Page 76 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

CHAPTER TWELVE

CONSTANTINECOULDN’TCATCHhis breath. She had destroyed him. This wicked fairy who had taken him out to the middle of nowhere—you took her out here. Maybe he had. But he could scarcely remember now, and it hardly mattered. Because the world had turned upside down, and he no longer knew where he fit in it. Because Morgan was telling him that she loved him, and that was something he simply could not fathom. Something he could not abide by. She loved him.

How was such a thing possible?

She loved him.

His heart was thundering hard, and it wasn’t just from his release.

He hadn’t wanted it to end that way. He had wanted to pull away and thrust inside of her tight, welcoming body, but instead she had swallowed him down.

And it felt like she had won something. Like she had stolen something he had fought his entire life for.

Control.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“That is not necessary,” he said.

“I don’t care if it’s necessary,” she said. She looked up at him like he was... Pitiable. “Or rather, I don’t care if you think it’s necessary. It is. I’ve been thinking... I thought so much that I gave myself a headache. Trying to figure out how not to be the same sort of mother my own was. And then I talked to her. I did more thinking. And I found a lot of sympathy for her that I didn’t have before. But it was when I stopped thinking and started feeling that I found the answers. She came across as bitter because she hardened herself. Because she let the things in her life that hurt her decide what she was allowed to feel. She let it put limits on her happiness. I don’t want to do that. So this is me. Open and raw and vulnerable. This is me loving you. And I am better for it. I will be a better mother. And a better wife. And a better person.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“I know you think you can’t. But you don’t have to know the answer. Not now. You don’t need to tell me anything right now. And it wasn’t... It wasn’t an action item for you. It was a gift to myself.”

“Morgan.”

But she slipped away from the waterfall, back into the water, and she swam away, leaving him there, ragged and bloody and more uncertain than he had been since he was an eight-year-old boy, crying in the dungeon, uncertain if he would live to see tomorrow.

It took him time to figure out what he had to do. He sat up all night considering her words. She loved him. And the way that it had made him feel to hear it was disconcerting. It made his chest ache. And so did she. And he realized... He realized that he didn’t need to be here with her. He needed to get his life in order. He had to deal with his parents head-on, and he had to go back to what he did best. Running the company. Here he had been on an endless vacation with her. Here, he had been ignoring who he was. He had allowed himself to get sucked into a fantasy. He had acknowledged as much days ago, but he hadn’t realized how much this place had been affecting them until she had given him her declaration. She could feel what she wished. But he could not afford to change. He had promised her nothing would happen to her. And he meant that. He would protect her. With all that he was.

And that meant leaving her. But she would be here. She would be safe. He would send fully vetted staff and the doctor to care for her. And he would continue on as he should have this entire time. Because he knew where his strengths were. He handled things. He did not take care of people, not directly. He did not...

He took one last look at the house. And then he slung his bag over his shoulder and walked outside, down toward the yacht.

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