Page 24 of A Mafia Christmas

“This is between Beth and me.”

“Alastair,” Beth said from the middle of the stairs. “Don’t yell at her.”

He shook the papers again. “She made you do this?” he yelled.

Beth shook her head. “I want—no, Ineed—answers before my baby comes.”

His feelings were chaotic, and he wanted to bellow in fury. “Do you want to play hardball?”

“No. I don’t want to play at all,” Beth said.

Fuck, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. He watched her hand cradle the bump, and his thoughts went to the fact that there was a human in her body.

Fuck. He didn’t know how much he could take. “So be it. I’ll have my lawyer make up papers to take the child from you when it’s born.”

He heard several people gasp and a few swear, but it was the way she instantly went pale that got him. He wanted to stop, but he was lashing out and didn’t know how to stop. He watched her take a breath.

“It would kill me if that happened.” She stared at him. “Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want,” he said.

“It’s finally sinking in. You never really loved me at all, did you?”

“Fuck, yes, I did.”

“Real love doesn’t die so quickly, and the last thing you’d want is for the person to die. You’ve said it enough times that it’s really sinking in.”

He saw the tears that ran down her face and hated himself a hundred times because he was the one hurting her.

“I never said I didn’t love you.”

Beth tried to smile. “But you never said you did either. Goodbye, Alastair. I hope you find the peace you need.”

Beth turned and walked up the stairs. “Beth. Wait…”

She didn’t come back.

When he turned, it was a shock to see Aria crying and the people around furious.

“You are destroying that beautiful woman,” Aria said.

Alastair wiped a hand down his face. Fuck, he hated himself. He tore up the papers. “I will not get a divorce or sign my rights away.”

“You don’t know what you want,” Aria said.

They all jerked when a woman screamed on the second floor. They all tore up the stairs to find one of the maids at the door to Beth’s bathroom with her hands over her mouth.

“Miss Aria. There’s blood…”

Alastair looked over the woman’s head to see his wife in the bathtub and blood streaming around her wrist.

“No! Jesus,” Alastair screamed.

“I need someone to call an ambulance, and a few of you men will take him away.” She pointed at him. “He’s the last person she needs to see.”

Several men wrestled him out of the bathroom. “Let me go. I need to be with her.”

“Man,” Mateo said. “You’re the one that’s causing it. We have a counselor coming in to talk with her. The woman told us to be vigilant because Beth was very fragile and had thoughts of killing herself.”

---