Page 42 of Secret Twins for the Orc

She doesn’t think I’m worthy. She never has, not from the very start. Last night’s words were just that to her—words. Empty and spoken in the heat of the moment, without meaning or intention. She thinks our children will be better without a father at all, rather than having me in the picture in any way.

She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care.

“Rhokar, what? You can’t lay that all on me.” Her voice is strengthening with heat, with defensive anger in her tone, and her eyes are alight with that anger. Still, I can’t pick my heart up off the floor to feel a response to her emotion as I stare at her.

“I didn’t think I needed protection,” she continues, “didn’t know I got pregnant! How can you blame me for all the things I couldn’t have known?”

Maybe I am a harsh male. Maybe I’m too quick to anger, too slow to show affection. Maybe I don’t smile often enough and work too much and have no sense of humor and all the things Morgatha accused me of before she left. But I’m trying, gods damn it. I’m trying.

I guess that’s just not good enough for Ella.

That’s when, finally, the anger does come.

“You’ve been here almost a month,” I growl, and I clench my fists by my side. “Did you know by then?”

She presses her lips together and doesn’t respond.

“Did you not realize that they were mine? Have you fucked so many orcs that you’ve lost count over the years? Jumbled us all together?”

She takes in a sharp pull of air at my harsh words, and a matching fire flickers behind her blue eyes. “I know who their father is,” she says quietly.

“But you didn’t tell me.” I take another step back from her, my lips curling down around my tusks. “You think keeping those kids away from me is for the best.”

“I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“It doesn’t matter how I’d react. I have a right to—”

“It does matter!” she suddenly cries, and when she steps towards me her finger is pointing accusingly at my chest. “You acted like you hated me, Rhokar. Like you despised the sight of me, couldn’t stand to have me in the same room. What was I supposed to think? That I’d tell you we’ve got kids, and you’d suddenly love me?”

My gut twists at those words for some reason, my heart stuttering and all air squeezing out of my lungs at the word love.

“Should I have begged the man who threw insults at every turn to come and play house with me over the weekend? How did I know you wouldn’t hate my babies more? Hate the sight of them, the proof of our coming together that you so clearly seemed to want to forget about?”

Another twist in my gut, another clench in my heart. But it boils up and spits out as anger. Protective, defensive anger. “You’re the one who wanted to forget me. You’re the one who used me and left.”

“It was a one-night stand, Rhokar! I didn’t do anything wrong!” Her dark hair is messy around her face, still fluffed from sleep and falling into her wild, angry eyes. “I get you’ve got issues, but you’re not the only one with problems! I’m dealing with shit too. I’ve got attachment issues, an ex who divorced me because I couldn’t have kids, a career that demands as much attention as a newborn—and I’ve got twins. From you. A sexy, fucked up orc who Iwish I’d taken a chance on, if I hadn’t been so afraid. I told you I was afraid, and you’re still turning this on me.”

“Don’t…” I take a deep pull of air, squeezing my fists harder. “Don’t play the victim. Don’t change the subject.” Another one of Morgatha’s favored tactics. Twist the argument, weave it around and around until it’s about every fault I have, and the original issue gets lost in the fallout.

“Play the victim?” Ella splutters in outrage.

“This is about your decision to keep my children away from me. I’m their father, damn it!” My heart thrums violently against my ribs, waves of anger and heat slicing through my entire body. “I have a right to be in their lives. You denied me that right. You denied it from them, too.You didn’t even try.”

She stops her angry advance on me, dropping her finger as I stand fast before her. And then quietly, she opens her mouth and says, “Do you know what I thought when I first saw you standing in your office, waiting for me?”

I huff and don’t respond. How on earth am I supposed to know the answer to that?

“I’ thought…” she continues softly. “I’ though, I’d finally found you. I’ thought, for the briefest moment, that I’d gotten a second chance to fix my mistakes and overcome my fears, and see if you were the man that I needed you to be. If I could be the woman that you needed.”

The squeeze of my heart is painful now, and I no longer know what it means.

“And then your face changed, Rhokar, like you were looking at something disgusting. You demanded that I get out. And you didn’t look at me with anything but anger and disdain for a long time after that.”

A silence rings between us, and my fingers loosen at my side.

“How was I supposed to know what to do?” she whispers. “I amtrying, Rhokar, but I don’t have a manual. And I’m doing it all alone.”

“You didn’t have to be alone.” Don’t. I should have said, don’t.

---