Page 99 of This Woman Forever

“I’m sorry,” she sobs, hardly able to talk through her shakes, her arms clinging to me tightly, grappling at my back, as if she wants to crawl into me.

“What’s happened?”

“Nothing,” she breathes into my collar. “I just needed to see you.”

I stare down at the ground in disbelief. “Fucking hell, Ava.” I try to wrestle her out of my body, but her hold is fierce. Unmoving. “Please, explain,” I beg, my mind spinning with endless reasons for her state, none of them particularly pleasant. “Ava?”

“Can we go home?” she asks, her words broken over her constant jerks.

She needs me. Just needs me. I know this woman inside out. Yes, I know she needs me, but this? “No,” I grate. “Not until you tell me why the fuck you’re in such a state.” I use brute force to pry her hold away from my back, putting her at arm’s distance and checking her over. For what? Wounds? “What’s going on?” Anger is overtaking my worry.

Her body convulses when she lets out a gasped sob, her eyes releasing a steady stream of tears down her cheeks. “I’m pregnant.”

Something enters by body so fast, some kind of force, I jolt violently.

“I lied to you,” she sobs quietly, following it up with an apology.

“What?” I whisper, stepping back. No. She’s not pregnant. The doctor confirmed it. She’s not pregnant. I’m shooting blanks. She went out and got absolutely obliterated on Friday night. Kissed another man! I’ve fucked her hard and wildly since. So hard and wild.

She can’t be pregnant.

“You make me so”—her breathing’s shaky, strained—“mad.” She can’t even look at me, her gaze directed at her feet. Disgrace is oozing off her. “You make me mad, and then you make me so happy.”

I make her mad? I make her mad, so she lied to me? And I can’t even feel any shame for my thought process, because my lies have always been to make her happy. This lie? She told it to intentionally make me sad. She told this lie in a mean fit of revenge. “I didn’t know what to do,” she whispers.

“Fuck,” I blurt in disbelief, holding my head with both hands, staring at her wilting frame. “Ava, are you trying to get me sectioned?” I have to look away from her, can’t bear to see her looking so pitiful. I also can’t bear the cold, hard fact that she’s been so deceitful about something she absolutely knows I want and need. “Are you fucking with my mind, because I really don’t need this, lady.” I laugh. It’s a cold laugh. Or... wait. Has she just found out? Was it a faulty test at the doctor’s office? Did she do another? Maybe she didn’t lie to me. “I’ve just gotten my head around you not being pregnant, and now you are?”

“I always have been.”

My God. No. How could she? I don’t even know what to say. She’s pregnant, always has been? I knew it. I fucking knew it! “When were you going to tell me?” I ask, staring at the woman I love, unable to convince myself to comfort her.

“When I accepted it.”

So she’s accepted it? Does that mean she’s happy about it? Fuck, my head feels like it’s going to fall off. “We’re having a baby?” I whisper. I think I’m in shock, because nothing in me is moving except my lips, emotion clogging my throat. Is this another chance? Is this really happening?

Yes, Daddy. I’m happy for you. The universe had other plans for me.

My weak knees give up on me, folding, taking me down to the gravel, and Ava is suddenly in front of me, her watery eyes scanning mine as she pulls me into her body and hugs me.

Life.

More life than I ever dreamed I was worthy of having again.

Ava’s. Our child’s.

And mine.

I lift my dead arms and hold her, squeezing my eyes closed, squeezing all of the tears out. This is my weakest moment. From now, I’m nothing but strength.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs against my neck, her tears trickling down my skin past the collar of my shirt, as I silently stare at the gates of The Manor past her.

And hold onto her tighter.

Another chance.

Another life.

17

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