Page 63 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

“I wonder if... I do wonder if the children would be safer if they are not believed to be mine.”

“Safer... Who do you think might come for them?”

“The same people who came for me when I was a child.”

“But surely...”

“They are a powerful crime family. And the vendetta that they had against my grandfather was very real. I now occupy that position.”

“Do you really think concealing the fact that you’re their father will help?”

“I don’t know. I have no way of knowing that. All I know is... My sister...”

“I understand,” she said, even though she didn’t. Not quite. Except he was afraid, this man. This rock. For the children that she carried, and perhaps, she simply needed to acknowledge that. Listen to it. But it hurt her. To think that he might not acknowledge them. Because that did skim far too close to her own truth. To her own life.

A father who never wanted anything to do with her...

But no. He would be there for them. He would.

“You are using this to distance yourself,” she said.

He looked at her, his expression sharp. “What do you mean?”

“You never wanted children, Constantine, and I do think I understand why. I understand that you’ve been through things that... That would break lesser men. And you are not broken. But what I do wonder is this... What I do wonder is if this is an opportunity for you to pull away from being a father. And you are their father.”

“I know that,” he said, his voice hard.

“I didn’t want to be a mother,” she said. “I didn’t. That relationship for me is... It is difficult, and it is complicated. And it hurts me. And I don’t know if I will be a better mother to my children. Or maybe I will be, by default, because I don’t have to worry about money. Because I don’t have to worry about how we live. Maybe that’s the only reason I’ll be better. And does that really make me better?”

“I don’t understand. Why would it matter. Better is better.”

“Is it? I have spent so many years being angry at my own mother, and when I found out I was pregnant I could not muster one kernel of joy. Not in the deepest part of myself. I was so sad. Because I knew that I had done the exact same thing. Gotten pregnant by accident by a man who wanted nothing to do with his own child. Children. It never occurred to me of course that I might be pregnant with two. And if I had been left on my own to care for them, would I have sunk into bitterness just like her? Trying to care for two children on my own, trying to balance the demands of caring for them and having a job? And what would have kept me from that same bitterness?”

“I will,” he said.

“Your money will?”

“Does it matter? Is it not all the same?”

He handed her his phone. “Call her.”

And the thing that saddened and worried her the most was the fact that she really did think money might be the difference, and it felt so... It made her mouth taste like ash.

“Is there a place that I can go...”

“Your bedroom is just here.”

He walked back around the corner and pushed open the door to a phenomenal glass room that stuck out high over the hillside, with trees all around it and the ocean at the front.

“Oh...”

“Every room in this home is designed to be part of nature.”

“It’s beautiful. Everything around me is beautiful all the time when I’m with you.”

And she knew she sounded sad, because she was a little bit sad.

He regarded her for a long moment, and then closed the door behind her.

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