Hell, son, I even had to get her pregnant for you. Maybe this kid will have some guts.
"Oh, Kellan, he was wrong." Belle put an arm around him and looked into his eyes as if willing him to believe her. "You have to know that."
Fuck if he didn't want to wrap himself up in her warmth. But all he could allow himself was to let her touch him-and steel himself so that her comfort didn't sway him. She really didn't know the whole truth, and Kellan decided to skip over the part where he'd nearly killed his father that night. After his dad had goaded him and told him how pathetic he was, he'd finally seen red and showed the old man that he could, in fact, fight.
"That Monday, Lila filed for divorce. The ink had barely dried on the decree when she married my dad. She runs Kent and Associates to this day. Dad is still a judge, and they have a son they'll ship off to boarding school about the time he turns four. He'll be given the best of everything with the singular exception of any kind of affection because Lila isn't my mom."
When he looked back on his childhood, his mother had been his only nurturer. He'd been shipped off to the same boarding schools his half-brother would one day attend because Kents always had prestigious educations, but at least he'd been able to come home for summers and make some awesome memories with his mom.
"I feel for the kid," Belle said, an ache in her voice. "And you, Kellan. You were the wronged party. Why did you have to leave everything behind? You could have exposed the truth and ruined them."
He shook his head. "You don't understand how politics work. My father had been playing this game a long, long time. He was appointed to the bench by the president. He has power and influence. Once Lila filed for divorce and Dad put an engagement ring on her finger, it made me look weak. The party forced me to drop out of the race in favor of someone who could win. Everyone loves a winner, you know." That humiliation still stung just under his skin. "I lost everything, including my ability to make a living. No one wanted to hire me, and if I had started my own firm, I would have been utterly without clients. I was done in DC."
"So you came to Chicago?"
"Yeah." He let out a long sigh. "I didn't know where else to go. Eric and Tate had been my friends in law school until Lila decided they weren't the type of friends 'we' needed. It wasn't like I dumped them. Lila just made it harder and harder to see them. When we graduated, we drifted apart. Eventually, I let their calls go to voice mail because I wasn't sure what to say. They moved to Chicago, and I settled into DC … and life went on."
Belle eased her arms from around his body, but remained close. "You know, I've always thought you three were an odd mix, but somehow you work."
"You have no idea. At first I thought they were freaks. Then I wished I had someone like them in my life. They're weird halves of a whole, but sometimes I think I'm just hollow on the inside, so it would be better to be like them. They know who they are and what they want. They make no apologies for it."
Kell could hear the envy in his own voice.
"Eric called me after he heard what happened," Kell went on. "All those years I ignored them, but when I needed a friend, he reached out to me."
And changed his life forever. Kell might have helped their firm fiscally, but they had given him something he'd never had before: true, stable friendships.
"I can't repay their loyalty by ruining the one bond they desperately want. Belle, please don't blame them for my inability to be the man you need."
Tears shone in her eyes. "You don't think you'll ever trust another woman, do you?"
"I know my limitations. You've seen them. I'm damaged beyond any kind of repair. But I fully admit that I want you. That's probably not fair to you, but it's honest. I want to be your lover and your Dom, but you should understand my hard limits now. Do you see why a D/s relationship is all I can handle?"
"I understand why you believe that," she said carefully. "But I wasn't asking you for a ring."
"You deserve one. Hell, you deserve three. I just can't do it. If you want me to leave, I will. I can reinvent myself again. I'll go west, maybe California."
He hated the thought of moving, couldn't even imagine not seeing Belle every day. This was why he'd really put off Tate's plea to pursue her for so long. He'd been trying to delay this inevitable moment where he asked Belle to accept him strictly in her bed and she turned him down, forever changing both his relationship with her and his friends.
To his surprise, she didn't slap him across the face. "Why would you leave?"
"Because I think you'll forgive that horrible night in the suite eventually, but I don't expect you to forgive me. If leaving means you'll give them a chance, then I'll go. I owe them that."