Page 107 of Arrogant Bastard

“No, you didn’t deserve to bear the burden. Don’t you see? It ripped me apart, and I’d only known I was pregnant for a day. If I’d told you when you asked me if I was okay…right before we left the villa, maybe things would’ve turned out differently. Instead…everything fell apart, and I chose to be the only one to bear the burden instead of two people suffering.”

“What about the other side of it? What about two people healing together instead of broken and apart?”

“How can I heal? How the hell do I come back from something like this? I forgot my training and telegraphed my vulnerability to Galveston. He didn’t know I was pregnant until I showed him. I put my hand on my stomach and fucking pointed to him that I was pregnant. He saw, then he just went for our baby!”

The sound that rips from him is so viscerally savage that the very air turns to ice. He staggers away from me, falls into the chair, and drops his head in his hand.

“I don’t know, but losing each other on top of that? Was it worth it?”

I shake my head in despair. “I didn’t think we should have been together in the first—”

“Bullshit!” His head snaps up, and his eyes are wild and red-rimmed with the volatility of his emotions. “I’m fucking tired of hearing you say that. It’s an excuse you hide behind to wallow in your suffering, and it’s got to stop.”

He’s angry. He’s incandescent in fact. “The timing was a little off, I accept, but I would still crave you if I met you when I was twelve or one hundred and fucking twenty. I was made for you! Don’t you see that?”

I keep my mouth shut. We wallow in our fresh agony, our breaths snatched for the sole purpose of sustaining our lungs.

Then, slowly, he lowers his hand and the picture clutched in it. “How far along were you?”

“About ten weeks.”

He swallows hard. “Was it a…the sex…”

“It was too early to tell. But when I think of…I feel it was a girl.”

“Where did this come from? Why did Fionnella have it?”

“I…I left it at the club. In my punishment room. I asked Axel to keep it for me. He must have given it to Fionnella to bring to me.”

“So she knew about the baby.” There’s a thick vein of bitterness in his voice.

I nod. “The moment I woke up, I asked about the baby. She was there. She told me the doctors hadn’t been able to save it, but they’d saved me a…the picture.”

My confession hasn’t been good for my soul. Every inch of me is in tatters. And my worst fear, that Killian would suffer too, is written all over his face.

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes without letting go of the picture. After an age, he drags himself to his feet and holds out his hand to me. I take it because I can’t not.

He leads me through our bedroom and into the dressing room. Without letting go of the photo, he searches through my things and lays out black denim, a white top, and my favorite leather jacket. He pushes them toward me. I yank off my dress, and while I’m putting the clothes on, he goes to his side of the room and puts on similar clothes.

We both put our boots on, and I follow him out of the room. Through the living room and down the stairs to the third level below where his semi-underground parking garage holds six cars, three SUVs, and two motorcycles.

He walks over to a gleaming shelf, takes down two helmets, and walks over to the custom Ducati Diavel. When I reach him, he silently hands me a helmet. I take it and put it on. He picks me up and places me on the second seat, and then swings his leg over to sit in front of me.

He tucks the picture inside his jacket, next to his heart, and then looks over his shoulder. “Hold on.” The command is rough and low.

I’m terrified of the savage pain in his voice more than I’m terrified of riding on a powerful motorbike. The furthest I got during my training was a glorified scooter. But I trust him. So I lean forward and slide my arms around him. His stomach clenches tight for a moment before he guns the engine. And a moment later, we vault out of the garage and down the driveway.

The Californian coastline is ruggedly beautiful. The late evening sunshine is sublime. Three full minutes after imagining that I’ll fall off the bike to a horrible death, I’m a complete convert. I mirror his leans through the curves, and it feels like we’re one person. Except there’s an ocean-wide chasm between us. Over a dozen times, tears fill my eyes, and I’m ravaged by Killian’s pain. A dozen times I blink them away and cling to the man I love more than I want my next breath. We ride for a solid hour without stopping or speaking.

When we eventually stop, it’s at a barren bluff with the wind whipping around us and not a soul in sight.

He rips his helmet off, and I see he’s fighting his emotion too. He opens his mouth but I speak first.

“I’m sorry, Killian. So sorry. The way we met…I didn’t think I deserved you. So when I had to give you up, it killed me, but I felt like it was what I had to do. But…”

The hand holding the helmet drops to his thighs. “But?”

“I don’t want to let you go. I want to fight for you. Whatever I need to do, just tell me, and I’ll do it. I want you, Killian. Every day, every night, and in between. I love you. So much. I love you.”

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