Page 73 of Her Ex's Father
Her silence is sharp. I turn. She’s staring at me as though I’ve lost my mind.
“You left me,” she says slowly, “to set up… a job for me? Because carrying this child isn’t enough right now?”
“Not a job,” I snap, then lower my voice. “A future. Purpose. Freedom. You’ve planned events here with more grace than any manager I’ve ever had. You belong at the helm, Maddie. I didn’t just go for contracts. I went to secure a place where you could be more than my wife.”
Her grip on the book tightens until her knuckles bleach white, her features crumpling into a mix of confusion and realization. “You thought I needed a title more than I needed you?”
“I thought—” My words falter. “I thought if I gave you something that was yours, you wouldn’t feel trapped. That you’d see this isn’t just a contract.”
Her laugh is sharp, almost a sob. “Trapped? Ben, I don’t need Sweden. I don’t need a title. I neededyou. At that appointment. Hearing her heartbeat. That’s what mattered.”
Her voice breaks on the wordheartbeat. The sound guts me.
I drop to my knees before her chair, reaching for her hands. They’re cool, stiff in my grip. “I thought I was protecting you. I thought giving you more would mean something. I was wrong.”
Her eyes meet mine, glistening but dry. “You should have given me you.”
The truth of it burns. Derrick said something like it weeks ago, spitting venom about how Maddie would be lonely with me. I told myself he was bitter. But maybe he wasn’t wrong.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, kissing her knuckles. The touch is reverent, but hollow. It is, without question, not enough.
She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t soften.
For a long moment, we stay like that—me on my knees, her staring past me into the fire. Finally, she pulls her hands free. “Thank you. For believing in me. For the offer. But it feels too little, too late.”
The words crush me more than any scandal, any market crash, any betrayal in a boardroom.
I stand slowly, my body heavy with regret. The fire pops. Maddie rises, book pressed to her chest like armor.
“I’m going to bed,” she says simply.
I watch her leave, the sound of her footsteps fading down the hall. At least she’s going toourbedroom, and not the suite she had for the first few weeks here.
Dinner goes untouched. I sit at the long table alone, a glass of whisky sweating in my hand, the watch on my wrist ticking past 11:45 p.m. The chandeliers blaze overhead, illuminating nothing but emptiness.
I should follow her. I should go to our room, fall on my knees again, beg her forgiveness. But I don’t. Because some part of me fears she won’t open the door, or won’t accept the apology.
Just after midnight, I slip into the room and stand just inside, listening as my eyes adjust. It’s quiet; the kind of quiet I craved once Georgiana was gone, as if I needed my own loneliness to echo back at me.
But now the silence of the house presses down, suffocating. It’s only in the next few moments that I hear Madeline’s breathing, slow and rhythmic, and start to see her form on the bed. She’s curled on her side, one hand on her stomach.
Alone.
Shucking my clothes off, not caring where they’re discarded, I strip down to my boxers and pad quietly to the bathroom to shower. She’s sleeping so deeply that even that doesn’t wake her.
Clean, I slide into the bed behind her, positioning myself to fit her curves. The warmth of her body softens something in me, and I realize in this moment that the loneliness I was feeding, letting grow, for years, is now an enemy.
I don’t want it anymore.
I wantthis.I want Maddie, asleep next to me, protecting our child even in dreams. The scent of her filling my lungs with each inhale and my fingertips ghosting over her bare thigh.
But Derrick’s strong, sure words bury like a thorn in my mind:There are things about her… things you don’t know.
I clench my fists against the sheets, but the fear won’t loosen.
And for the first time, I start to believe him.
I’m already losing her.
