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“No.”
“What?”
Finally I see a movement on him: his feet shifting and his spine going even straighter.
It’s hardly anything but I’m glad that it’s there.
I’m glad that he’s responding.
For some reason it’s better than his absolute silence so far.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
I blink. “But… But I just told you that —”
“I know what you told me,” he cuts me off. “That still doesn’t change the fact that you’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t —”
“Just because you wanted to punish me doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t get what you want,” he states, his voice sounding determined. “What you’ve always wanted.”
All I can do is breathe in this moment.
Breathe and blink at him.
Because I wasn’t… I definitely wasn’t expecting that.
He stares at me for a few seconds as if collecting his thoughts before saying, “I don’t blame you for wanting revenge. I get revenge. Revenge is the only thing I get and I admire you for wanting that. I admire the fuck out of you for wanting to put me in my place. So no, you’re not going anywhere because I intend to keep my promise. I intend to give you your dream.” Then, “I broke your dream once, I’m not going to do that again.”
That finally gets me speaking. “But my dream wasn’t your responsibility. I just told you that. I just told you that I put you on a pedestal and Ledger, you don’t have to —”
“I have to and it is,” he says, determination lined not only in his voice but also on his features, all over his hard body. “My responsibility. My job.”
I watch him for a few seconds because I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t know what I can do except memorize his sun-drenched features, the shadows and grooves of his bare chest, the exact shade of his bronzed skin, those gray sweatpants both loose but still somehow molded against his strong thighs. That messy, crazy hair. Those dark eyes.
He’s too beautiful to be true.
What he’s saying is too beautiful to be true as well.
“So then…” I swallow. “We’re… We’re doing this?”
“We are.”
I’m still stunned.
I’m still in quite possibly the biggest shock of my life but I have enough life left in me, enough hope, that I start to smile.
Until he says, “Was it going to be him?”
“What, who?”
He unfolds his arms and brings them down to his sides, his fingers immediately fisting. The veins running up and down his forearms immediately standing taut and tight. Threateningly.
How veins can be threatening, I don’t know.
But his are.
And so are his fierce eyes, his clamped jaw.
As if he was waiting for everything else to be settled first, the truth, his promise, before getting to this. To whatever it is that he’s asking me.
Which I understand when those fierce eyes of his drop down to my belly.
Looking up a second later, he goes, “Was it going to be that fuckface from the restaurant?”
Fear curdles in my belly. “L-Ledger —”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t —”
His jaw clenches and clenches. “The guy you were going to pass off as the baby’s father.”
“I —”
“My baby’s father.”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
Jesus fucking shit.
How does he know?
How does he fucking know?
And God, God, I can feel it. I can feel the air turning. I can feel it buzzing and growing heavy.
With his anger.
With his fury that appears to be mounting and mounting.
And I try get up on my knees, which is also when I realize that I’m still tied up. But thrusting that away, I hasten to explain, “But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who it was going to be or… or anything like that. I’m not going to do that, Ledger. I’m not going to keep your baby away from you. I won’t ever keep her away from you. I won’t —”
My words come to a screeching halt when he pushes away from the dresser.
When he takes me in, my flushed face, my heaving form, my tied-up hand, as if for the last time before leaving the room.
Before leaving me here.
“What are you doing?” I ask, frantic. “W-where are you going?”
My words don’t stop him from turning and heading toward the door and my voice becomes even louder and shriller. “Ledger, where the fuck are you going? Where —”
He stops at the threshold. “I’m going to get you breakfast. And some pain meds.”
It sounds so bizarre.
So crazy in the face of everything that’s happened. In the face of his anger that I can still detect on his features.
In the air.
Not to mention, the fact that I’m still tied up.
“What… You’re…”
“As I said, you’re going to eat and then rest. Save your strength.”
“Save my strength for what?”
“For the things I’ve got planned for you —”
“You’re being crazy.”
“And your ovulation window,” he finishes his sentence that sounds more like a threat.
Dread has permanently made a home in me now. In my chest. My belly.
