Hostile Resolve - BK3 TPBS 1st Draft Complete

-19-

Not edited. I've decided to never again apologise for short chapters! I try for a minimum of 500 words depending on the damn app. After just reading three chapters of another story I realise that I actually write alot more than others! One supposed chapter was TWO DAMN PARAGRAPHS long and a page of author notes and another was a single damn sentence! So yep. never apologising again!

"You... you thought I was a whore?" she whispered.

"No!" He stood up and went to her quickly kneeling down in front of her.

"While we were together Josie I never once thought that I promise. You have to believe me." His words were desperate as he saw the anguish of her eyes and the tears that began to flow.

"Then what..." she sniffled as she raised a hand to wipe her face.

"He controlled me Josie. You're right with that. He controlled everything I did, everything I said and thought."

He gulped down the fear he felt. He could feel her pulling away from him, maybe not physically, but emotionally he could see her moving away at lightening speed.

"Before we had our first date... the school dance... he told me that if I really wanted to keep you in my life, to trust you, then I had to make sure you didn't get tempted by someone else."

"So you controlled everything I did because you couldn't trust me..." her words trailed off.

"No! I trusted you Josie. I just believed what he said... that for it to work... I..."

She pushed him away from her and he fell back on the floor as she stood up. She moved around the hand he outstretched to her and started to pace the room.

"So let me get this straight " she started "your father told you that I was a whore who needed to be controlled so you could trust me to stay faithful? Grayson your father was a fucking arsehole and you were a..." she threw her hands up in the air and turned to look at him as he sat on the floor looking at her desperately.

"Have you ever thought I was a whore?"

"What?" he whispered.

"It's an easy question Grayson. Did you ever at any point think I was a whore?"

He went rigid with shame.

"Yes."

"When?" she seethed through clenched teeth.

His breath was shuddered as he exhaled.

"When Charlie said you had a kid."

Her mouth dropped open.

"So like your father it was when you saw how much like you that he is that you believed he was yours?"

"NO!" He sprung up from the floor and walked towards her "I told you Josie that I fell in love with my... our... son the moment you mentioned his name. I saw him after that Josie. Please, I promise you. I believed you... please"

"What would it have mattered Grayson? We weren't together. Why would it have mattered if I had a child with someone else?"

She watched his face and saw the suffering he was feeling as he tried desperately to form the words he had to say.

"I..." he reached out and took her hands in his own and as he stared down at their joined fingers he tried to explain "I'm glad Nicholas is mine Josie but to have you back in my life I wouldn't have cared if he belonged to the man on the moon, I would have accepted him regardless"

He paused for a moment before continuing.

"The thought of you being with someone else.. Josie it kills me. I know I have no right but I'd like to rip the head of any man who touched you while you were missing. I want you with me Josie... no one else... just me. I fucked up badly. So fucking badly. You did nothing wrong , ever. It was all me. I believed my father. I followed through on his teachings. It was me who destroyed us."

He pulled her into his arms and buried his head in her hair as he tucked her head into the crook of his neck.

"I'm sorry Josie, so so sorry" he whispered as they quietly sobbed together.