Forever We Fall: Broken #4 (The Broken Series) by Chloe Walsh Read Free Book Online Page A

huh?" Big shock? God, I was so fucking stupid. "Some hell of a twenty-four hours we've had…" Much better, asshole…
    "You were right about her," Lee said, her wide gray eyes locked on mine. Beating a pillow between her small hands, Lee blew a curl out of her eyes and worried her bottom lip. "She's so lonely and frightened, Kyle. I feel bad for her. Life's been so hard on her."
    "It hasn't exactly been a bed of roses for you either, baby," I said carefully. Lee had made huge progress and I sure as hell wasn't going to knock her back by saying I told you so about her mom. "But yeah, it couldn't have been easy to make the decisions your mom had to make," I added, hoping I was being tactful.
    "Do you think I'm a bad person, Kyle?" she asked me, her voice wobbling. Clutching the pillow to her chest, she added, "Because I sure as hell do." Shaking her head, she exhaled a ragged breath. "After all she's been through and all she's suffered…I'm still bitter." The uncertainty in her eyes crippled me. "What the hell does that make me?" she whispered. "To know how badly she suffered, to hear her pain and remorse, and still not be able to let go?"
    "Human," I said softly. "It makes you human, Lee."
    "It makes me cruel," she countered, her voice pained and full of self-loathing. "It makes me like him."
    "You are nothing like that bastard," I snarled, taking a step towards her. "And as for feeling bitter? I doubt there's a person on this earth who would feel any different."
    "Is she still here?" she asked nervously.
    "She's in the kitchen," I told her. "I'll take her to Thirteenth Street soon. I just wanted to check in…see if you were okay with all of this."
    "No…I mean, yeah, it's okay by me if she stays there," she mumbled before adding, "thank you, Kyle."
    I blinked. "Thank me for what?"
    Blinking back the tears that were filling her eyes, she whispered, "You saved me from following in her footsteps. I could have ended up in her shoes." Her brows furrowed. "I...I'll never be able to thank you enough or repay you."
    "What the hell are you talking about?" Shaking my head in frustration, I folded my arms over my chest and gaped at her. "Repay me? Lee, I don't have a score sheet in my ass pocket, marking down what we owe each other and neither should you."
    "You heard what Tracy said," Lee argued, ducking her face. "She was the same age when she met my father as I was when I met you…" Her voice trailed off as she hugged the pillow with a death grip. "Her story is painfully similar to mine. The abuse, the miscarriage, the fear…there's only one difference." Stroking the engagement ring on her finger, she looked up at me. "You, Kyle," she whispered. "You are the disparity in our stories – the difference. Imagine if I'd never met you? If I'd stayed in Montgomery instead of getting on that bus?" She groaned as if in physical pain. "You quite literally saved my life when you got me pregnant and made me stay with you. I would be dead if I had gone back to him. How I ever thought he'd change is beyond me," she hissed. "I would have been walking myself –walking Hope – into a grave if I'd left you."
    "Let's get two things straight right now, princess," I growled, forcing the image of Lee in that shitty run-down house with that child-abuser from my mind. "One, I was never letting you leave me." Tipping her chin up with my fingers, I wiped the tears from her cheeks. "And two, if you hadn't come here, where do you think I'd be right now?"
    "Kyle…"
    "Lost," I continued, ignoring her pleas and look of embarrassment. Fuck it, she needed to hear this. "I would be the same asshole sleeping around, looking for something I didn't know existed, because if I hadn't met you then it wouldn't have."
    "Kyle," she whispered. "I'm trying to make you understand how much you've changed my life, saved my life…"
    "So am I," I shot back angrily, feeling pissed the hell off that she wasn't hearing me. "Jesus Christ, Lee, you healed shit I didn't even