“Youlockedmein there,” I continue, because if I stop talking I’m going to fall apart completely. “So really this isyourfault. If you’d just let me stay with you instead of playing the overprotective mob boss card, I could have told you properly. Somewhere romantic that wasn’t, you know, a fucking war zone.”
“Emma.” Leo’s hands cup my face, forcing me to look at him. There are tears in his dark eyes and the wonder on his face makes my mouth dry. “I love you. You know that, right? I love you and I’m—I’m terrified. I have no idea how to be a father, but I want this. I want you and I want our baby and I?—”
His voice breaks completely and he has to stop. He presses his forehead to mine and just breathes for a second.
His heart pounds against my chest and I can feel how cold his hands are where they’re holding my face. His tears slide down his cheeks and mix with mine.
Leo Santoro iscrying. For me. For us. For the baby we made.
“I can’t believe you’re pregnant,” he whispers, and his breath is warm against my lips.
“Yeah, well.” I try to laugh but it comes out shaky. “Surprise again. Turns out we’re really bad at the whole birth control thing. Or really good at making babies. Depends how you look at it.”
His hand on my stomach presses just slightly harder and it reminds me that he’s there and we’re in this together.
Behind us, my father growls or sobs, I can’t tell.
The sound cuts through the moment Leo and I are having and the bubble of happiness. It reminds me that we’re not alone and my father is still here and watching.
I pull back from Leo slightly and he doesn’t let me go. He adjusts his grip so we’re both facing my father.
Connor Brennan looks destroyed.
There’s no other word for it. Destroyed. Devastated. Demolished.
His face is ash-gray, like someone drained all the color and life out of him and left just a shell. His shoulders are slumped forward in a way I’ve never seen—Dad stands straight and tall and commands every room he enters. But not now. Now he looks like he’s carrying a weight he can’t bear.
He looks older than I’ve ever seen him, like the last hour has aged him ten years.
And his eyes. God, hiseyes.
They’re hollow. Empty. Looking at me but not really seeing me. Or maybe seeing too much. Seeing the daughter he lost and the stranger she’s become.
“This is madness,” he says hollowly. “This whole thing is mad. You’re pregnant. With his baby.”
He gestures vaguely at Leo without looking at him. He can’t look at the man who stole his daughter and got her pregnant and destroyed his family.
“You’re telling me you want to stay with the man who kidnapped you,” my father continues, and each word sounds like it’s being dragged out of him against his will. “Who kept you here against your will. Who—who destroyed everything. You’re telling me you’re in love with him and you’re having his child. That you’re choosing him over?—”
His voice breaks, cracking right down the middle like glass shattering.
“Over me,” he finishes quietly.
And that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not Leo. Not the baby. Not even the violence or the kidnapping or the war.
It’s about me choosing Leo over my father. Choosing a different family. Choosing a different life.
Choosing to leave.
“Dad,” I start, but I don’t know what to say to make this better when there’s no way to make it better.
He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t understand. I don’t—Emma, I don’t understandanyof this. How can you look at him and see anything except the man who took you? How can you—” He stops and swallows hard. “How can you love him?”
The question is genuine. He really doesn’t understand.
And how can I explain it? How can I make him understand that somewhere between the kidnapping and now, something changed? That Leo changed. I changed. We changed each other.
I can’t. There are no words for it.
