AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why?” I sniffled into his shirt. “Why look away from what I was trying to show you?”
He sighed. The hand in my hair paused for a moment before it continued its soothing strokes.
“I think I was a coward. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone hurting you like that. I wanted to believe it wasn’t anything.”
His hand left my hair, and then both of his palms traveled to cup my cheeks and gently raised my gaze to his. One thumb stroked my cheekbone. Tracing the outlines of my face.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
His gaze adored. His heart thumped under my hand.
“Xavi…”
He needed to stop. Comfort was one thing. This was bordering on another.
“I was an idiot,” he said softly. “I hope one day you’ll forgive me.”
“I—”
I wanted to say yes. But frankly, I wasn’t there yet. Still, this was helping. Standing up to my mother helped.
But one conversation wouldn’t erase nearly two months of pain and anguish. Sometimes neglect was the most painful weapon of all.
His blue-eyed gaze drifted down to land on my lips. It was clear what he wanted, and I wasn’t entirely certain I would stop him if he tried.
“Xavi…” I drifted off yet again.
It was the best I could manage.
“I’ll always fight for you,” he said solemnly. “I’ll prove it. You just wait.”
I bit my lip and immediately regretted it when his eyes dilated with obvious desire.
“That damn lip,” he said, then released my face with a chuckle, allowing me to step away from him and gather myself.
It was then I finally checked my watch and started when I saw the time. “Crap, we are never going to get downtown in time for the appointment.”
At the mention of the entire purpose for his visit, Xavier’s face lit up. “Oh, yes we will, babe. Give me a second and I’ll call round my car.”
EIGHT
Thirty minutes and one flustered car ride across the river later, I was safely checked into the third-floor office of my OB in the East Village.
Xavier had initially tried to get me to switch to a new doctor—someone profiled inNew York Magazinewho catered to the penthouse dwellers of Manhattan. But keeping my doctor was a hard line for me. Dr. Kyler had delivered Sofia and saw both of us through her considerable complications at birth.
At the mention of that, Xavier shut right up. After all, he couldn’t argue when he wasn’t there in the first place.
Maybe that was why he blustered into the tiny ultrasound room with all the grace of a windstorm. He was making up for lost time.
“Jeez!” I cried, clutching for the thin paper draped over my spread legs as the sudden door opening sent a breeze through the room that would have blown it right off had I not kept it in place. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t think I was going to sit in the waiting room, did you?” Xavier smirked through the darkened room. “It’s nothing I haven’t already seen, babe. And becomewellacquainted with. This place is a cupboard, isn’t it?”
He peered around the tiny room, located a stool that he could sit on to my left, and proceeded to cram his over-large body onto it in a way that still made him look like he was taking up approximately half the space. His whole being vibrated with the kind of nervous energy I usually saw in children on their first day of school.
I just closed my legs and glared at him. “I told you this wasn’t necessary. The tech is just going to check for the heartbeat and take a few quick measurements. The real scan isn’t for several more weeks.”
“And I toldyou, I’m not missing any of them,” Xavier informed me as he tried and failed to make himself comfortable.
