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“Listen, Soph. If you come home, we can be together. The divorce will be completed soon. We can get married.” His eyes drop to my left hand and the engagement ring Drew gave methat I’m still wearing. “We can move. It’ll be a new start. I won’t let you down this time, I swear. You’re safe with me.”
A thousand pins prickle their way up my spine as something clicks into place.
Safe.
“I’m… I’m not safe.” I look at him with widened eyes as images of red paint and smashed glass pierce my thoughts. I can still remember the smell of the paint, cloying in the air as I breathed it in.
“I was followed. My car was trashed. It could get worse now that Councilor Jenkins’ case is going to trial. I’ve been helping the office with it, but—”
“You’re helping them?” Henry stops walking and takes hold of my upper arms, spinning me to face him. “You’re supposed to be on maternity leave.”
His fingertips dig into my flesh.
“I offered to help. It makes me feel better. Like I’m doing something. And maybe we’ll find out who followed me. I’d feel safer. I might…” I bite my bottom lip, my heartrate accelerating. “I might feel better about coming back.”
“Baby.” Henry’s face softens, his eyes twinkling as he pulls me into him. I let him hold me against him, his lips skating over my temple as he inhales, smelling my hair. “You don’t need to worry about that. No one’s after you.”
I tilt my head back and blink up at him and his arms tighten around me.
“Someone wants to hurt me,” I breathe. My voice cracks as he looks at me. Then he lifts a hand and places it over my bump, stroking his thumb over it and watching its path.
My breath stalls, my lungs on pause as his hand runs over the swell of my skin setting goosebumps following in its wake.
“I’m scared, Henry,” I confess with a gulp.
“Soph,” he murmurs. “There’s nothing to be scared of. No one’s after you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“There’s no one,” he repeats, spreading his fingers out over the widest part of my stomach. His thumb brushes my belly button, and he smiles as he runs the pad over the small protruding bump.
I swallow around the giant lump wedged in my throat.
“You don’t know that,” I croak. My tongue suddenly seems too large and thick for my mouth.
“It was me.”
He says it so simply, but instinct makes me rear back. He pulls me back to him gently, wrapping one hand around the back of my neck. Then he lowers his face toward mine.
“What do you mean?” I breathe, studying his eyes as he holds his face inches from mine. So close I can taste the hint of musk in his cologne.
“You question me over what I’d do if our baby was sick. But you don’t ask what I’d do for you.” He gazes at me, his eyes sweeping over my face and coming to rest on my parted lips.
“That was you?”
His pupils dilate as he continues stroking my bump.
“You’ve no idea the lengths I’d go to for you, Soph. I wanted you to be safe. I knew they were some dangerous men you were digging into with your case. They have friends in high places. I wanted you to be careful. To be watching out for yourself.”
“So you made me think someone was following me? You trashed my car?”
He smiles at me, an arrogant smugness held in it. “Did it make you more cautious? Did you get extra security? Stop walking to your car alone at night when you left work in the dark?”
“Y-yes.” I search his eyes for any sign that he thinks what he’s telling me is fucked up. But there’s none.
He tightens his grip on the back of my neck and rests his forehead against mine.
“Then it worked. I took care of you. I’ve always been taking care of you. Even when you haven’t seen it.”
