Page 133 of Vega

I held her closer.

“I’m so fucking mad at him!”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t!” She shoved at me, then hit me with both fists against the front of my shirt. “He left me! He left me here! He didn’t tell me he was in trouble! He didn’t tell me anything!”

I let her continue to hit me and vent.

“He knew!” she hollered. “He knew something was wrong, and he still didn’t tell me! He made me think we had time!”

Her fists hit my ribs, stomach, and arms, and I took each one.

“He’s not here!” she screamed. “He’s not here for me! He’s not here for our baby! I’m carrying his child, and he’s gone! He’s gone, and I hate him for it!”

When her voice started to crack, I pulled her back into me. Her arms gave out, and she let me hold her. That was when it got hard to focus on only comforting her. Novi felt too good pressed against me, and I hated myself for noticing it while she was falling apart.

She had on a workout set with flip-flops, something she had probably thrown on before walking out the house in tears, but it still had no business looking that good on her. The little shorts hugged her hips and made her ass sit up in a way that tested every bit of self-control I had. Her soft stomach pressed against mine, and the top held her breasts up full and pretty against me.

I tried to keep my thoughts respectful, but my dick noticed what my mind was trying to ignore. She was warm, soft, and curvy. That combination did something to me I didn’t want to focus on because she was also broken. I hated seeing tears on her face. I hated hearing her cry so hard she could barely breathe. I hated that she probably felt weak when all I saw was a woman still standing after grief had tried to take her down.

I cared when I shouldn’t have. I cared while she cried over another man, while she carried another man’s baby, while I stood there knowing I was supposed to protect her, not want her.

But I did both.

“I hate him,” she whispered, crying harder. “I hate him for doing this.”

“I know.” That was all I had, because nothing I could say could fix dead. Nothing I could say could bring Kash back, make her less scared, or explain why the man she loved had left her with a baby he would never get to hold.

So, I stood on that sidewalk and held her while she cried so hard that her body shook. And when her knees started to fold, I caught her before she hit the ground.

24

NOVELLA “NOVI” HART

Once I stopped crying hard enough to breathe without embarrassing myself, Prodigy took me back to the house.

I sat in the passenger seat with my hands folded in my lap, staring at my bare knees, feeling stupid as hell. I had triggered the alarm when I left without realizing it because I was so desperate to get some air. I had ended up crying in the street, hollering about a dead man to another man who barely knew me well enough to have to listen to all of that grief.

“I’m sorry.”

Prodigy pulled into the driveway and put the car in park. “For what?”

“For acting like that.”

He looked at me with his thick, bushy, dark brows knitted together. “You mean grieving?”

My fingers twisted together. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Nobody knows how to do this.”

The car got quiet except for the soft sound of the air blowing through the vents.

“I’m mad at Kash,” I admitted. “Then I feel guilty because he’s dead, and being mad at a dead person feels wrong. Then I love him so much I can’t breathe. Then I remember he didn’t tell me he was in trouble, and I get mad all over again. I don’t know how to love him, grieve him, and be angry with him at the same time.”

Prodigy stared at the dashboard for a few seconds. “I get that more than you think. Arielle has been having me feeling like that since she left.”

I turned in my seat. “Who’s Arielle?”