Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(110)

Part of him was in shock.

Part of him was raging with fury.

Part of him was trying to keep a massive wave of protectiveness and gratitude and excitement at bay until he had all the details. He actively fought the overwhelming urge to race into the adjacent bedroom, pick up Ava Grace’s sleeping body, and hold it against his for hours, staring at her face and listening to her breathe.

Only one emotion was completely salient and undivided within him: the pure, unadulterated, deep, forever-love he suddenly felt for Ava Grace. In fact, if he hadn’t actually been experiencing the instinctive and instant love that was presently overtaking every cell of his body, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible to love another human being so completely, so profoundly, so eternally, in the space of a few minutes. But there it was inside him: so much love for that little girl, he didn’t know how his heart could possibly contain it.

She was his baby, his child, his daughter—

Laire cleared her throat as she stepped back into the room, and Erik opened his eyes, focusing them on his daughter’s mother.

—and they had been deliberately kept apart for six agonizing years.

He desperately hoped that she had a good reason for this because if she didn’t, it was unconscionable that she would do such a thing to Ava Grace . . . and to him.

She sat down in her chair and took a deep breath.

“I thought I had cancer,” she said softly. “By November, I was tired all the time, and gaining weight. Smells that had never bothered me suddenly made me nauseous. When I put my symptoms into Google, pregnancy wasn’t even a suggested diagnosis, but hypothyroidism was.”

She turned to look at him, her eyes so sad, he had to force himself to stay seated and not reach for her and pull her into his arms. “My mother died of thyroid cancer, so I was certain that’s what I had. I even . . .”

Her voice broke for a moment, and she bit her bottom lip until she was composed enough to speak. “Erik, I was so messed up at that point, I actually thought it could be a good thing if I had cancer. My father and sisters would have to forgive me for being with you that night if I was that sick. They’d have to stop looking at me sideways, like I was a dirty girl, a bad seed. They’d have to love me again.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled on an “ohhhh” sound, clenching her jaw before continuing. “Kyrstin brought me to the clinic here in Hatteras, and they did a urine test. That’s how I found out I was pregnant . . . the week before Thanksgiving.”

Erik stared at her, his chest hurting as he tried to take a deep breath and failed. He couldn’t imagine how frightened she’d been, or how alone she’d felt. Hating himself for not being there for her, he somehow managed to nod, urging her to continue.

“Kyrstin said that I should choose an island boy and seduce him.” She chuckled ruefully, wiping a tear away. “Crazy, right? But you have to understand where she was coming from—being away for a night with you had sent my father into a coronary. Telling him I was having a baby out of wedlock? It would have killed him. Kyrstin actually thought she was helping by making that suggestion. She said that I should choose one of the boys we’d grown up with, get him drunk, sleep with him, get married to him, and let everyone on Corey believe it was his baby.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I still . . . I still loved you. I still believed in you. I insisted to Kyrstin that if I told you, you’d make it right. And the timing? It almost felt like a miracle. I knew how to find you, exactly where you’d be. If I could just get to Utopia Manor on Thanksgiving and talk to you, it would all be okay.”

“But it wasn’t okay, was it?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

She shook her head, dropping his eyes to stare down at her lap in misery.

And it was that small, vulnerable gesture that made him leap from his chair and stand before hers. Without asking her permission, he leaned down and gathered her body into his arms. She looped her arms around his neck, staring into his eyes with such grief, he understood that their chance for happiness—their chance to be a family six years ago—had been stolen from them. And it wasn’t Laire’s fault. And it wasn’t his.

“I love you,” he murmured.

“I . . . I was s-so s-scared,” she sobbed. “S-so alone . . .”

Her face crumpled, and she hid it in the curve of his neck, her body shaking from the force of her sobs. Warm, wet tears landed on his collarbone, rolling down his chest, wetting his undershirt. Holding her carefully, he crossed the room and laid her gently on his bed. Then he walked around and climbed in beside her, drawing her into his arms, her back to his front, his arms under her breasts as she wept.

“No matter what,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the back of her neck, “I love you forever. I love Ava Grace forever. Tell me the rest when you’re ready, baby. I’m here now. I’m here.”

After a few minutes, her sobs turned into deep, ragged breaths, and she turned in his arms, her face tear streaked in the candlelight. Pushing her hair from her forehead he stared into her eyes. “You okay, darlin’?”

She sniffled, mumbled “no,” and half chuckled, half sobbed as she bent her elbow, slid it under her head and looked at him thoughtfully. “D-did you mean it?”

“What?”

“About . . . l-loving us?”