Page 122 of Broken

“You thought I didn’t want you anymore?” Surprise coated my voice, and Izzy nodded against my shoulder. I groaned as she shivered. “No, Izzy. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I want you. I want us, more than anything. I always will. I thought you knew that.”

She didn’t respond, and just when I was trying to figure out what to say next to convince her, she leaned back, opening the blanket to wrap it around us both, clutching the ends together between us with the fingers of her casted arm.

“Princess.” She looked up, meeting my eyes, so much hesitancy still in her gaze. “I love you,” I told her. “So much. I always will. No matter what.”

Her breath hitched, those green eyes of hers darting between mine, searching for my sincerity. Eventually finding what she needed, she nestled in closer, her broken arm still tucked between us. She tucked her cast-free hand under the thick material of my sweater, her fingers like ice as she pressed them to my chest, and she buried her icy cheek into the warmth of my neck. I tensed at the initial contact of cold but relaxed as my body heat finally began to flow to her. She could take all she needed.

“You really mean it, don’t you?” she whispered in relief.

“Of course I do.” Lightning flashed again, and Izzy stiffened in my arms as the thunder crashed around us. “Izzy?” I asked when she calmed.

“Yeah?”

“Can you explain something for me?”

“What?”

“Why did it make perfect sense for me not to want you anymore? I thought it was the other way around.”

“What?”

“That’s why I stayed away. Because I didn’t think you’d wantme. Not after what I did to you. To our baby.” My voice broke on the last word. “I could barely look at you. You looked so lifeless, and I knew it was all my fault. I thought for sure you’d look at me in disgust. You wouldn’t even have to say it. The blame would be there. So instead, I just stayed away. I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”

“I did feel lifeless.” Izzy’s voice was quiet. “Everything was numb. Most of the time. But I would never want you to stay away. I’ll always want you. I thought you knew that,” she replied, using my words against me. “It wasn’t your fault,” she finished.

I shut my eyes. “Don’t try to make me feel better. I deserve to feel this way after what I did. I shouldn’t have fought Zane. I should’ve pulled him off of you and then gotten you out of there, but I lost my temper instead. Our fight made you fall. It’s my fault our daughter is gone.”

Izzy looked up from my neck, freeing her arm from the warmth of my skin to wipe a tear that sat, ready to fall, at the corner of my eye. “Listen here, whiskey.” I opened my eyes, surprised at the playful sincerity she used with my nickname. “I don’t blame you at all. I thought you blamed me. I didn’t fall because of you.”

“What are you talking about? Of course, you did.”

“No, I didn’t,” she insisted. “It was my fault that I fell.”

“No.”

“Yes.Youdidn’t do anything. It was me. I stepped back. My heel missed the step. It was all me.”

“But if I hadn’t lost control, that never would’ve happened.”

“You were trying to protect me. I should’ve never argued with Zane. I know how he can be, what he did the last time I yelled at him, but I got mad anyway.”

“You didn’t look mad when I got there. You looked upset, and he wouldn’t take his hands off you.”

“But I was mad before he tried to kiss me. That’s why he did it.”

“He kissed you because you were mad?”

“Apparently, it turns him on or something. Everything he was saying, I just got so fed up and disgusted.”

I took in a deep breath to steady the anger swelling in my middle. “You should’ve been. You’ve warned him off plenty of times.”

“No, that’s what led to the fall. I lost our baby because I couldn’t control my anger.”

“No.” My tone rang with finality. “It wasnotyour fault. Someone who has hurt you before was hurting you again. You got upset. You stepped wrong on the stairs. End of story.”

Izzy stared back with just as much ferocity. “Then it goes both ways.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

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