Page 10 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Eli makes a broken sound. “I’m sorry.”

I close my eyes for half a second, but I don’t say it’s fine—it wasn’t fine and it still isn’t. Months of him looking through me, around me, past me. Months of watching him bend himself into knots for a girl who treated him like a trophy she could punish for not shining right. Months of His hands on me because I needed somewhere to put everything Eli didn’t want.

“It hurt,” I say when I open my eyes. “But this isn’t the minute where I make you bleed for it. You’re already bleeding enough.”

I drop his hands then, and I feel them inching toward my waist, but then he stops. It’s almost like he’s asking without words if he still has any right, so I meet him halfway because I’m weak when it comes to him. Always have been, always will be.

The second my arms go around him, he breaks again.

This time, the sobs aren’t silent. They’re muffled against my shoulder, harsh and young and full of everything he hasn’t let himself feel. I hold him with one arm around his back and the other hand cradling the back of his head, my fingers buried in his hair.

He clings to me so tightly that pain flashes through my ribs, and I bite the inside of my cheek until it fades.

He doesn’t need my pain right now; he needs my spine.

“You’re not calling your parents tonight,” I murmur into his hair, then I ease him back enough to look at him, my hands staying on his shoulders. “Listen to me. Whatever happened with Celeste, whatever the DNA test will say, that baby is safe right now; you are safe right now. That’s where we start.”

His eyes search mine, looking for a crack in the promise. I give him none.

“I’m s-so fucking scared, Jules,” he says, and lets out a big exhale, then he adds in a whisper, “I missed you.”

The words go straight through me.

I turn my face slightly, my mouth near his hair, and let myself say the truth because the night is already full of impossible things. “I never went anywhere. You just stopped looking.”

He flinches again, but he doesn’t pull away. Then he nods once, accepting the hit because he knows he earned it. The baby fusses louder this time, and I take the mercy when it comes.

“Okay,” I say, clearing the thickness from my throat. “We check her first—she could be wet or hungry. Then we deal with the doctor that Killian will probably bribe after. Lawyers after that, and parents much fucking later.”

Eli nods, wiping his face again, and when he reaches for his daughter, his hands still shake, but he doesn’t back down. She settles against him, her cries fading into soft, hungry grunts.

“There,” I say. “See? She knows.”

Eli looks up at me. “Knows what?” he asks.

I swallow the ache in my throat and let my hand rest briefly on the back of his neck.

“That you’re hers.”

4

Eli

I wake up to a sound that doesn’t belong in my room.

For one confused second, I think I’m dreaming. My brain is still thick with sleep, limbs heavy, mouth dry. The dark shape of my ceiling is unfamiliar in that strange way it always gets when you fall asleep with too much on your mind and wake up disoriented.

Then the sound becomes louder—sharp, thin, and furious—every part of me jolts with such a force that I nearly launch myself straight out of bed.

The baby.

My daughter.

The memory slams back in so fast it steals my breath. I twist toward the side of my bed, and there she is, this tiny, red-faced person in a white sleeper with yellow ducks on it, fists punching the air, mouth open in pure outrage. The sound coming out of her is way too loud for someone that tiny.

Last night, Killian had three different people ordering same-day delivery while Damien read instructions out loud. Somehow a bassinet, diapers, wipes, bottles, formula, and enough baby supplies to stock a small daycare ended up in my room.

“Oh shit,” I whisper, throwing the covers off. “Shit. Okay. Hi. Hi, baby. Fuck. No, not fuck. Sorry. I mean—shit.”