Page 132 of Resurfaced Passion

Only this time she knew him, but she didn’t trust him.

Her fucking father. He’d always hated that guy, from day one he saw clearly how he treated Paige. A pedestal wasn’t good enough for his queen and yet her family never recognized how precious she was. He’d hated them all for that very fact, but for Sargent to stroll in and decimate their whole fucking life, he wanted to put a bullet in the guy’s head.

Reaper saw that gloating look in the old man’s eyes, he’d taken great pleasure in hurting Paige just to dig at him, like breaking her was a means to an end.

He figured it wasn’t the last he’d see of him, but he had no special fucks to give on the matter.

The only one he cared about was currently curled into her knees on the bathroom floor. His heart was bleeding out not able to touch her.

“Paige.” She looked up. Dark circles had gathered under her eyes.

Goddamn her father. She was so happy yesterday, an hour ago. Every fucking day of the last four years he’d tread on eggshells, fearful of her memories returning and her reacting in the same terrifying way. He’d do anything so his Paige wouldn’t feel that crushing blow again knowing their baby was gone. If it meant she didn’t remember him? It was the price he’d paid with his heart and blood. He’d missed her until he was mad with it.

He’d pay as much as he needed to in order to protect his wife, even sacrifice his own happiness.

There was no ceiling on what he wouldn’t do for her.

With so much to explain, he couldn’t find a start to the words.

“Let me take you home, baby.”

“Is this all a joke?”

“No, bug.”

She visibly shuddered. “Don’t… please don’t call me that. It’s your wife’s. I can’t hear it, not now.”

He couldn’t hide his flinch. “You’re my wife.”

“Ten minutes ago I wasjust Paige. I’m still trying to process, okay?”

For a man who had been more than persevering over the years he suddenly lost all of it because the need to stride across the floor and pick her up was so fucking strong he had to force himself to stay right there and give her the time she needed.

He saw her glance at his ring he was rolling around his finger and then down to her own bare hand. That one was easy enough to answer and he cleared his throat. “I took off your ring before you woke up because I couldn’t stand seeing it covered in your blood. After your…episode, I held onto it until you wanted it back again.”

“Episode?”

He nodded. That was a minefield all on its own he didn’t want to get into for fear of putting her right back to square one.

“From the look on your face I don’t want to know what happened do I?”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, bu—Paige.” He’d been so careful never to use her pet name but now he was allowed to, the fucking thing was dangling off the end of his tongue. She’d been ladybug to him from the first hello, seeing her in those red and black spotted tights.

“It was the TV interview that made dad come, wasn’t it?” She asked out of the blue.

She climbed to her feet, rinsed her mouth and he watched her wash her hands.

“Yeah, he didn’t know where you were until now, I made sure of it.”

“I guess I know now why you didn’t want me to do it. You didn’t want me to find out.” Her tone was flat. He didn’t fucking like it one bit. She always had sunshine in her voice, it kept his own happiness simmering.

Reaper frowned. “It wasn’t like that, baby.”

His heart struck up a rapid beat when she walked towards him, he reached out a hand and flinched when she pulled it out of distance, wrapping both arms around her stomach.

It was as bad as he figured it would be and she didn’t even know all of their past yet.

Shit would only get worse.

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