Page 49 of Returning for His Unknown Son

She fell back on her haunches, fear stifling her breath. And when she was afraid, she got angry. All those years spent in hospitals, she’d spent either being angry or learning to code. “Where the hell would you go if not back with us?”

“I’ve decided to see a neurologist. At a Swiss clinic. He’s...a memory loss expert. It will be at least three months of in-house testing and treatment to help with the nightmares and the headaches.”

Priya stared, shock traveling through her every cell, every breath.

Moonlight limned the strong planes of his face. That high forehead, those sharp cheekbones, the bridge of his nose...but his eyes, those eyes that could laugh or turn darker with passion or warm with affection...the eyes that had always showed her what she could be...were haunted.

He was leaving and he didn’t plan on coming back to her. That’s why he’d taken her with such rough need, such urgency just now. That’s why he’d unraveled the past one last time between them.

He was saying goodbye. He was doing it properly this time. He was readying her for every eventuality.

“Okay,” she said, on a shuddering exhale. “Okay. I’m glad you’re going. We’ll be waiting for you. I’m glad we spent this time together, Christian, before you left. I’m glad that we...”

But her strength lasted only so long and suddenly her calm practicality flipped to furious despair. “Why didn’t you talk this out with me first, Christian? Don’t I have any say in this? This is all our lives you’re making decisions for.”

He had no answer for that. Something shuttered in his expression, shutting her out.

After what felt like an eternity, he said, “Because if I’d told you, you’d make me weak. You’d want me to stay. I want to be a better man, Pree, for you.”

Priya reared back. But she couldn’t get angry because he knew her well. So damn well. “I want you to get all the help you need. But not at the risk of losing you. I don’t need a different Christian. Or God forbid somehow a better Christian.”

“I have to try, Pree.” His blue eyes, filled with tears, looked like the ocean behind her. “I have to at least try to get better. For Jayden, if nothing else.” That he chose to leave her out skewered her.

“And if you don’t? What then? What am I to tell him, Christian?”

“I will speak to him tomorrow. And I plan to tell him the truth, for the most part. That I’m going away to get better. I’ll call him. Write to him, talk to him every day—I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make sure he understands that I love him.”

“And me? What about what I need?”

“You don’t need me, Starling. You’re the bravest, brightest thing I’ve ever known.”

Priya stared at him, tears running down her cheeks, her heart shattering in her chest. “That’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He clasped her cheek with an infinite tenderness even as he decided to leave her behind. “It’s the truth. You are strong. It is only me that’s making you weak. That...”

“How dare you decide this for me? How dare you!”

“Aren’t you the one who suggested I should have my head looked at? That I should be doing everything I can to help myself? To fix this so that I’m not constantly living on the edge of uncertainty?”

“Yes but before I understood what it might mean. But not at the risk of losing you. Never at the risk of losing what we have now...” She placed her hands on his chest and dipped down. Wrapping his fingers around his neck, she kissed him. He tasted like her tears and goodbye and such overflowing love that she gasped and pulled away.

But he didn’t let her go. His grip had never been tighter on her arm, his body never so rigid. “Tell me the words I want to hear. Tell me, Pree. Please. I have waited an eon to hear them from your lips. I need them now.”

“No,” she said, falling apart completely. “No,” she said again, denying him her words. “No,” she repeated, angry now. She stood up, squaring her shoulders, holding back her words. Words she wanted to scream for the entire world to hear.

Because if she did, Priya didn’t think she could make it a day without him.

And she had a son to be strong for.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THECABININthe Alps was just as Christian remembered it from eight and a half years ago. From the outside at least. Except for the shiny electronic keypad near the door handle.

He pulled the piece of paper he’d written the key code on and jabbed the pad with fingers that were cold and clumsy.

Taking his shoes off in the foyer—it had become a habit long ago with how much he’d visited Jai’s house first and then Priya’s—he wondered at the warm burst of air that greeted him. He’d asked for the key code through William Constantine, too ashamed and too cowardly to call Priya for it.

Especially when she’d refused to speak to him even once in two months. There was nothing but a crisp polite hello when he called for Jayden and an equally terse goodbye when he was done. But never a single question. Not even to ask how he was doing.

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