Page 81 of His Secret Wish

She opened her mouth to say something, although she wasn’t sure what, but nothing came to her. Her brain felt like it was headed toward information overload. “What?” Not the best response, but it was all she had.

He looked over at her, his eyebrows scrunched together. “What, what? Are you saying you didn’t know that?”

She shook her head. “I mean, there was a time I knew he loved me, but everything got so complicated with the pregnancies, and then he sort of pushed me away. I thought his feelings had changed, that he no longer loved me.” By the end the words were rough, broken around the edges.

“He’s loved you your entire life, Iz. Why would he fall out of love with you?”

“Because I couldn’t give him a family.”

He glanced over at her, his face a mask of rage. “Are you fucking kidding me? Did that asshole actually say that to you? I’m going to kill the fucker.”

She shook her head, her eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of her head and roll onto the floor of the SUV. She’d never seen her brother so angry. “No, no, he didn’t say that. In fact, he didn’t say anything. Just slowly got more distant, pulled away from me.”

“Oh, okay then, well that’s good.” He blew out a breath, the lines on his face smoothing out. “Not the distant part, but the other thing.”

Silence fell like a curtain around them, not quite uncomfortable, but getting there rapidly. She looked out the window again, Antonio’s words chasing themselves around in her head.

How did she not know Owen still loved her until this weekend? How come she couldn’t see what was so clear to everyone else? She’d been so immersed in her own pain and insecurities, she’d been unable to see what was right in front of her. Why she’d never considered he was struggling too was a mystery. She could only blame herself for being so selfish.

You should have talked to him, told him what you were feeling, why you were struggling. Maybe told him the truth about the hysterectomy, too.

Shame washed through her. She’d been such an idiot, and now she’d ruined everything. Made it impossible to fix something that had been only slightly broken by smashing it to smithereens.

“Okay, so Owen never told you he was disappointed in you because you couldn’t have a baby. What gave you the idea he was?”

His question startled her back to reality. She’d honestly thought they were done with this. “He stopped touching me, sleeping with me.” The words sounded small, her voice barely a whisper. “You know, as in—“

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” He rubbed his eyes. “Did he ever say why?”

“No, and I never asked.” She tapped her thumb against her knee. “At the time, communication between us had become nonexistent.”

“Ooh, that’s rough. You’ve got to talk to each other, hash out your feelings and shit. Otherwise, all that stuff just continues to get bottled up until one day, it explodes.”

She couldn’t disagree with him. Her and Owen’s relationship was living, breathing, but gasping your last breath, proof. “Tell me about it.”

“Let’s backtrack a bit.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Owen told you he loved you and wanted to get back together. But you’re clearly not back together, so what happened?”

“I told him I didn’t love him and he needed to move on.” Her voice sounded like she’d swallowed a handful of glass.

Another stretch of silence filled the SUV. She could feel Antonio’s gaze on her, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“Is it true?”

She didn’t want to lie to him so she just shrugged.

He sighed, the sound full of exasperation. “If you still love him, why did you tell him you didn’t?”

That was the bazillion dollar question, wasn’t it? At this point, she had nothing to lose. Somehow, Antonio had managed to weasel all the relative information out of her so far, and anything she didn’t offer up, he just filled in the blanks. When did he get so smart?

This time she looked at him. “Because I lied to him.”

“What did you lie about?”

“The last time I miscarried, they couldn’t stop the bleeding.” She blew out a wobbly breath. The back of her eyes stung, her body wanting to cry but also not being able to after all the sobbing she’d done over the last few days. “Owen hadn’t gotten to the hospital yet, but was on his way. The doctor told me it was an emergency, and I needed surgery.” Her knee started to bounce. Owen had been out of town at a ranching conference when she’d started to bleed. She’d been in town at the time, and someone had called 911.

“Yeah, we all knew you had to have surgery. I don’t see how that’s a lie.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not the lie part. The doctor told me that if they couldn’t stop the bleeding, they would have to do a hysterectomy, and she needed my permission. I signed the authorization form before Owen got there.”