Faith
I blurt the words before I lose my courage.
He shakes his head. “No. You don’t. We’ve been through enough—”
He stops talking when I pull away from him, get out of bed, and pull my clothes on. After a moment, he dresses too, although his gaze never leaves me. He follows me to the living room. I sit on the sofa but he remains standing, his hands braced on his hips.
“She was sitting at my bedside when I woke up. Fionnella. She said she was there to help me, in whatever way I wanted. But that I needed to think carefully whether I wanted to go back to doing what I was doing. With you.”
Fury sparks across his face. “What the fuck—?”
“She was right. I’ve always been the sort of person who picks an interest and devotes everything to it until I know it inside and out. I aced being a spy because I wanted to be with you, and I wanted to stop the traffickers. For myself and in my sister’s memory. Take those things away, and I was useless.”
“You were not useless. A touch reckless at times, but never useless.”
I exhale. “Maybe not but I let my emotions blind me to everything else. And being with you in that role conjured up a hell of a lot of emotions. I didn’t wake you when I heard the scream because I was terrified you might get hurt. Or worse. But a true partner would’ve. That was what we were there for, to support each other. The sort of work you did, the odds of that happening again, was too much to risk…”
He rubs his hands over his mouth and jaw, pacing for a full minute. Then nods. “So you left. Okay. I don’t fully accept it yet, but I’ll get over it someday.” He starts to move toward me. “Can we get on with our lives—”
“There’s more,” I blurt.
He freezes again, pales a little, and grabs the back of his neck. “Okay. Let’s—”
“Mr. Knight?” Debbie steps into the living room.
His head jerks up. “What is it?”
“Um…you have a visitor.”
His eyes narrow. We don’t need more information to know who it is. Sure enough, a moment later, she walks in.
“Jesus. You have got to be the fucking definition of bad timing,” Killian snaps.
Fionnella smiles. “Bad Penny Smith. That was my nickname back in the day.”
“Bullshit. Your name isn’t even Fionnella Smith.”
She sends him a droll stare. “Have you been running Betty ragged trying to find out information about me?”
Killian shrugs, his face still a hard, slightly pale mask. “And I thought I made myself clear when I said we’re done? It’s barely nine a.m., and I’ve had my quota of shit news for the day. Partly thanks to you, I hear.”
I feel Fionnella’s stare, and a moment later Killian’s, but I can’t move, can’t think. Shit, I can barely breathe. Because it turns out, she didn’t come alone. At least not to me. The box she’s holding absorbs every inch of my attention, freezing me from the inside out.
“Well, you’ve already done the hard work. I just thought I’d fill in a few more blanks to put everything to bed once and for all.”
“You could’ve called.”
“Where’s the fun in that? The mole was a mid-level analyst with a gambling problem. Which Galveston encouraged. And a predilection for child pornography, which Galveston nurtured and transitioned from online to real life. While he made sure to get it all on tape for blackmailing when needed.”
“Jesus, how did he make it past Fallhurst’s vetting process?” Killian demands.
“You’ll be surprised what people can hide when they put their mind to it.”
I flinch because I know the comment is directed at me. “Is that it?” I force myself to ask, when everything inside me wants to rush across the room and snatch my precious box from her.
“Well, Galveston is singing like a canary in the hope of a reduced sentence. We’re compiling a list of names that’ll guarantee the sex ring is shut down once and for all.”
A piece of my heart that’s been ripped open since Julia’s death is soothed on hearing the news. I’ll always mourn for my sister, but at least I can take heart in knowing I’ve righted some wrongs in her name.
Killian paces for half a minute before he comes to crouch in front of me. “So we’re done here?” He throws the question over his shoulder, but his bewildered gaze stays on me.
Fionnella hesitates for a moment. “Yes.”
I sense her coming toward me. My eyes plead with Killian. He sees it but he doesn’t understand. Not until Fionnella sets the box in my lap and pats my shoulder.
“It’s time, darling girl. Unless you want to keep running for the rest of your life, it’s time.”
She leaves the room and the house. My heart has stopped beating. I’m sure of it. Or maybe I can’t hear it over the noise of everything I’ve ever wanted exploding right before my eyes.
Killian crouches before me, his own breathing locked somewhere in his body. He knows. Not what exactly, but he knows.
Eyes turned a desolate blue move from my face to my lap and back again. “Tell me what’s in the box, Faith.”
It takes a few tries to get my voice to work. “I’m sorry…”
His mouth compresses and he waits.
“Every reason I gave you was true. But…this clinched it for me.”
“That’s the more you mentioned. Isn’t it?” he asks roughly.
I nod.
His hands tighten almost painfully on mine. Then he charges to his feet, takes the box from my lap, and opens it. He stares for an age. Lifts the single picture from its silk bed. When the box drops he doesn’t pick it up. Neither do I.
“We made this…” His voice is bleak, a pathetically pale imitation of itself.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He stares down at the sonogram. Shakes his head and groans. “Oh God, Faith. How could you not tell me? We created this together.”
My heart breaks in two. “We created it, but I lost it. I put it in danger and had it ripped from my belly because I thought I could take on a monster by myself.”
“God…” he repeats again. The picture shakes in his hand. “You should have told me,” he rasps.
