Page 81 of His Secretly Pregnant Cinderella

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SHEHADBEENalone on the island for three weeks. Every day that she felt the babies move, that she ate breakfast alone and lunch and then dinner. That she swam by herself and felt nearly blinded by the constant beauty, she missed him. She was in a rage.

Every day.

She was furious that he had done this to her. But he had done it to them.

How dare he? Really, how very dare he.

But he wasn’t here for her to yell at. And that just added to the indignation of it all.

And then, when she was taking her breakfast one morning, she saw a yacht in the distance and was certain that she was hallucinating. Absolutely certain.

But no, it kept coming, closer and closer. Until there he was. And it took all of her strength not to run out into the sea to greet him. But he wasn’t smiling when he moored the boat. Rather his expression was grim. “I’m sorry,” he said by way of greeting.

“You’re sorry?”

“Yes. And I’ve come to... To apologize and set you free.”

“Set me free?”

“I cannot keep you here on the island. I also cannot keep you with me.”

“Why not?” She felt plaintive and silly and sad. Angry at herself for being hopeful, even for a moment.

“Because I cannot. Because to stay with you is to live with fear. And I cannot do it. Not anymore.”

“Being with me makes you fearful?”

“Yes,” he said. “Because if there’s one thing I know, I cannot protect anyone from the cruelty of this world. And I thought to keep you prisoner. I thought to keep you safe that way. But then I realized... I am the one who cannot handle it. Not you. I will never... I will never take the children to learn to swim, or to the beach. Or to get ice cream. Because I will only ever be able to think of the terror that awaits them. And that is all. That is all their life will ever be. Living with a man who knows only how to keep people in chains to keep them safe.”

“So you would keep yourself in chains instead?”

His eyes were wild, and she felt a great stab of horrible sympathy when he looked at her. “I’m not in chains.” He shook his head. “I am a man in full control when you were not in my life. I never had an issue with this as long as you weren’t there.”

“You love me,” she said.

“No,” he said.

“You do. It’s why you’re afraid for me. The same reason you’re afraid for the children. You love me, and you grieve the fact that you have feelings. But you do. And there’s nothing that can be done about them. Except to give in to them.”

“No.”

“Why do you only trust fate when it’s bad? Why are you so convinced there is evil under every rock, when there is love right here?”

“Because I cannot guarantee—”

“I never asked for your guarantees. I don’t want them. I want you. We must live dangerous. We must live dangerous in order to live free. Or you become hard like my mother, you end up having everything, and being able to enjoy none of it. My mother had me, and I was desperate for her love, and she couldn’t show it because of her fear. Because of the way that my father had hurt her. And you... You are letting the men that took you, the men that took your sister from you decide how happy you will be. Why would you give them that power?”

His throat worked, stark emotion filling his dark eyes.

“You are allowed to have feelings. It is not weak. You wept because you missed your sister. You wept out of fear for her. You were not wrong for doing that. You were not wrong for loving her any more than you are wrong for loving me.”

“But this cannot be...”

“I’m afraid it is,” she said. “I’m afraid you love me. And you can send me away, but you will still love me. And you can keep your children at a distance, and you will love them. It will just be locked in a cage inside of you. And what kind of a tribute is that? To your sister. To your brother. And to your own self. You’re alive, Constantine. We are alive. Why can we not love?”

“I was tasked with being...with being the one to keep us all together. My grandfather told me...”

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