The Strength of the Pack (Suncoast Society #30)(50)

“And is that part of the second thing you wish to talk about?”

“Yes.”

Here was a tiny spotlight brightly illuminating what was, at best, a side issue. A relatively minor one in the grand scheme of things. A baby was not a bad thing, even someone else’s.

The larger problem and barrier to them ever being together was that “second thing.”

“Are there any other issues, besides the other issue, that I need to know about?”

“No, Sir. That’s it.”

He laced fingers with her. “Will having this baby make you happy?”

She finally looked up into his eyes and nodded. “For a lot of reasons.”

“To be honest, I raised a child. Maybe not biologically, but I was there all her life. I had also reached a point of acceptance that I likely wasn’t going to father a child with whoever I ended up settling down with. If this is going to make you happy, and you’re doing this of your own free will, and you and I will still be able to have our relationship while you’re pregnant, then I’m okay with it.”

Gobsmacked didn’t come close to describing the shock on her face. “Really?”

“What, would you rather me get territorial or jealous or be unreasonable about it?”

“I…” She stared, stunned.

“One of my rules is that you cannot be romantically involved with someone else. You can’t be sleeping with them. If you’re going through a doctor to do this, that still, to me, follows my rules. I don’t wish you to help him with the sample collection, as it were. I would suppose that’s Leo’s job.”

She sat up and stared at him. “You’re okay with this? Really?”

“Really.”

“I…I can’t promise you that I’ll want to or even be able to have another baby after this one. I’m going to be forty soon.”

He smiled. “I can do the math. That’s an issue we can discuss later. Not having a biological child with you isn’t a deal-breaker for me. It never has been. I love you for countless reasons, but your ability to conceive or not isn’t one of them.”

She kissed him, throwing her arms around him and squeezing tightly as she broke down crying again. “Thank you, Sir.”

“I told you, I’m in this for life. Now, my opinion would have been drastically different had you decided to do this without talking to me first after I collared you. I will demand input then.”

“Yes, Sir.”

He palmed her cheek, brushing his thumb over her flesh. “So if I’d freaked out and said absolutely not, we wouldn’t still be talking right now, would we?”

She laid her head against his chest. “No, Sir.”

He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the top of her head.

“You said there was more. Are you ready to talk about the rest of it, then?”

“Yes, Sir.”

She didn’t continue.

“I’m not asking or ordering you to tell me. I’m still not changing my position on that. You have to be willing to tell me.”

Her breath hitched. “What do you think it is?”

“You honestly want me to guess?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’re about to reveal to me that your father sexually abused you and you were—rightly—worried about him abusing Laurel. I think that’s part of the reason why you fought the divorce so hard at first, and I think it’s tied into why you had such an aversion to giving oral sex. I think that’s another reason you’ve accepted Jesse into your home so readily, because he’s a protector. Maybe you even suspected there were issues with your marriage years before Leo finally tried to gently disengage from you, but you turned a blind eye to them because you loved Leo and you were terrified to be alone. Not because of being alone, but because you were afraid for Laurel and yourself. You looked like your biological mother, unlike your two sisters, so your father, who still hadn’t gotten over your mother, turned his…attentions onto you.”

She sat back, looking shocked.

He continued. “I think you do a good job hiding all this from our friends, but Leo and Jesse can see through you like a glass of water. I can, too, to a certain extent. Past events all make complete sense when taken in that context. I think you used self-injury in the past as a way to deal with the abuse and emotional pain. There likely are one or two suicide attempts in your past. Whatever happened that night at the hospital with your parents, the night of Leo’s accident, you agreed to the custody deal to ensure Jesse had legal guardianship of Laurel so your parents absolutely couldn’t take custody of her.

“At Christmas, you made a reference to Jesse about something I didn’t know at that time. When he thanked us all for a great day, you thanked him back, and said, ‘you know why.’ I suspect perhaps Jesse interrupted a self-injury or suicide attempt, or otherwise ‘saved’ you, which is why you say he saved your life.”

Silence, just wide, staring eyes.

“No, Leo and Jesse didn’t tell me any of that. They never betrayed your trust. So, how accurate was I?”

She slowly nodded.

“Now, you tell me first what your father said to you at the house while I was in the bathroom. Then you may start wherever you wish to start in telling me the rest.”