Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I swallowed, my throat dry and scratchy, nodding because I didn’t trust myself to speak.
He stared at me with that chasm behind his eyes, the shape of the man I loved but with no substance. This was the monster.
“You’re pregnant, and you didn’t fucking tell me!” He roared the last part.
Roared.
I’d never heard Jay raise his voice like this. Never. And it was in the face of the news of his unborn child growing inside of me. My stomach lurched with the need to be sick.
Jay was pacing now, like a caged animal, not looking at me, eyes darting around the room as if he was searching for something that he could destroy. There were many expensive, breakable and rare things in this room. Things that would shatter easily, beyond repair. But none them more delicate than me right now.
I steeled myself for the hurt, for the rejection, for the emotional blow, even though he’d promised he wouldn’t do it again. He had promised he wouldn’t break me again. But that was my fault, wasn’t it? For believing the lies of a sinner.
Jay didn’t break anything. Not yet, anyway. He stopped in the middle of the room.
“You kept it from me.” It was an accusation. A sentence.
“I didn’t keep it from you,” I rasped, my throat still dry and scratchy. “I was looking for the right time, with—”
“The right time, Stella, would’ve been the second you found out. The moment you knew that you were growing our child. That was the right time.”
Then he did something that I didn’t think Jay would ever do to me again. Not after everything we’d been through, not after I’d just been kidnapped by the Russian Mob or told him about the baby.
He walked away from me.
Although I felt alone, terrified and heartbroken, I did not follow Jay. It wasn’t a smart decision. I needed him. I’d gone a whole day thinking I’d never see him again, then thinking that I’d lost our baby. My hand went to my lower stomach, still flat. My other hand fingered the black and white picture sitting on our kitchen counter, the one the doctor had printed out before she left.
Of our baby. Our healthy baby.
As happy, as deliriously grateful as that made me, I was afraid. There had been no joy on Jay’s face. Not an ounce. I worried that I’d pushed him with my lies. Pushed him too far. Away.
It was eating me, that worry. Causing my hands to shake and my vision to blur. So I moved to the kitchen, made myself a very sweet cup of tea, one that was meant to cure all things. I sat on a bar stool and drank it, staring at the black and white picture of our baby, waiting to find the strength to go to Jay.
It was dark in our bedroom when I found the strength to go there. Jay was not in bed. He was sitting in an armchair, facing the window, nothing but a shadow.
I was a coward. I didn’t know how to exist around this version of the man that I loved. I went to the shower because I was still wearing the same clothes that were stained with Eric’s blood. The grime of this day. I stayed there for a long time, letting the hot water wash over the knots in my shoulders, mixing with the tears that I finally let fell. Parts of me, tiny, hopeful, foolish parts thought Jay might come to me then. Might step into the shower, fully clothed, take me into his arms, hold me. Whisper his love and devotion then fuck me slowly, filling me up utterly and completely.
But he didn’t do that. That was not my husband.
I got out of the shower, drying myself with the lush, expensive towels I’d washed myself earlier that week—I did those things now. We’d bought everything in the fridge together, only last week, a lifetime ago. Slowly, I lathered lotion over every inch of my body. Once that was done, I took a breath and stared at myself in the mirror. My face was rounder than it used to be. Fuller. Even my lips. My breasts were larger, much larger with every day it seemed, the veins going to my nipples bright and dark against my pale skin.
I turned to the side, running my hand down my stomach, feeling the place where our child was growing. Standing like this, under the harsh light of our bathroom, I could see the swell in my stomach, barely visible but there.
“I see you, little baby,” I whispered.
Then I met my own eyes, took a long and deep breath then went to our bedroom. Went to my husband.
He was still sitting in the same place he’d been when I’d entered. If I didn’t do anything, I knew he’d sit there all night. I knew he’d retreat further and further into himself where I couldn’t reach him.