Page 4 of Fallen God

“I look and feel like shit.” A smile settled on her face. But it was forced. The kind of smile she gave to fans who were bothering her: a little indulgent but ultimately bored. Was that all we were to her now? Hangers on that she put up with but didn’t quite like?

“Well, you don’t look it.” Tate stepped back, as if to make room for me to kiss her cheek, but I didn’t move. I studied her. She didn’t look like shit at all. But I knew by her standards she probably felt it. How long had it been since I had seen her face totally make–up free? Or her hair unbrushed?

Too long.

Isla had always been a beautiful girl, eye–catching even. The kind of woman men wrote songs about. And she was no different after giving birth. But she was softer now. Maybe even vulnerable. She looked for the first time in years like she might need me. Something inside of me softened as I finally took a dutiful step up towards her bedside, bending down to plant my lips on her cheek. But this time she didn’t raise her face to me. She sat there unmoving. The patient smile slipped, and she moved her cheek away before I had barely kissed it.

My own smile vanished as I stepped backwards. “Where is he?” I glanced around, looking for one of those little clear sided cribs I had heard about. There was one on the far side of her bed.

“Is that all you care about?” Isla’s voice rose and I froze.

Slowly turning towards her, I felt a frown pull down my eyebrows. What the hell was she on about? Was that all I cared about? She knew I cared. I had cared about her my entire adult life and nothing she had done in the past would change that.

“Isla.” I shook my head, reaching down to gather her hand up in mine. “Of course, it’s not all I care about. You know I care about you as well.” Her fingers were cold in mine, which, quite frankly, was pretty apt. “I was just asking.”

Guiltily, my eyes went back to the crib. I had thought it was empty at first glance, but there was a tiny fist flying above the white hospital swaddle blankets. It wasn’t such a strange question, surely, to ask a new mother where her baby was, was it? At least I didn’t think it was. I had zero experience around new mothers and their infants and even less in this situation. Because Tate had filled me in outside when we had been waiting to go in.

The baby that lay only a few feet away could be mine. That was the crux of it. Isla had cheated, I knew that, but the dates… God, I had almost given myself a migraine trying to work out the dates. And odds were the baby could be mine. Unless she had been unfaithful more times than I was aware of.

I might have a son.

The sooner I got my thick head around that the better.

“Fine.” She snatched her hand away from mine, settling it into her lap with a huff that any teenage girl would be proud of. “Go and look, but it doesn’t make any difference.”

Ignoring her words, I moved around the bed and the others who had been standing silently behind me moved out of my way. Reaching down with one finger, I slid the blanket out of the way and a red wrinkled face came into view. Eyes closed, pouty lips half open. Even in his sleep, he reached up and grasped my finger, and something inside of me melted.

My entire life, all I had ever wanted, was to be needed. Really needed.

And this little boy needed me. He needed me to step up and be the best dad I could be. No matter what happened between me and Isla now, I would do that. I would be the best dad for this little boy.

“Does he have a name?” I sighed happily because I was happy. For the first time in months, I had hope. I hadn’t felt so complete for a long time. “He’s beautiful, Isla, and don’t worry, I’m going to look after both of you.” I flicked my eyes towards her, expecting to see her smiling with the same doting expression on her face that I knew was on mine. But she just sat there. Unmoving. And the look she was giving me was unreadable.

“Chester,” she said after a pause.

My eyebrows shot up. “Chester?” Out of all the names she could have chosen, that one hadn’t even been on the list. “Ok, I like it.” I went back to staring at him, because, fuck, had I ever seen something as beautiful as him? “And I mean it, Isla. I’m going to be there for both of you. Whatever and whenever you need.” I threw a smile in her direction. “Not saying we are going to get married or anything like that, but...”

She turned her face away and staring straight ahead, she spoke words that were a knife in my chest, “Chester after his dad.”

Somewhere by the door, Erik swore under his breath, but it was loud in the sudden silence. Tate shifted uncomfortably. His shoes scuffed against the floor. It might have been silent in the hospital room, but in my head there was a voice screaming a million questions. And the hand gripping my finger was so damn tight, so damn strong.

“After his dad,” I muttered finally. “Chester…Chester Fraser?” I didn’t rip my hand away from the hand holding it, but it was close. She couldn’t be serious? It was one thing to cheat on me. After all, I hadn’t exactly been a wonderful boyfriend to her in the time we were together, but Chester? Fucking Chester? That married, womanising, slime bag producer? The very same man who promised young naive girls the world only to shaft them, quite literally. He preyed on the weak, and Isla had never been weak. It made no sense.

“Fuck, Isla,” Erik swore more loudly this time. “What were you thinking? What did he promise you?”

She turned to him with a snarl. “Do you think I’m stupid? He didn’t promise me anything.” She shrugged like this was all nothing at all. Like my feelings, the hell she had put me through and the heartbreak she was bestowing on me now had little to no impact on her. “You know what his parties are like and...”

As gently as I could, because it hurt something inside of me to do it, I pulled my hand away from that tiny fist and turned to her. “How many times, Isla?” I didn’t even know if I wanted to know. When she had told me she was pregnant from a single indiscretion, from a one–night stand, some hook up, it had seemed like the perfect out. I hadn’t wanted to be with her, but hadn’t wanted to hurt her either. And then the press had painted me as the one in the wrong and everything had gone to shit.

“A few…” she finally admitted.

My anger blew, and it took everything I had not to scream in her face. “A few?” My voice came out in a low, angry whisper. “You fucked him a few times, and then this other guy? How many others, Isla?” My voice dropped to a hiss. She had put me through hell, making out in the press that the child she was carrying was mine, that I was the asshole cheat. And I had let her. I had taken every headline that painted me as the world's worst human. And it had almost destroyed me.

Drink, drugs. The only thing I hadn’t sunk myself into was women, and that was because there was only one woman I had wanted.

Lola.

And Isla’s shit had taken her from me as well.

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