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Again—fair.
“Because I’m asking.”
The vein in her forehead has just made an appearance but it’s not throbbing or anything. It’s just peeping out shyly to say hello.
“Okay. Then why do you care?”
Because I care about you.
But again, I don’t say what Ishouldsay. “Because you’re carrying my child.”
Her eyelashes flutter and she looks down. Her lips quiver for only a moment before she looks back up again. “Of course. I should have known.”
“You’ve been under a lot of stress lately,” I offer.
She snorts. “That’s the understatement of the damn year.”
“Is it—”Me?“—the custody issue?” She’s still not meeting my eyes so I take Kirill’s advice and go gentle. “You can tell me,kiska.”
Little by little, I’m prying her open. Not with force or violence, the tools I used to use. But with kindness. Tenderness.
Fuck it—with love.
And I can see it working. Her face softens. Her eyes brighten. She opens her mouth and it all comes out.
“It’severything,” she breathes. Her voice catches at first, but the more she keeps talking, the steadier she becomes. “It’s this house; it’s my future; it’s you and me. But mostly, it’s those kids. What if I don’t get to keep them? What if Beatrice and Barrett win custody and I lose them?” Her tears are flowing freely now. “I promised Sienna I would keep them safe and happy. I stood in front of her headstone the evening we buried her and I promised her that I would never let them be subjected to the kind of childhood we were subjected to. It was right after then that Mom and Dad approached me for the first time with their offer to take the kids off my hands. That’s how they phrased it, too.‘We’ll take them off your hands.’Like it was a freaking burden, like I’d behappyfor the chance to get rid of them. They didn’t understand even then. It wasn’t a burden to look after those kids; it was aprivilege.”
Her chest is heaving from her impassioned words. It’s bringing the color back into her cheeks.
Fucking hell, is she glorious.
She looks me dead in the eye. “I know I’ve fallen short but I still believe that raising them is a privilege. I may not be a great mother, but I’m gonna try my hardest to become better. I’m never gonna stop trying.”
“Are you crazy?”
Her mouth clamps shut. She leans away, eyes round with shock.
“For fuck’s sake, Emma: you are thebestmother I have ever seen. You have everything stacked against you but you make those kids think the world was made for them and them alone. You struggle so they don’t and you’d jump off a bridge before you let them see you quit or show fear. You give them so much love, so much hope, so much reason to believe that the future holds nothing but happiness for them.”
Her eyes grow wider the more I talk. And even then, I keep talking. “Why do you think I pickedyou?Before I met you, I didn’t even want a child. Then I saw you with those kids and I thought, if I was ever gonna have a kid,thisis the woman I want to have one with.”
She blinks and a fat tear rolls down her cheek. “Ruslan,” she breathes softly, “do you really mean that?”
“Every fucking word.”
She bites her lip. Still uncertain. As if saying with her body,Prove it.
So I don’t hesitate. I slide into the bed beside her and wrap my arms around her.This is for the baby.I’m being gentle to manage her stress. I’m being whatever she needs me to be until this baby is born.
If I pick at that logic too much, it’s gonna unravel fast. So I focus on her slow breathing and her citrus and honey scent.
She’s still crying, her tears soaking through the front of my shirt. I hate seeing her like this. It’s worse knowing that I contributed to it. As penance, I will hold her for as long as she needs me to.
It’s a self-serving penance, though. I know it; she knows it.
Pretty sure the damn doorknob knows it, too.
“Don’t cry, Emma.”
