Unforgivable

front. He wasn’t expecting what I wanted tonight and at first he refused vehemently, but eventually he gave way to the new experience. He just kept repeating he didn’t deserve me, and I kept showing him he did.

Chapter Thirty

Thursday night we pulled into Colorado Springs after a long day in the car. I paid for a year’s lease for my house and I still had the key. I told Micah that we might as well stay there tonight and we would go see Ryan on Friday. What I hadn’t expected was the reaction we both had when we walked through the living room to get to the bedroom; both of us pausing beside the couch and then looking at each other. The memory of the attack was so vivid for me that I could hear the sound of his hand slapping my face, I felt the painful bites, his grip on my throat, and the sound of his voice when he told Ryan it was ‘his turn.’ I shuddered without thought as Micah wrapped his arms around me.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” he whispered against my hair. “We could go to a motel tonight.”

“No. It’s just hard for me. I hate what happened here,” my hand motioning to the place on the floor where he eventually took me, “but, I love what happened here,” I said, placing his hand on my stomach. “Come on.” I pulled him toward the bedroom. We didn’t make love, but I fell asleep to the repeated sound of him whispering words of love in my ear.

I called Ryan mid-morning and told him I was in town and on the way over. I was surprised that Micah was anxious to see him, yet I could tell he was worried.

Ryan must have heard my sports car’s engine, because he was out the front door as we pulled in. I told Micah to stay in the car until I had a chance to calm him down, because I knew he would be upset. I saw him duck down to look at the driver, but my windows were darkly tinted so he didn’t get the first glimpse until I opened my car door.

What came out of his mouth didn’t bear repeating in any way, shape, or form.

He was ready to go after Micah right then. I was trying to stop him as he grabbed me to move me out of the way. That was when I heard Micah’s door open. All I kept thinking was I wasn’t ready for him to get out of the car.

“Please, Ryan.”

“Don’t touch her,” came Micah’s warning.

“Get in the car, Micah,” I commanded, still holding on to Ryan and blocking his path. “Please, Ryan, calm down. I want you to meet someone-someone else.”

That stopped him. He was looking at me like I’d lost my mind as I took his hand and placed it against my soft flowing top. He jerked back like I’d shocked him.

“Ah, don’t tell me-he got you-he got you pregnant when he raped you?”

“I have a whole lot to tell you, but I’ve got to know if you’ll listen to me-please, Ryan. I’m going to have Micah leave for a little while so we can talk.” He was still staring with angry eyes at Micah when I turned his chin toward me, “Tell me now if I should leave or if you’ll at least hear what I have to say.”

“Don’t go,” he choked out, “Please, don’t go. I’ll listen.”

“Go back inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Reluctantly he turned and did as I asked. Now I had to get Micah to do the same.

“Go for a drive. I’ll call you when he’s ready to talk with you.” The other reluctant party drove away.

I didn’t think it would take quite so long to settle Ryan down, but he eventually began to understand why I was with the one person he felt I should hate instead of love. I explained about D’Angelo and the drugs, how horrible Micah felt about what he’d done, and what he’d learned by Ryan’s photos.

“He was so hopped up on anabolic steroids and amphetamines that he barely remembered any of it. I knew I was pregnant several days before I left and I was planning to get away for a while and let you get on with your life, but then a package arrived.”

“What kind of package?”

“It was an iPod with a note that appeared to be from Micah. I thought he was coming after me after what I read and what I heard.”

“What was on it?”

“‘Breath’ by Breaking Benjamin,” I said, watching Ryan’s face as he mentally reviewed the words in his head. It was a band he liked and I knew he would remember the song. I saw the anger flush his skin as he understood why I ran. “He didn’t send it to me-D’Angelo did to make it look like it was from Micah. He was trying to make sure I took off and the two of us never got back together-it almost worked. I nearly shot Micah when he showed up a few days ago.”

His eyebrows went up, “You pulled a gun on him?”

“I wasn’t going to take a chance of him hurting the baby. We eventually talked and I realized he never wanted to kill me-he was still in love with me.”

“But why after all this time of keeping everything secret did you finally tell him the truth about why you left?”

I wasn’t ready to blow all the progress he and I made by telling him Micah drugged me. I sighed deeply, “Can you, at least for now, just trust me that there were reasons beyond my control and the truth finally came out- please, I beg you; don’t push it. Just trust me.”

“You should know I trust you, baby girl-I may not trust him for a very long time, but I trust you.”

“He wants to talk with you. Can you do that for me without an incident?”

He nodded; I called Micah and told him to return. Candace was due to come home and she actually made it before Micah. When she learned who brought me over, she flipped out worse than Ryan.

I met Micah at the car and told him to stay there for a few minutes.

“I actually wanted to speak to Ryan privately. Just ask him to come out and we’ll go for a drive and you can talk with her.”

I was trying to read the expression on Micah’s face; something was wrong. I was starting to think the whole idea of stopping in Colorado Springs wasn’t such a good thing. “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked before going back inside to get Ryan. He gave a weak smile and said yes.

Candace didn’t want Ryan going anywhere with Micah, but he finally put his foot down and told her to listen to what I had to say and he’d be back in a little while. She watched him from the window as he opened the passenger’s door, getting her first peek at Micah. When the door closed and my car literally sped away, she broke down crying.

“If he hurts him,” she warned, “I’m gonna kill your husband, ex-husband, or whatever he is!”

“He won’t hurt Ryan, I promise you. Please sit down and let me explain.”

We talked for a long time and the longer we talked the deeper the conversation went. By the time we’d finished, I was all the way back to when I was hiding out in Pensacola and met Micah for the first time. Then I talked about meeting Ryan for the first time. The conversation went from the end to the beginning and then she wanted to go back through it from beginning to end. Man, that girl was thick headed.

“I just want to know what’s taking them so long,” she said, biting her nails and glancing constantly to the street.

“When they do return are you going to be able to handle me introducing you to Micah?”

“Yeah, yeah. I kind of want to meet him now, but I just find this whole mafia thing really creepy and I don’t know if I’d ever completely trust someone who kills people for a living. I understand what you’re saying about him being raised that way, but actually different on the inside, but I don’t know,” she said with a nervous flutter of her hands, “it’s still creepy.”

I had always seen Candace as being a very strong-willed, an almost rock-steady type of person, but when it came to Micah, she was a bundle of nerves. I think deep down she was worried because she knew Ryan had beaten the crap out of Micah and she figured he would be the kind of guy to retaliate in some way.

We both breathed a sigh of relief when my Aero pulled in close to 6 p.m. They had been gone nearly five hours. My cell phone rang and it was Ryan’s number. He wanted to know if she was calm enough to bring Micah