Baby Bitch (Bitches and Queens) Read Online Free PDF Page B

She spotted Willow anxiously pacing
outside her bedroom and waved her away. Willow was fully equipped to handle a
wide range of emotional reactions but hysterics had never been her forte.
    “Your mom and I were desperate to have a
baby. In fact, I don’t think there have ever been two babies who were wanted
more than you and Kenyon.”
    “Sam didn’t want me. He said so,” McKenna
declared.
    “That isn’t what he meant. You know his
words get jumbled when he is upset,” Hannah denied. “But I couldn’t just let
any sperm go into your mom. I wanted it to come from someone I knew, someone I
trusted, someone I loved very much. I wanted to be as much as part of you as
possible, and that couldn’t happen from some random stranger. The day we
discovered she was pregnant with you and Kenyon was the happiest day of my life—until
the day you were born.”
    “You still should have told me before
now,” McKenna cried.
    “We were. That was the plan. We were
going to be open and very modern about everything, but…”
    “But what?” McKenna demanded.
    “But I stopped it,” Hannah admitted
quietly.
    “Why? Why would you do this to me?”
    “It was never because of you—it was
because of Sam. He fell head over heels in love with you the moment he saw you.
How could he not? You look just like him. You talk just like him. You two have
identical mannerisms. The two of you are so connected that you can finish each
other’s sentences. By the time you and Kenyon were old enough to start asking
questions, Abby had been born. And…” Hannah paused as she thought of a way to
properly vocalize the impressions that she had kept to herself. “…I realize
that in your eyes Sam can do no wrong…”
    “Sam is a lying asshole,” McKenna
declared.
    “All right, well, I do realize you feel
that way now, but that is a relatively new emotion. The thing about Sam is that
fatherhood has always been a struggle for him. It doesn’t come naturally. I
knew he would never able to acknowledge the role as father-in-name-only,
especially for you. So, I thought it was best he didn’t acknowledge it all.
Think of it as a beehive.”
    “Oh God, Mommy,” McKenna groaned. “Are
you going to take up beekeeping?”
    “No,” Hannah said flatly. “I’m not, but I
do know that there can only be one queen in a hive. If there are two queens,
they will spend all their time trying to destroy each other. I realize you and
Sam wouldn’t have been that extreme, but the two of you are so like-minded you
would have fought incessantly. I wasn’t purposefully deceiving you—I was trying
to preserve your relationship with Sam.”
    McKenna didn’t care. She didn’t care
about Sam. She didn’t care about Hannah. The two people she trusted and admired
more than anyone else in the whole world had been lying to her since the day
she was born. She didn’t care about anything except hurting them both the way
they had hurt her.
    The piercing screams had quieted down to
a few muffled whispers. Sam couldn’t hear what Hannah was saying but whatever
it was seemed to calm McKenna down. He reasoned that must be progress of sorts,
but he didn’t feel any relief. In frustration, he ran his fingers through his
hair. What on God’s earth had possessed Kenyon to tell her? Oh fuck! Kenyon
is McKenna’s twin. It wasn’t as if he had forgotten that fact—all right, maybe
for a second there he had, but the twins were as different as night and day. So,
if Kenyon knew he was McKenna’s biological father then he knew…
    Sam walked over and sat down on the sofa
beside him. “You know, Kenyon, if there is ever anything you want to discuss,
I’m here for you.”
    Kenyon paused his game and looked up
thoughtfully. “Thanks Sam. I appreciate that. Good talk,” he said and ended
with a fist bump.
    Inwardly, Sam rolled his eyes. That was
ten seconds of needless doubt and worry. What had he possibly been thinking?
Kenyon had emerged from the womb with the mentality