Page 37 of Pretend it’s Forever

I brushed my finger along her collarbone, loving the way her skin pebbled. “I won’t hurt your children, Sophia.” That was a promise I intended to keep no matter what. I did not hurt children. I did not hurt women. I took what I wanted, but I didn’t leave sheer destruction in my wake. I was not my father. Nor was I the men that I had grown up with.

I might not be a good person, but I strove to be a better person than they had ever tried to become.

“Someone promised me that before—” She put her hand over her mouth, as if she had just realized what she had said.

I set the bags down and glared. “Did he touch them? I will kill him.” She put her hands over my chest, went to her tiptoes so she could kiss my jaw. I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers. The softness settled something deep within me, and I had to struggle in order to just breathe at that moment.

“No. He never hurt them. But I thought maybe he would. He...he wasn’t always cruel to me. He didn’t hurt me like that. Yes, he ended up being a terrible person that went too far, and deserves far more than what he got, but he never touched my children. If he had ever laid a hand on them, I would’ve walked away. If he’d done anything close to what he’d done to me in that moment? I would’ve walked away. I was already planning on it. I promised. I wasn’t staying forever.” She continued to try to explain herself, and it broke me to hear her try. Because in that moment, she wasn’t blaming Cale for the cruelty he relished in. No, she blamed herself for what pain he inflicted because apparently, she hadn’t seen the darkness within. Well, screw that. That wasn’t on her.

“Sophia. Breathe. Do not blame yourself. Please. You can yell at me, push at me, but you don’t get to blame yourself for what that man did. He’s just lucky he’s alive.”

“Please don’t threaten to kill him in front of the girls. He’s still their father.”

“Not if he’s dead,” I growled.

“Carson. I’m doing all that’s within me to ensure that he never sees them again, and yet, they still have questions about him. And I don’t have answers. So please, don’t make this any harder than it is.”

I stood there for a moment, took a deep breath, and nodded. Then I pressed my lips to hers, the need growing within me. “Fine. We’ll eat. I want to try this veggie lasagna of yours.”

“And yet you still brought food?”

“I want to feed you.”

“Why is that?”

I didn’t know why, and that bothered me, so I spoke the truth even though it wasn’t fully fleshed out. “You take care of others, but not yourself. So let me.”

Something passed over her face, but she didn’t elaborate. Instead, she reached for the bags. I took them before she could and then slid my hand over hers.

“Take me inside, Sophia,” I whispered, knowing that even the words such as they were, might be too much. But instead, she looked me dead in the eye, nodded, and led me into her home, putting on the bravest face I’d ever seen.

This woman...

There were no words for this woman.

I should walk away.

And that’s why I wouldn’t.

“Mr. Carson. Do you like spetti?”

I looked down at Violet and grinned. “Spaghetti?” I asked, trying to decipher her words.

“Yes, spaghetti,” Sophia teased from the other side of the table. Somehow, I had found myself sitting at the dinner table with Sophia and her girls, as if this was an everyday occurrence. Again, I didn’t know why I was there, nor did I think Sophia knew. But here we were, figuring things out. Possibly.

All I knew was that I needed to be here. I needed to find out what this feeling was. I needed to get my hands on her.

Yet another part of me knew I needed to keep her safe.

It wasn’t my job—it never had been, but now I was making it my job. I knew that would bite me in the ass later, but in this moment, I didn’t care.

I cleared my throat and tried to remember how to speak to children—something I wasn’t great at. I didn’t know much about how children interacted with others, but I did recall that Hazel and Violet liked when I spoke to them like they were people rather than the figments of fear and illusion that most children felt like to me. “I do like spaghetti. All forms of pasta. Even vegetable pasta,” I teased, and Sophia rolled her eyes playfully.

Vegetable lasagna had ended up being a meatless lasagna for sure, instead of regular noodles, they were using zucchini noodles. It wasn’t my favorite thing in the world, but the meal itself was pretty damn good.

“I love pasta,” Hazel said sweetly, grinning at me.

“Pasta hurts my tummy,” Violet said simply, but she dug into her small plate.