He kept quiet, so I stroked my palm up and down his back the way he’d done, and he stopped tearing his hand through his hair.

“I’ll do my best to talk.” He sighed. “If that’s what you want. For you, I’ll try.” He kept his voice flat that time, as if he was working hard for it to come across as emotionless. He turned around, forcing me to abandon my soothing efforts. “But don’t press me about the skeletons in my closet. Not yet. Please.” He swallowed, pinning me with a hard look. “Anything but that.”

Skeletons? I assumed he meant that metaphorically and not literally. But what if he was talking about actual bodies? How was I supposed to ask his favorite color when I had only one question coming to mind? Before I could lock the thought down in my brain, I blurted out, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

17. Juliette

Chapter 17

Juliette

Yup, I went there. All the way there to the place he asked me not to go. Made myself right at home as I stood there telling myself I could handle any answer. Eclipse and envelop any of his dark past with light as bright as the sun.

But then he dropped a hard, “Yes,” on me, and my plan went to shit.

I stumbled back, becoming feverish from shock and worry.

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he stared at me, waiting for me to spiral. Or maybe to run. To take our son and leave him as he feared I’d do.

Power over you. Dangerous. But you’ve killed people, and I’m just . . .

“Why? How? Tell me,” I sputtered, drawing my hand into a fist over my heart as if that’d somehow disrupt the pain developing beneath my rib cage.

“You don’t want to do this now,” he grated out.

“No,” I shot back, “that’d be you who doesn’t want to do this.” I swallowed. “I very much want to do this.” I needed him to dress those skeletons up in something that made sense, so I didn’t succumb to the panic attack knocking on my door. Because like hell was his “yes” about his time in the military.

“You’re right, I don’t. I’ve made myself emphatically clear on that,” he bit back.

But then his strong stance weakened, and he lifted his hands from his pockets, settling them on the counter. His biceps became steel as he pushed against the counter as if he could fuse his palms with the marble, searching for a strong anchor against the storm of what he was about to reveal.

“A year and a half after we met in Aruba, my sister was murdered, and my younger sister, only eighteen at the time, found her body.”