Page 71 of The Irish Arrangement

She huffed a weak, teary laugh. “When? When you fucked me and left? When I thought you meant it that I didn’t matter as anything but a woman to give you a baby, an heir?”

That was my own fault. I couldn’t deny it. Before I got to know her at all, that was exactly how I’d treated her, too cautious that she wouldn’t last.

Now, though…

“And I can’t even do that.” She covered her face, burying it behind her hands as she cried softly again.

“What?” The sound of her tears tore at me, but I couldn’t reach out and comfort her until I understood. Can’t what?

“I can’t give you anything. I can’t give you an heir.”

I narrowed my eyes. No. That couldn’t be possible. Ian vetted her after the fact. The Sullivans’ private doctor would have noticed it on her record and told me.

If he had all the records.

“What are you saying?”

She lifted her face, blinking through her tears. “I can’t have a baby. I had complications with a ruptured ovarian cyst when I was a teen. They removed one ovary, and the other was damaged. I’m infertile.”

I stood, glaring down at her. She’d kept this all from me.

“You…”

She suggested that she stay my wife for six months unless she was pregnant, knowing damn well that she wouldn’t be.

“You can’t have kids?” I had to hear her repeat it so this new bombshell of truth could sink in.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I kept it from you. But I had to secure a way out. To look out for myself but still go through with what my father expected of me in order to get Mom taken care of.”

I paced away from the bed, whirling back to glare at her. Rage took over. Confusion swarmed within me too.

“You’re telling me…” I growled, unable to accept this.

“I’m sorry. I was just trying to do the best I could. And I still am. I’m trying my best to do the right thing.”

“The right thing is not fucking lying to me.”

She furrowed her brow, getting some of that sass back. “Oh, so when you told me you didn’t want to suffer through having a wife, just to get an heir, I was supposed to pipe up and say, nope, look around for someone else because I can’t do that? Then I never would have gotten Mom taken care of—or so I thought at the time.”

I stared her down, mesmerized by the fight that never died in her emerald gaze. No matter what. She’d stand up and fight until the end of any cause she set herself to.

“Are you telling me that it is impossible for you to have a child?”

I had to know. After all, that was the reason I’d married her in the first place!

Her slender shoulders lifted and fell. “I don’t remember all that the doctors told me. Mom wasn’t there, back at the farm to deal with an issue. I heard the doctors, and I was groggy and so confused, but the discharge papers listed it all. That I’d lost so much and wouldn’t be likely to have children. I grew up assuming I never would.”

“It was cruel to let me think you could.” I shook my head, walking away. Cruel, but I could understand her motives.

And now that we’d gotten close… I knew my reasons for having her in my life had changed.

I wanted her to be my wife because of something that I suspected was profound love.

I loved her, and knowing she’d been so scared she’d stayed strong and hidden her woes from me suggested that she’d never return that affection.

“Cara, answer me plainly. Can you have children?”

She chewed on her lip, lowering her gaze again. “I don’t know, Declan. I’m unable to tell you that. I can’t predict the future. All I can explain—too late to expect forgiveness—is that I likely never will.”

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