Midnight Sins (60 page)

Catching her around the waist, he was only

distantly aware of Logan and Crowe rushing back into

the house from the front porch. Coming to a stop in

the hall, they watched, surprised, not prepared as a

desperate cry of agony tore from her and her arm

swung with all the force in her small, delicate body.

Rafe caught her fist a bare inch from his face,

staring back at her in surprise, in anger. She dared to

try to strike him, even in her pain, in her rage against

fate, when she hadn’t told him that together they had

created a life? That she had lost that baby and

suffered that loss alone and had never given him the

chance to share it with her?

“You never told me,” he snarled down at her. “You

were pregnant and you never told me? Why?” As he

gripped her upper arms it was all he could do not to

shake her, to demand, to rage along with her for the

tiny unborn life he had never had the chance to know

about.

The tears fell now. Staring back at him, her eyes

were nearly black with the emotions, the secrets she

had kept for far too long, and the tears he wondered if

she had ever shed.

Jaymi had remarked several times that Cami

held too much inside, even as a child. That Jaymi

never knew what her sister was thinking or what Cami

was doing until it was already done.

“Dad said I deserved it,” she whispered as those

tears fell from her eyes, her lips trembling violently as

she stared up at Rafe beseechingly. “Mom said it was

for the best. That I wouldn’t want my child to suffer as

you and your cousins did.” Her fingers clutched at his

arms now with the same desperation that her fist had

aimed for his face with. “It wasn’t for the best, Rafe. I

wouldn’t have let my baby suffer. I would never, ever

let anyone be cruel to my child.” Hoarse, rough with

the tears that fell but the sobs she held back, her

voice grated with pain and tore a hole in his soul.

“Cami. I would have been here.” How had it

happened? He had used a condom. He remembered

using a condom. Had it broken? Had he only thought

he had rolled the latex over the violently hard flesh that

was so eager to sink inside her?

She shook her head as though she had read his

thoughts. “It was my fault.” She swallowed tightly. “You

had drunk so much that night. After I fell asleep you

woke me. You asked if it was okay. You asked if you

could have me bare.” Her breathing hitched, those

sobs fighting to be free. “I told you it was,” her voice

lowered. “I told you it was, and I knew it could happen.

I knew, and I wanted—”

She gave a hard shake of her head, lowering it

and fighting to be free again.

“You wanted my baby?” he asked, baffled, as she

struggled to escape. “No, Cami.” A small shake was

acceptable, he told himself. Just enough to get her

attention. Just enough to make her look up at him,

those tears still falling, her lips trembling with such

vulnerable pain it was destroying him. “You wanted my

baby?”

Every woman he had ever been with in Corbin

County had been damned vigilant about condoms

and birth control. Not that he had been any less so. He

had been determined no child of his would be raised

away from his protection, and he knew no woman in

that county would want to claim him as the father.

Except Cami.

“I wanted our baby,” she whispered. “I wanted a

part of you to hold forever, because you were always

leaving, Rafe. You couldn’t stay and I wanted to hold

on to you forever because leaving before you awoke,

so I wouldn’t have to watch you leave, nearly killed

me.”

She couldn’t let the sobs free. She hadn’t allowed

herself to cry, to release the rage and pain building

inside her, because she feared the price.

If she shattered, she might not know how to put

herself back together again.

“Let me go.” If he kept holding her, kept staring at

her with that naked hunger, then she might not survive

it. “Don’t tear at me anymore, Rafe, please. Please

don’t ask any more from me. Please God, don’t ask

me for more.”

Let her go? It wasn’t happening and now wasn’t

the time to tell her that was something he would never

do. What she definitely didn’t know was that he had

never let her go.

“I won’t leave you alone.” He had to force himself

to speak past the lump in his throat.

As he stared down at her he was only barely

aware of the doorbell ringing.

The door opened before Logan or Crowe could

reach it and check for danger. Cami wished they had

made it.

The danger wasn’t physical, it was so much more

dangerous than that.

Stepping into the small den her father had once

used, Cami could feel her insides tightening in

trepidation as she faced her father.

She really looked nothing like him.

She remembered so many times, staring at him

and wondering how she had acquired traits and a

sense of decency that she knew he didn’t have.

“Is Mother doing well?” she asked as he moved

naturally to the large desk she had taken as her own.

He sat down in the large padded chair

comfortably and stared back at her.

