Page 76 of Royally Arranged

“You’ve helped me plenty,” I said sadly, pressing my hand to my eyelids. “Even if you could take back everything about me breaking the law, keep me out of jail ... it’s not enough. Don’t you get it?” I couldn’t look at her. I wanted to, but my body wouldn’t let me. “Your brothers did their best to hurt me. They didn’t realize the damage beneath my skin was worse than anything they could inflict.”

The worst part was knowing I had some power here. An awful, terrible ability to bring her down with me. Iknewit was her in the photo; so did she. If I could prove it, she’d suffer the same sentence as me, and then ... and then ...

And then nothing.

Because even though she’d burned my world to ashes, crushed my heart, she was still curled so firmly around my soul that I’d never hurt her.

“I get that you’re angry. You probably even hate me.” Her voice cracked on that last part, but she pressed forward. “I don’t blame you. You’re right about everything, I’m pathetic for listening to my mother. I should have told you I was okay ... If I had, you wouldn’t be down here.”

The pain in her voice pulled at my protective side. But the way she’d ignored me yesterday had left me feeling so betrayed ... sounimportant. It was the exact way my father had made me feel while I was growing up.

Nova breathed in through her nose. It was a desperate breath that went on for some time. I wondered if she’d ever release it. I wondered if she even could. “It’s okay if you think I’m awful. I think I am, too. Please let me fix this. Let metryto make you understand why this all happened, and why ... why I’m the way I am.”

The part of her still living in my chest curled ever tighter. It choked some of my resentment away, encouraging me to listen to her confession. Turning on the bed, I focused on the bottomless sorrow in her beautiful face. It was a challenge not to tell her everything was fine. To please not cry, especially not because of me.

But I couldn’t.

Not until I heard what she had to say.

“Around six months ago ... about a week after meeting you ... I got very ill.”

“The kidney failure,” I whispered, remembering how she’d brushed it off on our wedding night.

She nodded frantically. Tears streamed down her cheeks in infinite lines. “I was sick, and in so much damn pain. I kept it to myself because I never told anyone what was going on in my life. Every time I’d tried before, they never cared. Not really.”

Wringing her hands, she shuddered. “I went downhill quickly. I remember being alone in my bed, and my sister came in to stand over me. I couldn’t focus on her face. The world was just wobbly, all curves, no edges. She called me pathetic.” Nova looked at me straight on. “She was right. My heat was rubbed out of me, just stripped until I was cold and going blind. I remember lying there, looking at the ceiling and thinking ...This is what I get.I wished for more, for better, and this is the result of my selfishness. Thorne, six months ago, my kidneys didn’t just fail.”

She kept staring at me. A wild plea to get her meaning without her having to say it. I felt as frail as she must have months ago, lying in her bed.

Her lips parted ever so slightly. “I died.”

Though she was standing right in front of me, I had an irresistible urge to grab her up and make certain she was still there. Stumbling forward, forgetting my pride, my anger, I swept Nova against my chest andsqueezed. “You didn’t die,” I growled. “You’re too warm to be a fucking ghost.”

Her arms didn’t wrap around me. She was stiff as a cord of wood. “The paramedics told me later that my body shut down from the toxins I couldn’t filter. They restarted my heart in the ambulance, kept me alive long enough for the surgery that would be my new beginning.”

New beginning?I wondered.

Nova was vibrating so hard I expected her joints to detach. “When I finally woke up, there was a hospital ceiling above me. My father was sitting nearby in a chair.” She looked up at me, unflinching, as she relived that day. “He told me Mom had given me a kidney. She’d saved my life, but doing so had ruined hers. She would struggle now, he said. She’d never be whole. Her life would be less vibrant. And it was my fault.”

Her eyelids pinched together. No matter how I wiped at her cheeks, the tears kept coming. “Nova, that’s not your fault at all.”

“It is. Iwishedfor something to happen that would make me brave enough to live fearlessly! I got that when I nearly died. Because of her sacrifice, I’m alive. You’re able to dothis,” she said, grabbing my wrists, driving my palms into her cheeks harder, “because of her! That day, I promised myself three things: I’d never forget the sacrifice she made for me. I’d make sure my wish wasn’t wasted. And I swore to live my life without fear ... like you do.”

Tension dug its claws into my neck.She told me that before. That after meeting me she’d wanted to BE me.I’d thought it was odd. I had no idea how much impact I’d had on her life. Knowing the depth of it all, hearing how she’d suffered ... I found my heart splitting down the middle.

“You think I’m fearless?” I growled. There was pressure behind my eyes, building to the point where I expected my forehead to tear apart. “Haven’t you been listening to me? I wasterrifiedsomething had happened to you! I was so, so afraid, Nova.” I hugged her all over again.

Nova snaked her arms under mine. The tension she created with her embrace stole some of the pressure from my head. “I wanted to tell you this,” she said, softly enough that I had to strain, “because I hoped you’d forgive me. But that wasn’t the only reason.” Nova curled her hands against her own chest between us. Her lower lids were swollen. “Until you knew what had changed my life ... I could never tell you what I’ve known for some time. Thorne, I love you. I loved you weeks ago at our fake wedding, when I said ‘I do.’ That moment was real for me.”

The leftover bitterness that had been clinging to my heart fell away.She loves me.This amazing woman who had been through so much and thought she had to live life at full speed because she owed it to her second chance ...

Someone so pure lovedme?

I didn’t deserve this happiness. That didn’t stop me from crushing her in my arms, my forehead resting on hers. The bridge of my nose was damp from her tears—my chin was wet from my own. When was the last time I’d wept?

“I love you,” I said, each word thick and heavy. “I love you so much, Nova.” I kept saying it, afraid she wouldn’t hear me, that my declaration wouldn’t reach the parts of her that it had to for this to be meaningful. My palm skated over her belly. Both of us went still. “Is it real, are you pregnant?”

Sniffling, she flashed a helpless smile. “Yes. You’re going to be a dad.” Her eyes traveled the gray room with its stripped bed and blood-spattered floor. “This wasn’t how I hoped to tell you the news.”

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