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“All right,” she said, and there was no expression in her voice. “Thank you for the water. You can go now.”

Pain seemed to settle like an heavy, unendurable weight on my shoulders.

“Remember, you can always come to my room if you need anything. Don’t worry about waking me up. Any time. Day or night. I love you so much.”

“All right,” she said, then she turned away, taking two of Ciel’s fingers in hers and looking down at him with such love in her eyes.

I wanted so much to see love in her eyes when she looked at me, but I swallowed hard and went back to my own lonely room.

I would not give up.

CHAPTER 21

Léonie

“He’s so tiny,” Étienne said the next morning.

“Yes,” I said. “But he’s growing so fast. I love the little rolls he’s developing. Hugo has had the doctor in to check on him as much as I want, and he says Ciel is eating good and growing perfectly.”

Étienne’s shoulders seemed to slump as the evidence of how his brother had taken over all the roles a father traditionally would have done.

“You’ve done such a perfect job,” he said hoarsely. “I knew you would be an amazing mother. Oh—it looks like he’s waking up!”

As if in a dream, I handed my warm, snuggly son to my husband.

But my eyes were dry as Étienne held my precious Ciel. I thought I would have cried the first time they met, but I hadn’t. It was like a stranger holding him.

Ciel was just waking up from his nap as he settled into the crook of Étienne’s arm and I had to bite down hard on my lip to stop my scream of rage.

To see my little baby nestled in the crook of my big husband’s arm, his rough finger gently stroking his dark curls—it was everything I had dreamed about for so long.

And Étienne had ruined it. Ruined it.

His face looked transformed, the skull-like visage lit up as he looked at his son.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here before,” he rumbled as Ciel looked at him with big, wide blue eyes. “That was on me. I will be here now.”

But my heart with him was hard as a rock.

“Léonie, in the light I can see he has your eyes! That exact color of a Heartleaf flower.”

I turned away, my restless hands moving to fold some of Ciel’s little onesies. He was growing so big he was already moving into 3-6 month clothes.

Étienne rocked Ciel and talked to him, about things he wanted to take his son to do, places he wanted him to see, then he talked to him about how much he loved me.

I wanted to leap at him again, scratch his handsome face. But I didn’t. Instead I said nothing. This was Ciel’s daddy.

After our baby got fussy, I sat down and arranged my nursing shirt so Ciel could comfortably drink, sucking the milk in with huge, hungry gulps.

“Can we talk about us?” Étienne asked.

“No.”

He knelt in front of me, one hand on the rocking chair, the other on my ankle.

“Sweetheart, you’re breaking my heart. I’m here begging, fucking begging, for another chance.”

“You can’t get it back,” I said. “No matter how you try, you can’t get those first moments that should have been ours back.”