Cami knew this wasn’t going to go well.

It never had whenever she had faced him across

the table in the past.

His lips were curled into a sneer, his brown eyes

filled with disgust.

I see the rumors are true,” he mocked her, his

tone low. “You’ve not only insisted in fucking the

murderers but you have them living with you.” His

gaze flicked over her. “Are you fucking all of them?”

“Is it any of your business?” she asked him.

His lip curled tighter. “You’ve managed to get my

Jaymi killed and now you’ve also turned my brother

against me.”

“I had nothing to do with Jaymi’s murder.” She

was already too raw, too shredded inside to take the

blame for it.

He leaned forward against the desk. “She died

for you,” he accused her. “To collect medicine you

begged her for.” He raked her with a look filled with

bitter hatred. “You could have waited until the next

morning.”

She couldn’t deal with this.

She was savaged from the secrets she had

revealed to Rafe, the memories raking her soul as the

hatred in his gaze seemed to increase. “You lost your

child, Cami, and I thought it only fitting punishment.”

Vicious, cruel, the sound of the satisfaction in his

tone shocked her.

“Why?” she whispered painfully, shocked. “Why

would you say something like that to me?”

“Because you deserved it.” He rose from the

chair then, glaring back at her. “You took Jaymi from

the parents who loved her, and you thought your

presence would help with that loss?”

“I thought you had a spark of decency was what I

believed,” she whispered painfully. “I learned you

didn’t a long time ago, though. And it was no more

than the truth.”

The cold hard smile he directed her way should

have hurt her. It should have at least hurt for the simple

fact that he was her father.

“Why should I?” he asked, his voice dropping

further to ensure Rafe didn’t hear them, she

suspected. “You weren’t my child, Cami. You’re

nothing to me. So why should I care?”

It didn’t hurt, that was the first thing she noticed.

The bitterness was there. The pain was there, but

Cami found herself unable to care about that either.

She stared back at him, wondering though if

Jami had known …

“That’s enough.”

Cami swung around as Rafe pushed the door

opened and stepped inside.

He stood tall, broad, strong.

And Cami could feel the emotions tearing free

inside her then.

“Bastard,” Mark Flannigan growled insultingly.

“You have no say here.”

“No, I do.” Cami swung around then and this time,

she let her gaze rake over him in satisfaction. “You

haven’t hurt me, Mark. You didn’t even surprise me.

You have no idea how proud I am that you are no

father of mine.”

His brows lowered furiously as his hands fisted at

his side.

“It’s time you left,” she told him. “Leave now, and

don’t bother coming back. Because you’re not wanted

any more than you ever wanted me.”

CHAPTER 19

Cami stalked into the bedroom.

She’d intended to retreat to her room alone. To

hide, lick her wounds, and find a way to repair the

shattering of her defenses.

Rafe wasn’t allowing her to rebuild anything,

though. He was behind her, surrounding her as the

door closed behind him, and she felt him watching her

silently.

“Could I please have some privacy?” she asked,

aware of the belligerence in her tone as she turned

back to him, her insides shaking with the emotions

flooding her.

“So you can turn into that pretty little robot you

were before you broke down and told me about our

child?” He arched his brows in surprise that she would

ask. “I doubt it, kitten. But you can try to convince me if

you want.”

Try to convince him?

“And how am I supposed to do that?” Then his

words sank in, and she felt her expression tighten in

anger. “I was never a robot.”

Rafe could feel himself breaking apart inside.

Chunks of his soul being shredded as he stared in her

eyes and saw the pain, the depth of it, and the years

she had all but carried it alone.

“Do you know what amazes me, Cami?” His

voice softened.

“What?” She was breathing roughly, her breasts

rising hard and fast as she glared back at him.

“That you wanted my baby.”

Her eyes darkened.

She’d just learned the man she had called Father

all her life hadn’t been. That he thought, at fifteen, she

should have suffered her sister’s fate, and that his

hatred for her, that she hadn’t, went soul-deep, and

that hadn’t seemed to faze her.

What had fazed her was revealing to Rafe that

she had lost their child.

“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

She shook her head.

“Cami, answer me.” Moving to her, he gripped

her chin gently, aware of the bruising of her flesh, and

turned her gaze to him. “Why?”

Her lips trembled. “You were safe. If I had told

you, you would have come back here. They might

have tried to hurt you again.”

Nothing could have shocked him more.