Page 57 of Honor ’N’ Duty

She sighed. A deep, heavy, emotion-laden sigh. “There were other things to consider.”

“There’s only one reason to consider marrying someone, and that’s whether you love them and want to spend the rest of your life with them.” Fool that he was, he truly believed that, which was why he’d never once considered marriage. Stupidly, after spending forty minutes on his ass in an elevator, the only person he’d ever imagined he might marry was her.

“Sometimes,” she continued, “there are other reasons. At least, I thought so at the time.”

“Did you love him?” He honestly didn’t know if he wanted to hear the answer.

For a long moment, she said nothing. “I cared for him. I wouldn’t have gone out with him in the first place if I hadn’t.”

“If you didn’t love him, why in the world did you marry him?”

Ignoring his anger-laced question, she sighed. “We dated for several months, and when I realized I didn’t love him, I broke it off. And then—” Her voice wavered.

“Then what?” Now he had part of the answer. Whatever reason she’d married him for, it wasn’t love.

“Then I found out I was…pregnant.”

Kade’s heart stopped beating, then pumped so hard he could hear it over the waves. Jesus.

In the elevator that day, she’d been holding her hand to her belly, and he’d assumed she was claustrophobic. She hadn’t actually said that word. He had. He’d made that assumption because she’d looked ready to puke at the time. Because she’d probably had morning sickness.

“So Rosa wasn’t premature, after all.” That was what Josh had told his parents and what they, in turn, had told him.

The moon broke free of the clouds, illuminating the despair on Laia’s face as she shook her head. “A month before I found out I was pregnant, I broke it off with him. He was upset. He said he was in love with me. I cared about him, really, I did, but I just couldn’t stay with him. It would only have made things worse if I’d dragged it out.”

Kade ran a hand down his face. More things were starting to make sense now.

“Then I missed a period, which was a total shock since I was on birth control pills. My cycle had been irregular for years, and my doctor had just switched up my prescription.” She uttered a bitter laugh. “I guess something went wrong with the new meds and…”

“Rosa,” Kade finished for her.

“Yes, Rosa. The most wonderful thing that ever happened to me.” Her expression of despair changed to one of absolute love. “I didn’t go to Josh for money or anything else. I just thought he deserved to know the child was his and to have an opportunity to be part of her life.”

That much he understood. If it had been Kade who’d fathered a child, not only would he want to know but he’d definitely want to be a father to him or her. “If you didn’t love him, and you only told him so he’d know he fathered a child, why did you marry him?”

“Because he offered,” she answered simply. “He said he’d take care of us. The only thing he asked for in return was that I keep the pregnancy a secret at first. He didn’t want his family, friends, or colleagues thinking that Rosa was the only reason we got married. It was important to him that everyone believe we were in love.”

Kade tilted back his head to stare at the stars. How could he not have known this?

Because Josh didn’t want me to. His brother really had been good at keeping secrets. That trait ran deep in their family.

Unlike Kade, dating and meeting women had never come easily for Josh. Deep down, he’d always known this. His brother had been born with a financial intellect Kade could never hope to achieve, but where the fairer sex was concerned, he’d always struggled. Landing someone as perfect as Laia must have been a dream come true.

All these years, he’d wished a thousand times that Laia hadn’t married his brother. Even if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t have changed anything. They could never have been together, and she knew it, too.

Because she’d been pregnant with his brother’s child.

That would have been an insurmountable problem, a mountain so high that should they have even attempted to scale it, they never would have reached the top.

“Kade?” She touched his arm, and he felt her warmth clear down to his toes. “Say something.”

He opened his mouth to do just that but… What could he say?

The only words that came to mind wouldn’t do a bit of good. He could practically see his brother looking down on them, shaking his finger, and warning Kade to back away from his wife. And he was sick and tired of it.

If he kept sitting on his ass, letting his guilt and his dead brother stand in the way, he’d let the best thing that could ever happen to him slip from his grasp before he ever reached for it.

Laia.