our love, with them. As far as they’re aware, we’re officially becoming husband and wife today, and we plan to keep it that way.
Our little secret.
What Killian doesn’t know is; I’m keeping a little secret of my own.
Or rather, a very big secret.
The kind of secret that comes in the form of two pink lines.
I’ve been sitting on the positive pregnancy test for over a week now and it has taken strength I didn’t know I possessed to keep it to myself.
The moment those lines appeared in front of me, I knew today would be the perfect day to tell him.