Page 99 of Desiring an Angel

“Ash—”

“Just go,” I rasped, hanging onto the toilet bowl so I wouldn’t slump over from weakness.

I was in no state to argue or listen to excuses.

“Ash, please—”

“Go away,” I bit out and coughed again.

He didn’t speak before his footfalls carried him from me, leaving the air cold as ice.

Frigid.

As vacant of life as the grave.

I heaved again, my stomach attempting to turn itself inside out as the pain I’d been dealing with for weeks intensified.

Failure.

The word rang in my ears, mocking me.

No baby…

And I felt as though I’d lost my first love, the immovable rock I’d always trusted with my heart.

35

Skylar

I sipped my coffee by the living room window, watching the ocean roll and dip. The sun had been up for a few hours, but Ashton still slept.

Rhett hadn’t joined us in our bed the night before, and for once, I didn’t care what the man did.

He’d embarrassed the hell out of me at Ashton’s birthday party—after I’d done the very same thing to myself without realizing it until the words about my gift for him had thoughtlessly tumbled from my mouth.

I knew I’d been judged left and right before that moment Rhett muttered something that knifed my heart like a killing blow.

Inappropriate.

I didn’t fit in with Rhett’s crowd—because that was what those guests had been—just as reserved and noses-in-the-air as him. They weren’t Ashton’s people.

Well, except for the other triad in attendance.

Haley had latched onto my side when Ashton had gone upstairs, and she’d even given me her number before they left so I could reach out whenever I was in the mood for a girl’s night out with her and her cousin Lily—who also had two lovers.

I’d watched how Wyatt and Garrett interacted with Haley and each other after the party had returned to normal around us. Coveting what the three of them had found, the fact no jealousy mingled among them, just pure acceptance and a complete sharing of love, worsened the hurt in my chest.

My heart ached almost as much as the cramps over my lower abdomen. The arrival of my period the morning before had saddened me more than I’d expected, but it was the devastation on Ashton’s face that had sunk my spirits low to the point of tears.

He’d grown consumed with getting me pregnant, and while I’d been enjoying all the sex we’d been having, I felt as though Ash become…too focused. As if single-mindedness had taken over his brain, he rarely spoke about anything else but the child we would have and how perfect of a mother I would be.

I knew about Ashton’s father, but I didn’t understand his desperation that bordered on lunacy. I also didn’t have access to his mind and the thoughts he wouldn’t share concerning the matter whenever I found the gall to ask him.

But I loved him and desired a future with him regardless of whatever turmoil drove him.

Rhett’s involvement in Ashton’s and my future would be up to him, but I no longer pined for the man to want me in the same way Ashton did.

I would never ask Ashton to choose, nor did I expect him to. Somehow, someway, the three of us would have to find a peaceful path and make things work regardless of the boulders Rhett placed before us, because I wasn’t going anywhere.

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