Page 68 of Bae

She worried her lower lip. I used my thumb to stop her and smoothed out the soft flesh.

“A list, Romeo,” she said again.

“Baby, stop worrying about some stupid list. How many lists do you make every single day, and how many do you walk out of the house or shelter without, making them useless anyway?”

She giggled.

That’s because the answer was all of them. Rim and her lists. She made them, but she never actually looked at them.

“This is a list of women who want to have my husband’s baby.” Her voice caught. The underlying pain she’d lived with since Evie was evident.

“That’s right.Yourhusband. I belong to you, Rim. Always. I don’t want anyone but you. I haven’t since the day you spilled pencils everywhere, in your lesbian sweater, and gave me a list of rules.”

A laugh bubbled up in her, but it didn’t quite make it out.

It killed me to see her like this. I felt the storm raging inside her. I understood now that today pushed her past her limits; her breaking point was exceeded. I had no idea how to reassure her. I didn’t know how to downplay what the press was saying. The fact was it sucked. There wasn’t much I could do about stupid lists and bitches with signs (except tear those signs in half).

I glanced at the top of her head, which was right in my line of sight because her chin was dipped, lying against her chest.

“What if I can’t?” she whispered.

“What if you can’t what, sweetheart?” I murmured, brushing away some of the hair concealing her face.

Her breath hitched. My chest clenched.

“What if I can’t give you a baby? What if Evie was our only chance?”

An audible click echoed through me. That one sound held a lot of answers.

It also let me know I was an idiot.

No clue… I had no idea she felt this way. As if the guilt I knew wasn’t enough already, it doubled.

“Rimmel.” Her name sounded more like a sigh, a slight admonishment. It brought her eyes up to mine. They were watery, tormented, and her chin wobbled.

Shit.Carefully, I hooked an arm around her, pulling her close. She collapsed against my chest, and a deep sob broke free. I’d only heard that kind of sound from her once before. The night she lost our daughter.

That sound haunted me, rattled around inside me with all the other ghosts of that night… In many ways, I’d become a haunted house. I became fearful of that sound and if I’d ever hear it again.

Her tears were wet against my chest. I felt them slide over my pec and disappear somewhere between us.

I was an alpha. Always in control, always the solid one everyone looked to for answers. I fixed shit. That’s who I was.

I didn’t know how to fix this.

How had I missed that my wife was still so deeply in pain? How had I not known she was terrified of never holding a baby in her arms?

I tucked her closer, tightening my grip, because at the moment, the least I could offer was my strength. God knows I wasn’t sure what else I could.

She snuggled closer, and in a tortured, tear-disrupted voice, she spoke. “It took me months and months to get pregnant. Longer than most women my age. I started to even doubt I could, but then Evie…”

She cried again, her words interrupted by the agony in her heart erupting and flowing out like hot lava from an active volcano.

“I was so happy. We were so happy. And then I lost her… I wasn’t strong enough to carry her. My body didn’t protect her. I didn’t protect her like I should have. Now she’s gone… and I’m scared, Romeo.” She pulled her head up, looking at me with red eyes. “What if I can’t get pregnant again? What if I do and I lose the baby again? What if giving you children is just something my body can’t do?”

She sniffled and rubbed at her face, wiping away the worst of the tears. Little gasping sounds shook her as she tried to rein in the emotion taking over her body.

God, she carried so much. Too much.

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