While Sin recovered I stayed with Connor. I hadn’t been able to go back to our home. Not after everything that had happened.

It was only after Sin was discharged and we both entered the house for the first time since the end of our ordeal we could feel something had changed.

“I can’t live here anymore.” Sin announced from just inside the doorway.

I turned to face him. He had a dark look in his eyes as he looked at the home we had made together. What we had been through haunted the walls of our home.

I nodded. “Then we’ll find somewhere new.”

Somewhere where there was no reminder of what we had endured.

We found a place to rent while we looked for another place to call our own.

The next day I organized a company to pack up the old house and we sold it.

It took a couple of months before we found another home. Jordan and Slater helped us move in.

My pregnancy was moving along well, I was well into my second trimester and thankfully the morning sickness had abated. I made sure I didn’t over do things. I was determined to do everything I could to give our baby the most stress free environment, especially after the amount of strain I had been under at the start of my pregnancy.

My own fears and insecurities about being a mother and being able to protect the life that grew inside me from the violence that had had touched my life more than once grew.

Sin recovered. Physically he was fit and the doctors were impressed in how quickly he had healed, but there was something off. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was quieter, more broody. He had been through a lot but I didn’t know how to help him.

I had even approached Slater about it.

“Just give him time to deal,” he had told me.

Time did nothing and everything I tried to do didn’t helped. In fact, it got to a stage where Sin would spend more and more time on his own, distancing himself from me.

He would hole himself in his study, working all hours of the day. With each passing day I became more isolated and it began to take its toll on my heightened emotions and vulnerable state.

He would only come to bed when I was asleep and would be up before I was awake in the morning. We lived in the same house, but we were like two ships passing in the night. We hadn’t been together since before the shooting and I was beginning to wonder if my changing body had something to do with it.

My head filled with every doubt and insecurity. Sin’s behavior did nothing to dispel any of them.

“How are things going?” Connor asked, one day when he called to check in.

He was in the process of buying a house just a short drive away from ours which would mean I would be able to see him more regularly and would have additional support once the baby arrived.

My throat clogged up with emotion and I swallowed trying not to cry.

“What’s wrong?”

I exhaled deeply fighting the tears.

“Taylor.” Connor’s voice became more insistent.

“It’s just been a lot,” I managed to say huskily without bursting into tears.

“I know,” he soothed.

I looked up the ceiling feeling the moisture building up in my eyes. “I just don’t know how to fix what Mack broke.”

“What do you mean?”

My brother listened patiently while I unloaded about Sin and how his behavior had changed over the last few weeks.

“I don’t know what to do.” My hand brushed the small bump that was starting to show.

“Mmm.” There was silence. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“No.” The last thing I wanted to do was put more strain on Sin. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

I tried to brush it off like it was temporary but every day reinforced the fact that it wasn’t.

Later that afternoon Sin went with me to the doctor’s appointment.

I lay as the doctor took measurements.

“Everything is looking good,” the doctor murmured looking at the screen.

I swallowed the emotion that surfaced when I could see the baby moving on the screen. It felt like a flutter inside me. I looked to Sin who stood to the side of me with his arms crossed, his eyes fixed on the screen.

There was no emotion. Nothing.

My heart cracked.

“Do you want to know the sex of the baby?”

“Can you tell already?” I asked softly, fascinated.

The doctor smiled. “Yes, as long as the baby is lying right.”

My heart like a balloon, feeling it was going to burst at the seams. I wanted to know more than anything.

I looked to Sin. “Do you want to know?”

He gave a shrug. “Whatever you want.”

My throat burned but I refused to have an emotional meltdown in front of a third person.

I looked to the watchful doctor. “I’d like to know.”

He smiled. “It’s a boy.”

I couldn’t believe it. My eyes stung. I was going to have a son. A son who I could already see as a miniature Sin.

“Congratulations,” the doctor said before he left to give me a chance to clean up and get dressed.

Sin’s features were tight. Why was he being like that?

“What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling my heart drop.

“Nothing.”

It was like trying to break through an impenetrable door. He was here with me, but he wasn’t. I quietly got dressed, feeling a heaviness in my chest.

The ride home I agonized on whether to voice my frustration or keep it to myself.

As soon as we got through the front door Sin disappeared to his study and I stood staring down the passage trying to reign in my anger.

I felt dismissed. It hit me in the gut. I wrestled through the feeling trying to stop myself from pushing him too far.

But I couldn’t carry on like this. I simply couldn’t.

One determined step followed by another carried me to the door. I took a deep breath and released it. Fear of what my actions could cause was not enough to stop me.

I knocked.

“Yeah,” I heard him call out and I opened the door.

He sat at the desk working on his laptop. He barely looked up to me before frowning as he tapped away at the keyboard.

That was the last straw. Any controlled I had left, evaporated.

“Sin,” I said his name.

“What?” he questioned, without even lookin up this time.

“I need to talk to you,” I said, trying very carefully not to fly off the handle.

“I have stuff to do Taylor.” He was dismissive and it hurt.

I walked over to the desk and shut the laptop. I would have his attention, even if I had force it.

He glared at me. “What the hell?”

I crossed my arms. “I need to talk to you.”

“I was working Taylor.”

“You’re always working.”

He frowned and leaned back in his chair as he studied me.

“You never spend any time with me. I don’t know what to do.” I was pouring out my heart to him and there was no emotion in his handsome features. Nothing.

“I do spend time with you,” he argued back. I shook my head.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. You’re shutting me out and don’t know how to reach you.”

“I’m right here,” he replied, irritated.

I shook my head. “No, you’re not.”

“You’re very emotional.” He stood. “Maybe you should have a rest.”

His dismissiveness sparked my anger to life with renewed determination.

“Why are you trying to shut me out?”

“I’m not doing any such thing. You’re being dramatic.”

“No, I’m not. You haven’t touched me since before…” I couldn’t bring myself to mention the shooting.

He glared at me, his jaw tense.

“You’re completely healed but you haven’t so much as kissed me.”

Our eyes held.

“I know you’re going through a lot but I can’t live like this.” It was a heartfelt plea to him.

I hated that it had come out harsher than I had anticipated but what was said couldn’t not be taken back.

“I need you Sin. Now more than ever before.”

His features hard and unyielding. I was not reaching him.

“We both need you.”