"I wasn't rich."

Chapter 18

Liam's POV

I was so tempted to hit the jackass. He hurt my Kehlani. I inched a step closer to John, and I noticed from the corner of my eye that Kehlani stepped closer to me.

I would hit him. I didn't care what Kehlani said. I knew that she wouldn't be able to not talk to me for over an hour, anyway.

I glanced into her eyes, the determination in them made me halt my movements.

She was serious.

Dead serious.

I would not risk it. Not going to risk Kehlani not talking to me. She might not have known, but I loved her and I would do anything for her.

I could see the uncertainty when I glanced into her green eyes.

Misty grey to forest green.

I took my arm out of her loose grip and stormed out of the kitchen.

He was lucky that I did nothing to him. If Kehlani wasn't there, then maybe by now he'd be on the floor with a face covered with blood.

Instead of going back to the living room, I headed straight for my room.

I hated knowing women had been beaten. No one likes it unless you're kinky or you're the one delivering the hits but for me, it caused great pain.

My mother's ex-boyfriend had abused her. We weren't able to stop him because he'd said he'd kill her if we intervened. It wasn't his first attempt to kill our mother, so we did nothing. Luckily, my father had put him behind bars for life. That's when my mum and dad fell in love again.

Woman abuse was a touchy subject for my family and so I hated to know that the girl I loved had been hit by a man. Even if she had forgiven him.

I sighed heavily and crawled into my bed. I was emotionally drained, and I didn't have it in me to get out of bed and turn the light off so I just told my Alexa to do it and I drifted off to sleep.

••••••••

Kehlani's POV

Once Liam had left the kitchen, I went out and did some shopping alone.

Yeah, I knew that I probably shouldn't have gone alone in case the person who was sending me texts and shit tried to hurt me but I didn't really care.

I just wanted to get away for a bit.

Plus, I could do with some shopping. It was Christmas in 2 weeks and Kaiden and I's birthday in 3 weeks.

And I wanted to get him a new phone. Ever since the newest iPhone came out, he's been nagging our mum to get it for him. And I may have snooped on his phone and saw that he had the iPhone 11 Pro Max in his basket on the Apple website.

I also wanted to get mum an iPhone 11, so dad and I went half-half and get it for her for Christmas. Kayleigh would not be spending Christmas with us. She was spending it with her fiancé Sonny. But my plan was to get her Balenciagas because I knew she loved them. I had no clue what to get my dad though. I didn't know him that well so I didn't really know what he liked.

He had everything he needed.

I'd probably just get him an iPad Pro.

I had been saving a lot of money over the past 3 years and Liam paid me quite a lot so I knew I'd be able to afford all this. And maybe even get more stuff for other people like my cousins but the most I'd spend on them would be £150. I had money, but I wasn't rich. I needed some money left over in case I wanted to move out in the new year.

That was always the plan for me. Move out in January. My dad and Kaiden already knew but now I had to tell mum. Kaiden would move too, but he wanted to wait until February. I knew that he genuinely liked Happy and I also knew that he wanted to ask her to move in together. He was waiting until February 14th. Valentine's Day.

I snapped out of my thoughts when I heard heavy breathing coming close to my door.

I quickly put my coat on and put my shoes on and left, breezing past Noah.

Once I got downstairs, I went out the double front doors and jogged down to the gate, and started my walk into town.