Ripped (Real, #5)(84)
I clutch my stomach.
“But I didn’t know I’d grow so attached to her in those nine months. She was a part of you and I loved her for it, but it hurt having her inside me too because you left Seattle without me.” I glance away and then back at him, keeping my eyes in the vicinity of his throat, where I see his pulse pounding hard and violently.
“I signed a form to say that I wouldn’t try to find her, but I know she’s out there. We will never know if she’s bullied or has friends, or if she knows who she is. Never know if she has a good mother, because no matter how good they might have looked on paper, what if she didn’t get a good mother? She was probably better than me, but I still . . .” I lift my eyes to his, and I think the hurt, impotence, and pain in them mirror the way I feel. “I wonder if she fits. Maybe she’s grumpy, like me, and people don’t understand her. Or maybe she’s restless, like you. Or she could be beautiful and musical and fun, like you.”
Okay, I can’t keep going, but when I stop all I hear is Mackenna’s voice, cracking as he speaks.
“Pink,” he says, then he clears his throat and shakes his head, falling silent for a long moment, dropping his head as he breathes, in and out, in and out. “Your mother came to me—”
“Kenna, I know,” I admit, taking a step toward him. “I owe you an apology.”
“No, Pink. I owe you six f*cking years. I owe you being there for you and for her—”
“No, I waited too long to tell you, and then you were . . . gone. And you were famous. You were making your dreams come true, and I couldn’t tell you anymore. If you didn’t want me, I was sure you wouldn’t want her.”
“Baby, I would’ve come to you. I f*cking loved you.” He pulls me into his arms, and I feel how hard he’s shaking, how much my news has rocked him. I tighten my arms around his waist and kiss his thick neck, and all I can do is kiss it again, and again, as he stands there holding me, his emotions barely contained in his taut, straining body. “We have a daughter,” he whispers almost reverently in my ear.
“We lost a daughter,” I whisper, hanging my head in shame.
He catches my chin and lifts my face to his.
“We made a daughter,” he corrects.
There’s a spike in my very throat, but I manage to speak through it. “Yes.”
Clouds suddenly darken his eyes. “My girls needed me . . . but I wasn’t there. I was hurting. A rebel, unwanted, writing a stupid song about how much I loathed your kiss.” He rubs my lips with that silver ring that I crave so much, and my whole body shivers. “When really, your kiss was all I wanted. One more kiss from you. For these lips to tell me their owner loved me.”
“We can’t see her . . . can’t talk to her. You have no idea how much I regret it.”
“We will talk to her,” he assures me with steely finality, his ring still skimming over my chin and my neck. “I’ll find a way for us to talk to her.”
Love flows through me. For years I haven’t dared even hope . . . but now I can’t help feel anything but hope. “You don’t hate me?” I hesitate for a second but can’t stop my hands from sliding up the back of his neck to his head.
He laughs bitterly, biting his lip uncertainly for a moment before lifting his gaze to mine. “I’ve hated you, your mother, my father, being apart from you . . . I’ve hated all that I could for as long as I could, but I’m fresh out of hate, Pink.” He’s still biting his lip, his eyes a mix of regret and, above all, acceptance. “I love you,” he whispers. “So we screwed up. We screwed up big. Holy shit, but I don’t want to screw up again. Do you?”
“No, god, no.”
“Then do you love me? And I mean for real, Pink, the nonstop kind.”
This is the thousandth time he’s asked me if I love him.
My heart quakes in my chest in response.
I close my eyes, gathering my courage.
“Come on, babe. Only three words.” He brushes my ear with his lips, his voice urgent, almost pleading. “They’re like magic. Say them, and good things start happening.”
“I said them to you in front of thousands of people, you greedy man,” I whisper-laugh, then, completely serious, “Kenna, I haven’t said them to a man in my entire life, except to my dad, and look what he did to us.”
“Holding back those words wouldn’t have made it hurt any less.” He strokes the pink strand of my hair between his thumb and index finger. “So, he made a mistake. Difference is, he didn’t have a chance to fix it—but we do. Come on, Pink, say it, tell me. The next couple of decades, you will say those words to me, and that’s a promise I’m making to you right now. Now, tell me that you love me.”
“I f*cking do!”
His laugh is deep, delicious. “You still won’t say the ‘L’ word?” he asks. “After all we’ve been through? All these years apart, when we could’ve been together?”
The quivers in my heart are spreading down my limbs too.
Love.
It’s just one word.
But when it’s so real and true and you feel it in your heart, when it has hurt you and you’re afraid to lose it again, it becomes more than just one word. It becomes everything. Everything this man is to me.