Words failed me as the surprise rolled through me. I could barely think, let alone speak.
I just couldn’t believe it. I struggled to understand.
We’d used protection. She was adamant about not being bred or used, and I hadn’t thought twice about catering to her wishes.
“How…”
She heaved in a deep breath, closing her fingers over the test as she jerked her arm down.
“How did…” I blinked, so shocked that it felt like I couldn’t even inhale a full breath. My mind was blown, but as the reality sank in, joy shielded me from anything else.
“Kalina,” I repeated, not in a curious and questioning tone but with a wondrous joy.
“We didn’t use protection at first and I didn’t think it was going to happen with the timing of my cycle and the fact that I was a virgin. Which I know doesn’t matter. But I didn’t think it would happen. I wasn’t thinking. And I just?—”
“Kalina!” I couldn’t hide the grin stretching over my face. Dropping to my knees in front of her, I took her free hand and held it with both of mine.
All this time, I’d been fighting the chance that any happiness was over between us, and here she was, giving me proof that we could have a very real shot at a second chance.
“I’m scared.” She blurted it out in a rush, begging me to listen to her in her raw honesty.
I gazed up at her, not letting go of her hand as she clutched mine back.
“I haven’t had a family in so long. I don’t know how to trust myself to love again. Not after all Erik put me through. He’s erased all the memories of the child I was, how to be normal in the real world. To be a woman who could dare to have a family. I’ve never been in love or known how to love like this. I don’t know how to accept love and not fear it being an obligation that will control me. I am lost and unprepared and I don’t know… I don’t…” She withdrew her hand from mine, and I stood, wishing I could chase after her.
“I think it would be better if I tried to figure this out on my own.”
No!
“Kalina, please.”
She shook her head, near tears. “No, Alexsei. I don’t know how to trust myself with you again. How to trust love and that I won’t be hurt by you or anyone else. I don’t want to be trained and molded to behave by you or anyone else.”
This was bullshit. She knew it too. I saw how she missed the love we’d dared to explore. It lingered there in the sad hopelessness of her light-blue gaze latched on me.
Taking her hand again, I held her gently.
The time to be patient and give her space was over. I once told her that people had tomaketheir happily-ever-after come true. To participate in the pursuit of love. To chase for what they dreamed of.
And she was mine.
My dream. My brightness.
It was time to share the truth to help her understand that she had to stay.
I loved her.
And it was past time that I fully explained that I needed her to be whole again. So we could be a pair, two halves slotting together so we’d both make each other stronger no matter what tragedy or danger could be waiting for us in the future.
“Kalina. Please stay.”
She blinked quickly as if holding back tears.
“Can you please stay and give me a chance to explain that I need you in my life?”
26
KALINA
