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He narrowed his eyes. ‘Enlighten me.’
She shook her head, laughing mirthlessly. ‘You stupid bastard,’ she said. ‘I loved you until the end. I loved you even after I saw what you did to Stephanie. What you did to your own son. I still loved you.’
He nodded, his throat tight. ‘So what was it, then? The thing that destroyed us?’
She straightened, took a step back. ‘You know.’
And it was true, he did know. He’d killed their child. Hurt her so much, it had died and bled away.
This was his fault.
‘It was always going to end like this,’ she whispered, tears dripping onto her dirty cheeks. Her words stunned him, physically, to the point that he had to step back to keep his balance.
‘Like what?’ he asked.
‘With blood. We started with blood, and that’s how we ended.’
‘Is this what this is?’ he asked sadly. ‘The end?’ He’d been so fucking happy when he married her. It was the first day he’d truly been able to say that she was his and not his father’s. But now, looking at the weeping mess in front of him, the traitor, the seductress who’d been lying to him all this time, Dornan Ross had to wonder – had she ever been his at all?
‘Yes,’ she said, looking down at John. His eyes were still frozen open, unseeing. It wasn’t fair.
Mariana knelt beside John, reaching her hand out. With love. She reached for him with so much tenderness, so much despair, that it took everything inside Dornan to stop himself from putting the gun in his own mouth and pulling the trigger. Had she ever looked at him like that?
‘Don’t fucking touch him,’ Dornan said, jealousy surging through him as he aimed the gun at the woman he’d loved.
She swallowed thickly, guiding the gun up to her forehead. ‘Do it,’ she urged, tears streaming down her face. ‘DO IT!’
He grabbed her, pulled her back to her feet. He wanted to kill her. He wanted to save her. He wanted to take it all back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said hoarsely. ‘For everything.’
She was sobbing, staring at John.
‘Ana. He’s not waking up.’ Dornan just needed to ask her one question. ‘Ana?’
She waited for his next words, searching his face.
‘The way you . . . looked at him. Did you ever feel like that about me? Or was it love because you needed me? Because the alternative was too much to bear?’
Her eyes flashed with emotion as she stepped back to him, taking his face in her bloody hands. He heard her chest rattle when she breathed and sobbed all at once.
‘I looked at you like that,’ she implored, her gaze the truest thing he’d ever seen. ‘I looked at you all the time.’
‘I didn’t see it,’ he said, his resolve faltering, his gun dropping to his side.
She shook him, and he let her. ‘You were too busy looking at everyone else!’ she cried. ‘All I ever wanted was you, don’t you understand, Dornan? All I ever wanted was the man who saved me. He was my everything.’
He wanted to hold her to his chest and never let her go. He wanted to give her fat babies and a house she could feel safe in, and most of all, her freedom. Her own name. He’d always wanted those things for her, but right now, more than ever before, he saw the life they could have had, he saw the baby he’d killed as if it had survived and been born happy, he saw every single thing that would have happened if he’d played a different hand.
He wanted to make it right.
It would never be right.
He staggered back, pushing her away. ‘Go,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Dornan,’ she protested, reaching out.
‘Go!’ He gritted his teeth. ‘If you touch me again, Ana, I will grab onto you, and I will never, ever let you leave me. We’ll end in blood when I decide, and we’ll end together. It won’t be pretty. I’ll take everything from you, whether you give it to me or not.’