“No, you didn’t deserve to bear the burden. Don’t you see? It ripped me apart, and I’d only known I was pregnant for a day. If I’d told you when you asked me if I was okay…right before we left the villa, maybe things would’ve turned out differently. Instead…everything fell apart, and I chose to be the only one to bear the burden instead of two people suffering.”
“What about the other side of it? What about two people healing together instead of broken and apart?”
“How can I heal? How the hell do I come back from something like this? I forgot my training and telegraphed my vulnerability to Galveston. He didn’t know I was pregnant until I showed him. I put my hand on my stomach and fucking pointed to him that I was pregnant. He saw, then he just went for our baby!”
The sound that rips from him is so viscerally savage that the very air turns to ice. He staggers away from me, falls into the chair, and drops his head in his hand.
“I don’t know, but losing each other on top of that? Was it worth it?”
I shake my head in despair. “I didn’t think we should have been together in the first—”
“Bullshit!” His head snaps up, and his eyes are wild and red-rimmed with the volatility of his emotions. “I’m fucking tired of hearing you say that. It’s an excuse you hide behind to wallow in your suffering, and it’s got to stop.”
He’s angry. He’s incandescent in fact. “The timing was a little off, I accept, but I would still crave you if I met you when I was twelve or one hundred and fucking twenty. I was made for you! Don’t you see that?”
I keep my mouth shut. We wallow in our fresh agony, our breaths snatched for the sole purpose of sustaining our lungs.
Then, slowly, he lowers his hand and the picture clutched in it. “How far along were you?”
“About ten weeks.”
He swallows hard. “Was it a…the sex…”
“It was too early to tell. But when I think of…I feel it was a girl.”
“Where did this come from? Why did Fionnella have it?”
“I…I left it at the club. In my punishment room. I asked Axel to keep it for me. He must have given it to Fionnella to bring to me.”
“So she knew about the baby.” There’s a thick vein of bitterness in his voice.
I nod. “The moment I woke up, I asked about the baby. She was there. She told me the doctors hadn’t been able to save it, but they’d saved me a…the picture.”
My confession hasn’t been good for my soul. Every inch of me is in tatters. And my worst fear, that Killian would suffer too, is written all over his face.
He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes without letting go of the picture. After an age, he drags himself to his feet and holds out his hand to me. I take it because I can’t not.
He leads me through our bedroom and into the dressing room. Without letting go of the photo, he searches through my things and lays out black denim, a white top, and my favorite leather jacket. He pushes them toward me. I yank off my dress, and while I’m putting the clothes on, he goes to his side of the room and puts on similar clothes.
We both put our boots on, and I follow him out of the room. Through the living room and down the stairs to the third level below where his semi-underground parking garage holds six cars, three SUVs, and two motorcycles.
He walks over to a gleaming shelf, takes down two helmets, and walks over to the custom Ducati Diavel. When I reach him, he silently hands me a helmet. I take it and put it on. He picks me up and places me on the second seat, and then swings his leg over to sit in front of me.
He tucks the picture inside his jacket, next to his heart, and then looks over his shoulder. “Hold on.” The command is rough and low.
I’m terrified of the savage pain in his voice more than I’m terrified of riding on a powerful motorbike. The furthest I got during my training was a glorified scooter. But I trust him. So I lean forward and slide my arms around him. His stomach clenches tight for a moment before he guns the engine. And a moment later, we vault out of the garage and down the driveway.
The Californian coastline is ruggedly beautiful. The late evening sunshine is sublime. Three full minutes after imagining that I’ll fall off the bike to a horrible death, I’m a complete convert. I mirror his leans through the curves, and it feels like we’re one person. Except there’s an ocean-wide chasm between us. Over a dozen times, tears fill my eyes, and I’m ravaged by Killian’s pain. A dozen times I blink them away and cling to the man I love more than I want my next breath. We ride for a solid hour without stopping or speaking.
When we eventually stop, it’s at a barren bluff with the wind whipping around us and not a soul in sight.
He rips his helmet off, and I see he’s fighting his emotion too. He opens his mouth but I speak first.
“I’m sorry, Killian. So sorry. The way we met…I didn’t think I deserved you. So when I had to give you up, it killed me, but I felt like it was what I had to do. But…”
The hand holding the helmet drops to his thighs. “But?”
“I don’t want to let you go. I want to fight for you. Whatever I need to do, just tell me, and I’ll do it. I want you, Killian. Every day, every night, and in between. I love you. So much. I love you.”
His breath rushes out, and he drops the helmet. He bends over and braces his hands on his knees. Eyes squeezed shut as he just breathes in and out.
When he straightens, his eyes are wet. “We’re going to make another baby,” he declares in an emotion-rough voice.
Totally not what I was expecting. “What?”
“You fucking heard me. We’re going to make another baby. You’re going to give birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl who looks just like you. She’ll be the most gorgeous thing in the world. And we’re going to be happy. End of fucking story!”
My jaw hits the ground. And while I’m completely and utterly flabbergasted, he strides over to me and yanks me off my feet.
“I love you. You are everything to me. I will never let you go, and you, dear God, you will promise me right now, unequivocally, that you will never leave me.”
“I promise. A million times, I promise. I love you. Forgive me.”
“I forgive you. And I love you too.” We kiss and kiss and hug and cry. We roll around in the dirt and find ourselves again.
When the twilight closes around us, I lift my head and look into his brilliant blue eyes. “I’m ready to start on the baby right now if you are.”
And right there on that windy bluff, we start our lives.