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‘And?’
‘And . . . he said you guys got into an argument,’ I continued. Jesus, the circles under my eyes were getting darker. Too much stress. Not enough sleep. The bottle of vodka probably hadn’t helped, either. ‘He didn’t really seem in the mood to talk.’
‘And?’ Dornan pressed.
Shit, shit, shit!
‘I asked him to take me to pick up waffles,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel safe by myself at night, and Guillermo said he was busy. And I wanted birthday waffles.’ And I’m so fucking sick of having to explain my every move to you. What had once been concern and an overprotective instinct had morphed into an absolute need to control and micro-manage every facet of my life under the guise of making sure nothing bad happened to me. When the plain truth was, Dornan and his father WERE the bad that happened to me.
Dornan went to open his mouth again and without thinking, I pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Please,’ I said quietly, ‘do not say and again. It’s been a long day. Days. It’s a new day now, right? And I’m going to finish my birthday waffles.’ The birthday guilt trip was effective, at least. I walked past him, looking back as he stood mute. ‘You coming?’
He nodded, his dark eyes hooded, drawn. ‘Give me a minute.’
He closed the bathroom door until just a sliver of light could be seen at the sides, and I heard water running. I used the alone time to lose the towel and throw on the first nightgown I could find – something long, beige, and definitely not sexy. It was like a potato sack, only softer. I scooped up my wet hair, piling it into a messy bun on top of my head and using hairpins to keep it there. I padded into the kitchen, barefoot, and what I saw took my breath away, replacing it with something between a hiccup and a sob.
There were candles everywhere. Dozens of them. They smelled like vanilla, the entire kitchen and dining area smothered in candlelight. I felt my chest crack open as I saw the way he’d arranged them. There were flowers in the middle of the table, white lilies. Something turned uneasily inside my stomach – they were death lilies. They were for funerals, not birthdays.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here,’ Dornan said at my back, his voice like gravel, even more hoarse than normal. I glanced at his throat, seeing red marks, wondering if they were from John’s hands. Funny how hands were so versatile. They could take you to the brink of death, or the brink of orgasm, just with the way you used them. He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around me, and a hard rock rose in my throat, refusing to budge. I looked up, tears burning my eyes and blurring the room into a garish caricature of candles and stucco ceiling.
He kissed the top of my head, one palm smoothing down the hair at the crown of my skull. Just like my mother used to do when I was a girl, but I wasn’t a girl anymore, and my mother was dead. The hard lump in my throat turned into a moan; the threat of tears spilling over became twin tidal waves pouring down my face. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the suitcase baby had been delivered. It played on a loop in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to switch it off. I couldn’t even replace the image of the little boy with one of Murphy’s face after I’d shot him. It wouldn’t go away.
‘Hey,’ Dornan murmured, one hand coming around to my chin and tilting it so I was looking at him over my shoulder. ‘Talk to me. You never talk to me anymore.’
I turned in his arms, resting my face against his chest for a second. His heart thrummed along slowly, evenly. In my mind, I’d already said goodbye to him a long time ago, checked out of the relationship the moment I woke up in the hospital, my pregnancy over, my baby scraped away. I’d gotten used to the idea that Dornan Ross was no longer the great love of my life, but the heart is a fickle thing. My heart still remembered his concerned eyes, his insistent touch, the way he’d always kept me safe. My heart was a goddamn traitor.
What about John? It’s possible to love two men at once, you know. I wouldn’t be the first woman torn between obligation and desire.
I wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him. I’d managed to push everything away for months now, to forget the man he used to be, but suddenly I was overcome by the memory of the first time I ever saw him. Sadness engulfed me and my eyes started to fill with fresh tears. I wouldn’t blink, didn’t want to let them fall down my cheeks and give them to him. They fell, anyway. Gravity is strange like that.
‘What happened to us?’ I whispered against his neck, just loud enough for him to hear. ‘We used to be different.’
A different question. What have we done to each other? What have I done to you?
He tucked a stray strand of hair up on top of my head, winding it around a hairpin so it stayed put. ‘It’s not too late,’ he murmured, his hands on my neck, firm, but gentle. ‘We can start over. I’ll get us a new place. A real house. We can have a baby.’
I turned my head away, covering my mouth with my palm so I didn’t cry out. ‘We had a baby,’ I whispered, my teeth gritted as grief was replaced by rage, my tears falling of their own volition. ‘You never hurt me in ten years,’ I seethed. ‘Why’d you have to hurt me like that when I was carrying our baby?’ I stepped back and shoved him as hard as I could, barely moving the solid mountain of muscle.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, digging his fingers into my hips as he knelt in front of me. He lifted my nightgown, and I tried to push him away, until I realised he wasn’t trying anything sexual. He rested his stubbled cheek against the bare flesh beneath my belly button, moving his head back and forth ever so slightly, rubbing against my skin. His fingers dug into the backs of my thighs as he pulled me as close as possible, and I had to steady myself on his shoulders so that I didn’t fall.
‘Why are you doing this?’ I whispered. ‘Why now?’
And no, I wasn’t perfect, and no, I hadn’t even been sure about keeping the baby Dornan and I had conceived unknowingly. But in the end, by his act of violence, he’d taken that choice away. He’d ended a life that was yet to begin. And although he’d said the words, he had yet to show me that he was ever truly sorry. Mostly, I think, he just wanted to forget about it and move on. A dark few days in the evolution of him, of us. In the space of three days, he murdered his son’s mother, raped me while her blood was still all over him, and then punched me so hard for questioning him about said murder that our baby died.
Before then, I would have said there was hope for him. For us. We’d walked a dark road, Dornan and I, months and years of violence and suffering and compromise, thanks to our fathers and the choices they’d made.
‘Why am I doing what?’ he asked me slowly. And truth be told, I didn’t even know what I was trying to quantify. What was he doing? Begging for my forgiveness, on his knees, the both of us surrounded with enough flickering candles to wipe out half the apartment building.
He straightened, my thighs aching from where his fingers had been as he towered over me once more. He bent his head down to mine and kissed me, taking me by surprise. He tasted like whiskey and cigarettes. His kiss was soft, almost hesitant. He kissed me like a boy would kiss a girl on prom night, one hand at my waist and the other cupping my chin. It was the sweetest gesture he’d ever made, and something in my chest expanded painfully, a supernova that stretched insistently, ready to shatter me.
How could I feel anything for him?
He broke the kiss, another anomaly, and pulled his head back so we were eye to eye. ‘I wish I could take it all back,’ he said, his eyes glassy.
Damn him to fucking hell. I had to hate him. I couldn’t love him.
My heart was a fickle bitch.
He picked me up like I was weightless, gripping me so tight it was almost painful. I wrapped my legs around his waist, my head burrowed into the space between his shoulder and ear, almost like a child, my breath and his neck creating a warm pocket of air that I stared into vacantly.
