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He wafted a hand at me. “Wash your face first.” Then, I watched the transformation happen—he went from being my husband to being the reason I’d love him until the day I died. He straightened up and questioned, “Do you need something to eat? How are you feeling?” He moved over to me and pressed his fingers to my stomach.
That hurt.
That hurt so bad.
I wanted to scream the truth at him. To tell him that I didn’t want to eat again, that I felt like hell, but he wouldn’t understand.
He couldn’t understand.
He’d think that the baby in my belly didn’t matter as much as Jake and him. He wasn’t wrong, but I just… I just couldn’t terminate the pregnancy. I couldn’t. Not yet. There were all kinds of surgeries that gave me hope—
Biting my lip at the thought, I barely managed to stop myself from shoving his hand away and told him huskily, “I’ll wash my face and be right out.”
“You sure you don’t want anything to eat?”
“No. I’m not hungry.”
He nodded, stepped back and started tugging at the half-Windsor knot on his necktie. As he pulled it free, I watched him, watched as what should have been an easy motion took a good couple of seconds.
“Has someone died?” I blurted out before I finished washing up, my little face sponge still dripping suds and water onto the bathroom floor.
His head whipped to the side, and as our eyes caught and held, I knew someonehaddied.
Blinking, I took a step back, turned to the sink and quickly rinsed off my face. I saw him approach in the vanity mirror, but I didn’t expect that the second I’d cleaned away the suds, he’d haul me into his arms.
He hugged me.
He hugged me so hard that it hurt.
But it hurt good.
God, I’d needed that earlier. I’d needed this hug when I got out of the doctor’s office.
I sagged into him, barely managing to stop myself from breaking down and telling him the truth there and then, but Finn sagged into me too, and if I’d needed even more confirmation that everything waswrong, I had it now.
Sucking in a breath, I whispered against his shirt, “Finn? Talk to me, baby.”
“I—” He tried again, “I—” He fell silent.
My hands tightened their clasp at the back of his jacket, and I pulled him even more into me, so much so that there was barely an inch separating us.
“I’ve been keeping secrets, Aoife.”
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that.
“What kind of secrets, sweetheart? To do with work?”
“I wish that were it. I wish that were all it was.” He pressed his face into my hair then whispered, “I’m a fucking coward.”
I tensed. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I wanted the best of both worlds, but lies… there shouldn’t be lies between a wife and her husband.”
When he started to pull back, I let him. Thoroughly confused by his statement, I tilted my head to look up at his tortured expression.
“What are you talking about, Finn?”
“For years,” he rasped, “I’ve carried this burden, and I did so because I knew that there was nothing that could be done to bring justice to the people who deserved it.
