24. Larkin

I walkedoff the front porch and onto the sidewalk, ready to explode at Seth for showing up without notice after weeks of completely ignoring his children and me. His expression looked just as angry as I felt, red with a vein popping on his forehead.

“Why is Jackson acting like I’m some kind of monster?” he demanded, arms gesticulating his anger.

I must have been acclimating to small town life, because I could only imagine the rumors that would start about us if Mrs. Halstead next door saw him acting this way. But I lifted my chin, unwilling to back down. Let everyone know what a piece of crap he’d been.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe because he’s barely a year old and hasn’t seen you in over a month?! Where the hell have you been, Seth?” I folded my arms across my chest to keep my angry heart from pounding right out of my ribcage.

He raked his fingers roughly through his short brown hair and paced away from me. “I’ve been trying to come to grips with the fact that we’re divorced, Larkin! The woman I married isn’t in my house anymore. Our mutual friends are asking where you’ve been, and I keep making up excuses to explain your absence. My mom’s pissed at me that I didn’t try harder to make it work after my slip up.”

“Slip up?” I asked, genuinely stunned. “Is that what you’re calling an affair that went on for God knows how long while I was on bedrest, worried I’d lose our unborn baby while caring for our other child?”

He looked down at the ground, pain in his gaze. “I don’t want to go back over the past, Larkin. I came here because I want to get you back. I want our family back.”

My mouth gaped open. “You can’t be serious. A month of silence, now this? What changed?” My mind raced through the possibilities, and then it hit me. “Oh my gosh,” I breathed, shaking my head at him. “You heard about my date with Bennett, didn’t you?”

He wouldn’t quite meet my eyes.

“You heard I was moving on with my life, and like a crab in a boiling pot of water, you wanted to bring me down with you,” I accused.

“No!” he argued, coming closer and taking my hands in his. “The reality of our situation, of what I was about to lose, hit me, and I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to repair us. Think of our children, Larkin. They don’t deserve to grow up in a broken home.”

I pulled my hands away from him, eyes stinging. How cruel could he be? “No, they don’t deserve that. But they don’t deserve to see a mom who settles for a husband who sleeps around, doesn’t make it a priority to come home at regular times, and who doesn’t give their mom a chance to have a life outside of being a wife and mother.” I shook my head, tears sliding down my cheeks. “I gave so much of my life to you. I gave up friendships, my career, my body to have children, and you hurt me in the worst way you possibly could.”

He gritted his teeth. “And what about you? You refused to touch me, to let me touch you. And even after the pregnancy, you let yourself go. You weren’t the woman I married.”

His words cut at me, dug at that insecure part of me that wondered if it had been my fault that he needed to go outside of our marriage to get what he wanted. But I lifted my chin and stared him down. I wasn’t the meek housewife I’d made myself be throughout our marriage.

I was a grown-ass woman who was already well into the process of rebuilding my life from the ground up. “Seth, you are entitled to see your children three evenings a week and take them for one weekend a month, as stated in our custody agreement. All I ask is that we plan it ahead of time so I can prepare them as to when you will or won’t show up.”

His jaw twitched. He hated this, when I took all the air out of his angry sails. He wanted to yell and fight and get me to back down so he could win.

He tried a new tactic to get me riled up. “Why am I hearing from someone, other than you, that you’re bringing strange men around my children?”

Maybe I didn’t care about Seth, but I cared about my reputation as a mother. Why were people running their mouths about me to Seth? I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead. “There have been no ‘strange men’ around our children.”

He raised his eyebrows and jerked his hairy fucking thumb over his shoulder toward the house. “Oh yeah. You’re on a date with fat-ass Bennett last night, and this morning you have Knox in the house with our kids? He was a goddamn criminal in high school. And now he’s one with a gun.”

I fought to school my expression because I didn’t know that about Knox. “Your mother herself said he’s a local hero, Seth. And if he’s so dangerous, why did you leave him alone in my house with our kids? Huh?”

He glared at me, brown eyes almost slits. “Because you wanted to waste my time talking to me.”

I shook my head at him. “You know what I think?” I stepped closer, nose to fucking nose. “I think you’re jealous. You thought when you cast me aside that you would ride off on your high horse while I lived in squalor wishing I had you back. But you want to know something? Leaving you was the best thing I ever did. It showed me that I poured so much into a relationship with a man who would never do the same. It showed our children exactly the kind of coward you are. And Knox?” I lifted my chin, knowing I could land the final blow without raising a finger. “He’s shown them, and me, what a real man looks like.”

“You’re a fucking bitch, and you’ll never be anything more than a fat waste of fucking space,” he growled.

My jaw shook at his words. He’d never dipped so low before, not even in our worst fights. I opened my mouth to reply, but before I could, I heard the door open.

I turned to see Knox shut the door behind him and stride across the sidewalk, closing the gap. He put me behind him, standing chest to chest with Seth. He was a good four inches taller, and even though Seth hit the gym, Knox had the kind of muscles that matched the deadly look in his eyes.

“What did you say to her?” He glowered down at Seth, daring him to utter those words while keeping me safely behind him.

In Knox’s cocoon, I felt safe, protected, precious.

“You clearly heard me,” Seth uttered, staring up at Knox, but I could see what little mettle he had fading quickly.

Knox said, “You have two incredible children. You had a woman who’s worth the heavens and every ounce of the earth. What you did to deserve them in the first place, I’ll never know. But you have two choices. You apologize to Larkin right fucking now, then go inside and treat your babies like they deserve. Or you walk away and don’t come back until you can.”

Seth’s jaw worked, and then he spat, a thick hot glob of saliva landing on the cragged sidewalk just inches away from Knox’s shoe.

Knox didn’t so much as flinch. He reached back for me, and I took his hand, standing in his strength. In his comfort.

And then Seth turned and stormed away, getting into his car, slamming the door, and peeling away.

My pulse echoed loudly in my ears for three long beats before Knox turned and took me into his arms. I wanted to sob, to fall apart, to give into all the insecure, painful feelings threatening to pull me under. But I had two children I needed to be strong for.

I turned to face the windows, still in the safety of his arms, knowing my babies were inside. “I need to talk to them.”

Knox pressed his lips to my head, in a gesture so comforting my eyes burned with unshed tears. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I turned and looked up at him. “Thank you,” I breathed.

I didn’t know what this meant for him, but I knew I didn’t want to let him go.