Page 52 of Holden’s Resurrection

This time, hearing him say it was downright devastating. On top of everything, he knew about what Paul was doing, which was salt in the wound. It finally hit me, how little he’d trusted me.

“No, Charlotte, I can’t give you what you want.”

Calling me Charlotte was a low blow. No one but my parents called me by my full name. And he knew how much I hated it.

“There you go, Holden, doing what you do best—putting distance between us. Run. You’re so good at switching off your feelings you should teach a class. You’re a master at masking your emotions and making the people around you feel so unimportant and immaterial that I doubt you even realize you do it.”

“What do you want me to say? I left you because I wanted you to have—”

“Fuck. You. You left because you didn’t trust me enough to talk to me about something big in your life. You left me because you didn’t want to admit to me there was something medically wrong with you. You left me because you didn’t trust that I would love you in any way I could have you. Don’t push your insecurities onto me and make this about me. We could’ve adopted. We could’ve gone to a fertility doctor and had a family. Or guess what, we could’ve just lived our lives together and had wild adventures, just the two of us. But you didn’t give me the option. You stole that from me. You took yourself away from me, and for the last eight years, I’ve lived in hell wondering why. And now that I know, I wish I didn’t. I wish I could go back to wondering why you didn’t love me enough to fight for us.”

My hands came up to cover my face and my fingertips dug into my throbbing forehead.

“You still won’t fight,” I mumbled from behind my palms.

“What was that?”

I dropped my hands and looked Holden dead in the eyes.

“You still won’t fight for us. I waited for you. Every day, I waited and prayed you’d come back and tell me so we could be together. Eight years I waited.”

“I’m here, Leigh-Leigh, standing in front of you telling you I never stopped loving you.”

“So?”

Holden’s eyes widened before they hardened. “So?”

“Yeah, Holden, so what you never stopped loving me, what does that matter? Nothing has changed. You still can’t have kids.” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Just because you’re admitting it doesn’t mean shit. How long before you leave me again? Only this time, I have Faith to consider. You’re still not willing to fight for us.”

“I sure as fuck am,” he growled.

Please, he could save his caveman grunting for someone who gave a shit.

“Bullshit. I just watched you shut down. You’re ready to give up and walk away because I pointed out you still can’t have kids. That’s not fighting, Holden, that’s being a—”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence because Holden was in my space, walking me backward until my butt hit the counter. Then his hands went around my waist and he lifted me off my feet and plopped me down on the granite surface. Holden wasted no time spreading my legs and stepping between my thighs.

This was something I’d forgotten about him, how unbelievably annoying it was that when we were arguing about something he wanted to be in my space. Not in a threatening manner. In a way where all there was to focus on was my face.

“That’s me wanting you to have your heart’s desire. I’ll give it to you, I was selfish. I did leave you because I was insecure. But I didn’t want you to have to go through the possible heartbreak of adoption. I didn’t want you to get a baby and have it taken away from you. I didn’t want you to have to go through doctors’ appointments and disappointments.”

“Liar. You didn’t want to go through the possible disappointments. You didn’t want to take the chance of us getting a baby and having it taken back. Don’t blame me.”

Holden’s body went statue-still before it started to vibrate. His face contorted and I jolted when the scariest, nastiest, most chilling sound rumbled from his chest and out of his throat. The noise didn’t sound human, he wasn’t forming words, it was animalistic and painful to hear. But that wasn’t what tore my heart in half. It was the big, fat tears that leaked from the corner of his eyes. I sat frozen in horror as they rolled down his face in rivers.

“Honey,” I whispered and lifted my hands, but before I could reach his face to wipe away the tears, he caught my hands, trapping them between us.

“I couldn’t do it.” He licked his lips and waited for my gaze to lift before he continued. “I couldn’t do it, Leigh-Leigh. I wanted a family with you so badly I knew I would break if we’d adopted and the birth mother changed her mind and took our baby from us. I read so many books on adoption and that’s the first thing the experts warn about. It’s a possibility. I couldn’t see you with our child then have it taken away from us. I wanted Faith. I didn’t care she was Paul’s. I wanted to lie and pretend she was mine. But I knew if Paul asked for a DNA test she’d be taken from me. But the God’s honest truth is, I would give anything if she was ours. I want her to be ours so fucking badly.” Holden’s voice hitched and I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I’m gonna fight for us, baby, but Faith’s it. There’ll be no more kids. That part hasn’t changed.”

I had waited so long to hear him tell me he was going to fight that my first instinct was to give in and tell him all was forgiven. Only I couldn’t.

“What’s changed?”

“Faith.”

“What?” I tried to pull back but Holden dropped his forehead to mine.

A sure sign I wasn’t going to like what he had to say because he didn’t want to look me in the eyes while he said it.