Fractured Freedom(54)

“My baby?” I whispered.

It wasn’t possible.

She’d been on the pill.

Every woman I’d ever slept with other than her I’d been adamant about protection. I made sure no part of me was going to grow in another human unless I planned for it.

I’d always been careful. And I’d always protected her.

Except when I hadn’t.

Just one time.

“You were on the pill.”

“It wasn’t effective, I guess,” she whispered, one tear falling over the rim of her lashes and down that smooth cheek of hers.

“You had my baby in your belly and you didn’t tell me?” It shouldn’t have come out as an accusation, but it was one.

She recoiled at my words like I’d whipped her. “Dante, I was trying to do the right thing. I’d already trapped you into taking my virginity.”

“Trapped? Oh now you trapped me. I thought I shouldn’t complain because my dick was happy.”

“Jesus.” She combed her hand through her hair. “I know this is a lot, and I’m sorry, okay?”

“No.” She wasn’t going to get off that easy. “No, Delilah, you and your need to be perfect and do all the right shit doesn’t have a place here. Your sorry isn’t good enough.”

“Well, what would be good enough?” She threw her hands out, then winced at how loud she was. “Me emailing you while you were overseas to say that I had a positive pregnancy test? That I was sure the pill was ninety-nine percent effective, but somehow we’d messed it up? I was supposed to be the one good girl you slept with, and then I’d done it all wrong. And on top of that, I carried the baby wrong too. I couldn’t even bring them to life or know when they were dead inside me and …” She choked on her own sobs and sucked in air as tears fell from her pretty eyes.

She curled into herself as if the pain was too much to endure on her own. And her sobs had me in anguish along with her.

“Lamb, nothing you did was wrong. You’re taking responsibility for something you can’t control,” I said to her immediately.

She dropped her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook with her crying. My reaction to her pain was immediate. My hand shot out to the leg of her chair and gripped it. Then, I dragged it and her around the table so she was close enough for me to grab her by the waist and pull her to me.

“What are you doing, Dante?” she murmured as she wiped her eyes.

“Taking care of you,” I said into her neck as I made her legs straddle me. Then I wrapped my arms around her and pulled at her hair so she had to look up and meet my eyes. “I was always here to take care of you. I’m your family. I picked you up off the cement when you hurt your ankle, drove you to school, and even knocked more than a few heads together when they looked at you the wrong way. Me. I’m supposed to be your guy, huh? The guy who takes care of you, Lilah. You didn’t let me.”

“I didn’t know what I was going to do, Dante.” She frowned at me. “I thought about getting rid of him or her.”

When she hung her head in remorse, I tipped her chin back up. “You were eighteen. You had every right to consider every option. No one would judge you for that.”

She sniffled and searched my eyes for a lie. She wouldn’t find one. She cleared her throat. “Well, my body made the choice for me. I just honestly didn’t want you to hate me and so I didn’t tell you. I never wanted any of my family to hate me. I couldn’t let any of you down,” she whispered. The fear I saw when she shivered at the thought was enough for me to at least try to let go of my anger.

Try.

It wasn’t gone.

“Hate? No. But I’m fucking furious with you, Lamb,” I said, as her tears fell into my neck and her pain poured out in waves. I was her shoulder to cry on, and I had to be that before anything else.

She nodded into my neck like she couldn’t bear to lift her head. I wouldn’t have let her, anyway. My hands were in her hair, soothing, petting, massaging. It was like we were finally one again and I was checking my other half for permanent damage.

She had internal bumps and bruises, sure, but we could fix all that.

This had to be fixable.

“You owe me all the answers, but I’ll let you give them to me slowly.”

“I probably deserve to have you torture them out of me fast,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, there’s about a million different forms of torture and punishment that I shouldn’t be thinking about inflicting on you, but I am.”

That finally got her to lift her head, and she squinted at me. “You are?”

“I’m always thinking about how to make a person submit to me, Lilah. It’s in my nature.”

She bit her lip at my words, and I knew this was headed in the wrong direction fast. I couldn’t have this woman sitting on my dick and hold a serious conversation with her.

I gripped her hips, about to lift her off, but her hand shot out to grab my wrist. “Wait. What do you mean, submit? And what type of punishment?”

“Lilah,” I warned in a low voice. “Now’s not the time.”

“I’m here because of my mental health, Dante. I’m here because I can’t get over the thing I can’t do, which is make a baby. I suffered for four years in college. I cried through most of it. I hooked up with men thinking it would change me. I mean, I couldn’t even get off until Christmas in that bathroom with you—”