Page 46 of Contractually Wed

Jia opened her mouth and closed it, feeling a cold fist in her chest, spreading like a crack in ice over a lake.

He’d figured it out. Of course he’d figured it out. God, how stupid was she? What had her fear and cowardice brought them to?

Instead of telling him the truth, instead of sharing her fears, instead of having faith in the best thing that had ever happened to her, she’d broken the little, tenuous trust that had formed between them. “I did think that. But that’s because—”

He flinched, and stepped back. As if she was a thing that could harm and hurt him. And Jia’s heart broke alongside his. “And yet you throw it in my face that you don’t need my permission? Of course you don’t need my permission to go anywhere or to see your damned family. But if you’re leaving me, with my child in your belly, have the courage to say it to my face.”

“I’d never have run away like that,” she said, willing him to hear the conviction in her voice. “Never. But leaving you, yes, I considered it. And discarded it, all in a minute. Not telling you was...” she said, getting off the bed.

He stared at her as she walked toward him as if she was his nightmare come alive.

“Killing me. If you saw the torment, you know the reason now. I wanted to share it with you, I wanted to make plans with you, I wanted to tell you that...”

He clutched her wrists when she wanted to wrap her arms around him, and stared down at her, some dark, hungry thing in his eyes.

It was his faith in her, in them, flickering out, Jia realized, on its last breath. All along, it had been there, brilliant and alive and she had nearly doused it with her fears and foolishness.

“But you did not,” he said, releasing her. As if he couldn’t bear to touch her. “Every moment of you not telling me, every breath felt like torture. Like torment. And then all of a sudden, you say you have a solution. You say you will be better. You want to leave for bloody New York. What do you think that leads me to believe?”

“I know. And I’m so sorry, Apollo. I wanted that trip to be a goodbye to the old me, the stupid, scared, pushover me. I wanted to come back to our life, to this life with a free, fresh perspective. I wanted to beg my father to—”

“I don’t want you to have anything to do with your blasted family.”

“I don’t want anything from them either,” Jia said, her own voice rising now. “Why do you think I’ve been pushing you to forget about this damned revenge? Why do you think I offered to sell my stock to you even though it was the one thing I swore to myself I wouldn’t do?”

“I don’t want your stock. I told you—”

“How can you not see how that makes me feel? I wanted you free of this obsession with him, with that company. I wanted us free of the thing that brought us together. I wanted a fresh start with you. And I knew seeing them and my old life would only show me how far I’ve come. Would give me courage.”

He shook his head and Jia knew he wasn’t listening. That her hiding the truth had taken him out at the knees. That his feelings for her, the very feelings she’d been afraid he didn’t have, made it possible for her to hurt him.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, a rattling groan making his powerful body shake. “You should have told me that you’re pregnant. You had so many opportunities, so many nights, so many—”

“I was scared that when you found out about this pregnancy, you would want me only for the baby. Never for me. I wanted you to want me for just myself, Apollo. And I’m sorry that I made you doubt me, that I...” Jia closed her eyes, wondering if she’d left it too late. If she’d burned down the little trust between them completely.

When she opened her eyes, he was gone. And that felt like a body blow to her.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting for him to return, she went back to the bed, grabbed the pillow and buried her face in it. Only a faint whiff of his scent was left in the fabric.

Fear clogged her throat, but she forced herself to breathe past it. She spent a few minutes talking to the bean in her belly, that their papa was angry but that she’d sort it out. All she had to do was wait out his very justified anger and tell him how much she loved him. At least she knew her own heart now.

She wanted a life with him, this wonderful, aching, real life with him. And she hoped he’d give her a chance to prove it to him. Because she knew now, beyond doubt, that he was happier than he’d ever been before, with her, that her pain had hurt him too, and that he loved her, even if he wouldn’t admit it for the rest of their lives.

She had to have faith enough for the both of them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

AFTERAWHOLEweek of Apollo not returning to the family home, or returning her calls, Jia decided she’d had enough. Yes, she’d hurt him, but couldn’t he give her once chance to explain it? See it from her point of view? Understand that it had been her desperation to matter to him that had led her to hiding the truth?

Only now, when she was more rational, did she understand how deeply she’d hurt him. He expected her to abandon him like his father had done. And that was what she’d have done if knowing him and loving him hadn’t changed her on a cellular level.

And maybe the only way to prove to him how much he meant to her was to leave this life and come back by her own choice.

And no matter what the state of her relationship, she wanted to attend her sister’s wedding. She wanted a chance to build a new kind of relationship with her sister, who was doing her best to make amends.

So one bright chilly morning, Jia booked a flight, packed her bag and came downstairs to find Apollo’s mother in the kitchen.

If she hadn’t already cried enough to last a lifetime, she’d have fallen apart in front of this kind woman who even then had looked at her with nothing but understanding. Maria had wrapped her arms around Jia, kissed her temple, and gave her advice about how to combat the nausea and to take care of herself on the long flight.

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