Page 18 of Mine to Worship

“Then we’ll stay right here,” he says, voice taut with resolution. “Do you actually believe I could leave you?”

I tilt my head. “I wish you would.”

His face gives a pained expression.

I wish I would feel better after my dig. Stupid, selfless love.

His eyes find mine, intent with seriousness. “My brain tells me, ‘Let her go, let her be, you had your chance, and you ruined everything,’ but there is my heart, craving you, needing you, wanting you.” He lifts my hand to his heart, the strong beats thumping rhythmically against my fingertips. “It prays at your altar, and it says hope. For the first fucking time, I hope I deserve to make things better. We made a baby together, and I hate that it causes you pain, but I can’t regret it. I am a selfish bastard.” His larger hand covers mine, and he places them against my belly. “In there is the biggest proof of how much I have loved and craved you.”

My heart twitches in my chest. For months, I had hoped for him to let me in, to open up and share this part of him with me. I haven’t even recovered from the first heartbreak. Am I willing to risk a second one?

“Every time he comes in here, it is a reminder that you deserve someone like him and not the fucked-up man that I am. You said I am not bad. What about now, as you lie in this bed, pregnant with my baby, because this is how desperate I was to keep you?”

Tears blur my vision. His confessions rip the well-constructed walls from my chest. My emotions overwhelm me.

I scoot up and throw up in a bucket before I collapse on my back,

“Ellia?” He presses the emergency button. “What can I do, angel?”

Stay. My raw heart’s desire for Kian startles me. Stupid thing, it’s him who broke you.

Chapter 8

Kian

Seeing Ellia ill fucking kills me. When the anti-nausea medication starts working, she falls asleep. I caress her pale face and lower to kiss her forehead. Once outside, I crane my neck back towards the sky and draw a steadying breath. I need to calm down. I’m not helping her if I’m angry at something I can’t control.

Esther approaches me.

“Running away?” Irony drips from her mouth and she tips a cup of coffee to her lips. I appreciate how much she loves my wife, but I’m on a hell of an emotional roller-coaster fighting to get my woman back.

“I am not going anywhere, but do you think it would be better for her if I left?”

Surprise rounds her eyes. “Are you asking me?”

“If Walter had stayed, would you have forgiven him?”

“Our story was doomed from the start.”

I look up at the hospital. Maybe ours too.

“My niece is in there, facing a difficult pregnancy, and a broken heart. But she ate today, the nurse told me. Thank you for that.”

“I love her.” Three simple words, and when strung together they mean everything. “I…” For the first time in my life I don’t know what to do or say.

“She’s the one in the hospital, so freak out after she’s released.”

This woman has the uncanny ability to both put me in my place and make me wish for her approval.

“What should I do to help her?”

“Be there for her.”

I nod and stride back inside.

Ellia’s blue eyes filled with anguish gut me.

“What’s wrong?” I plead with my eyes for her to tell me the truth and not a version of better. “Please, tell me the truth.” I take her hand in mine and she holds onto it.

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