Page 73 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

She had been on the verge of admitting that to herself quite some time ago. But it was more complicated than that. She loved him, and she recognized that loving someone who was not prepared to love you in return could create all manner of hurt. That if she wasn’t careful, she could become like her mother, and she didn’t want that. Not in the least.

She wanted to avoid that at all costs.

Not because she didn’t love her mother, but because she was able to recognize the mistakes her mother had made. She could recognize the things that had soured her, she hoped. Then try to avoid them.

But when she looked at him she worried. When she looked at him, she was concerned. Because what if he didn’t... What if he couldn’t. What if he would never love her in the way she loved him.

And what would that do to them. And what would it do to her, and to their relationship with their children.

She knew about his deep wound. She knew about his darkest pain. But she wasn’t sure even he fully understood the way that it had affected him.

She was just now getting to the bottom of how her own life had affected her, and all the things that she needed to put away. The things that her mother had been dealing with that she’d made about herself, because she was a child who hadn’t known how to allow her mother to be human.

She could recognize that, and still also recognize that there were mistakes she didn’t want to repeat with her own children. And the thing that she feared the most was becoming bitter over the lack of love. Except... She wondered if the key was being open. If it was being vulnerable. And that frightened her. How could it not. How could it not frighten her to ponder being open and vulnerable to a man who... Wasn’t. He had moments of it. She felt that she had seen his truest self when he had thrust inside of her and growled and proclaimed that she was his.

She didn’t want to be vulnerable alone. The thought was terrifying.

But also... She realized that she might have to be. She realized that what she could not do was close down.

It would keep her from opening her heart to her children, wasn’t that why it had taken her so long to feel joy in her pregnancy?

Joy.

Constantine was lying on the beach, the sun making his perfect skin gleam. She was hot, and she waded out into the water, and let the waves wash over her bare skin. She threw her arms out wide and looked up at the sky. And for the first time, she felt like there were no chains on her. No limits. She wasn’t struggling. She had been given a gift, and she had felt some guilt over the fact that it was possible she might only be a better mother because of the access and wealth she’d been given.

But she realized then that wasn’t it. She would be better because she would make the choice. Because she would choose joy even when it was hard. Because she would choose vulnerability, even when she wanted to protect herself.

Because she would choose love, even when it was easier to choose anger. And then, right then, she felt it. Shining in her soul like the sun, a beacon of light that she didn’t think she could contain. She was going to be a mother. She was having twins.

She was married to the father of her children and he was beautiful. An astonishing, wonderful man who had been through great pain. But who she knew had the capacity to care greatly too, because if he did not then his pain would not mark him so.

She gave herself permission. To feel all of her feelings. To luxuriate in them. She was having Constantine’s babies. And she loved him. She loved him with everything that she was. And she would show him. Before she ever asked for anything else. She would show him. She would make herself vulnerable.

No matter the cost.

No matter the cost.

It was two days later that she asked to have an adventure.

“Am I not myself a great adventure, Morgan?” he asked.

She smiled. She loved him when he was arrogant. But now that she had given herself permission to use those words in her own heart, she found herself thinking she loved him all the time.

It was such an interesting thing, to be unfettered. And that was a gift from him. Not from his money, but from who he was innately.

This man who was so confident in and of himself, and who looked at her like she was the stars.

That she had the power to test him and tempt him mattered to her.

But there was more to it than that even. He seemed to like everything about her, and to never be happier than when she was walking about naked.

He accepted admonishments from her, and allowed her to put sunblock on him, even though he insisted he was inured to the Greek sun, as a child of these lands.

He shared with her, even when he didn’t want to. And there was something about that which made her feel grounded in her own importance. Which gave her the confidence to open herself up to feelings and desires she had previously kept closed off.

There was a wholeness to herself now.

She felt comfortable in her skin even as it expanded to accommodate the children she carried. Felt comfortable in her skin when he touched her, tasted her, did things to her that no other man ever had, and that she had never wanted another man to do.

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