“No,” she snapped angrily, clenching her hands to her side so that she didn’t give in to the instinct to slam her palms against his firm, muscled chest. But fury was whipping around her! Fury that he would think he had any right to come back into her life. To find her, again, when she’d gone to such lengths to be hidden.
He was undeterred. “I thought I slept with you because I wanted revenge. I did believe I had used you.”
She stared at him, silently urging him to continue. But when he didn’t, she let outa frustrated breath. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see that? I could never forgive you for what you did.”
Benedetto opened his mouth, perhaps to interrupt, but Kate shook her head. “You were upset. You were angry. I understand that. I do understand how awful your father’s position was, and all because of my father.” She spat the words as though they were loaded with venom. “Butyoumade a choice. You made a choice to buy me at auction. You made a choice to seduce me. And you made a choice to take an intimate photo of me and send it to him.” She sobbed now, unable to stem the tide of panic that was swallowing her. “Choice after choice after choice and all the way you continued to choose what was bad for me. What my father did to you was terrible, but he didn’t owe you anything more than the common decency one human should give any other.Youwere my lover.” She clenched her jaw and exhaled through her nose. If she didn’t stay strong, the alternative was falling apart. “You made me love you. And then you did that. There is no walk-back from this. There is nothing you can say to me that will make it okay.”
She dashed her tears away and studied him angrily. It was obvious that he had not thought her response would be so final. Kate had surprised him. The realization filled her with power.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said thickly. “That last day, I thought about you non-stop. I could not believe the way things had unraveled. I thought we would sleep together and that would be the end of it. I never anticipated how difficult I would find it to let you go. I never imagined I would start to care for you.”
She rolled her eyes in obvious disbelief, even though her heart was begging to clutch at the words. “You didn’t care for me. You told me you didn’t want someone to spend the rest of your life with, or words to that effect. You don’t believe inhappily ever afters. And nothing’s changed.”
“Everything’s changed,” he contradicted firmly.
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Like I spent three long months waking up every day feeling like my life no longer has purpose because you are not in it. Three months staring at that one stupid photo, wishing on everything I hold dear that I could go back in time and not take it. Certainly not send it. Wishing that I had told you the truth before it was too late. Wishing I had realized that the lurching feeling I got whenever I looked at you was because I loved you, not just because I find you so distractingly sexy. I spent three months fingering your clothes, breathing in your scent, making you so real in my mind that I could almost havetouched you.” He braced his hands on either side of her face, his expression filled with despair. “I spent three months loving you, knowing I would do anything I could just to see you again. Three months knowing that if I saw you again I would say to you: I love you. That I would say it again and again and again until you got so sick of hearing it that you’d agree to forgive me just to shut me up.” He leaned his body forward, so that their hips were connected.
It was such a perfect moment despite their past that Kate groaned softly. But it wasn’t perfect enough to erase her pain; could anything have done that? “I can’t do it,” she whispered, dipping her head forward.
“You had a terrible childhood.” He kissed her temple gently, his voice thick. “One day, you might want to talk to me about it, and when you do, I will listen. But I understand, without you saying the words, that your father was a monster, and that he monstered you. I understand that you were made to feel that you were never safe.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “I understand that you have never had the security most people can count on when they are small.” He moved his lips closer to hers, but still didn’t kiss her.
“And then you fell in love with me, and felt safe for the first time in your life. I begged you to trust me, I promised you I would keep you safe, and then I too endangered you. I don’t deserve you, Kate, and I am all too aware of it.” Now his lips lightly pressed against hers. He could taste the salt of her tears and it made his chest burst with dark emotions.
“You told me you knew how you felt about me immediately, because you had never felt it before. Nor had I, and yet you blindsided me. I fought it. I fought it so hard! How could I care for the daughter of a man I hated? Every time I looked at you, I saw him in your eyes, and I remembered my father, and I swore I hated you, Kate. I swore that I hated you.” His voice cracked with the strength of his feelings. “I was so, so wrong though.”
Kate sobbed, pulling her head back, but there was nowhere to go. She let the tears fall unchecked, keeping her eyes shut. “This is hopeless.”
“No.” He ran a thumb over her cheek. “On the contrary, I am full of hope. I love you to the point of madness. I know that it is the kind of love that will last our lives through, because I fought so hard not to feel it. And yet here I am. Begging you to give me a chance. Just a chance. Not your heart. Not yet. Just a small chance to show you that I understand how special this is.”
“Damn it,” she lifted her hands to his chest now and pushed. “I can’t.”
Kate was suffocating. She drew in a breath and then another, but her lungs seemed incapable of inflating; they were burning.
“I’m pregnant.”
She stared at him for a long moment and then closed her eyes. “We’re going to have a baby together.” Her words were completely devoid of emotion and he felt that sting of rejection anew; it was cold Kate: The Kate who was so clever at pushing people away. It was in stark contrast to the way her words made him feel. For Benedetto had reunited with the woman he loved and learned of his impending fatherhood in the space of ten minutes.
But Kate wasn’t happy and that weighed heavily on his happiness. “You wish you were not carrying my child.”
She glared at him with disbelief. “You and I both know why! You said … you told me you would never want me to have your baby.”
“No! I did not. You asked and I agreed.”
“Yeah. You agreed emphatically.”
“And at the time, I believed what I said. I thought my hatred for that man would always overrule everything I felt for you.” His eyes scanned hers. “But three months, Kate. Three long months of missing you and wanting you and wishing I could just hold your hand for two minutes … this has awakened me. I realize how wrong I was that night. How wrong I have been all along. Can my mistakes truly ruin what I believe should be a lifetime of our joy together? Can you not forgive my stupidity and see it for what it was?”
“And what’s that?” She whispered softly.
“A foolish, foolish man’s hatred. I had forgotten the goodness in life until I met you. And now? All I see is goodness. Kate, I love you. I adore you. I want to have ten little babies with you and I will love them with all of my heart that is leftover from the love I feel for you. I want to marry you. Now. Tomorrow. In a year. Whenever you can find it in that beautiful heart of yours to forgive me.”
“And if I say I can’t?” She asked quietly, that heart he found so beautiful pounding hard into her rib cage.
“I cannot yet contemplate it,” he said simply. “Because I do not want to. And I don’t believe it’s what you want. I think you wish you were angry with me. That your brain is angry, and your heart is still as much mine as ever.”
“I hate you,” she corrected softly.
