Tears trickled down her cheeks when she finally looked at me again. “It’s not that simple, Castello. Nothing about you, about us, is simple.”
I stormed forward, anger fueling me, adrenaline pumping through my veins like venom. “It’s you who insists on overcomplicating everything!”
She stood up on her knees, her shoulders squared. “Can you honestly say that nothing about this is complicated?”
“Can you honestly say the only reason you kept this from me was because you didn’t know how to tell me?” I slanted my head to the side as I stared into her soul through the crystal blue of her eyes. “Or did you choose to keep this to yourself because you aren’t sure whether you want this or not?”
More tears, more shadows of shame, her face showing her every emotion.
“Both,” she whispered.
I knew it. I knew she kept it from me because she wasn’t sure.
I stepped back, grabbed my pants, and pulled them on. But I kept my gaze on her face. “Just a few minutes ago, you said you didn’t blame me for everything that’s happened.”
“I don’t.” She shook her head, and I smiled, a fake smile which I knew didn’t reach my eyes.
“Then why would you doubt whether you want my child or not?”
“That’s not what I doubted, Castello. I doubted whether you loved me or not. I doubted whether this would be something you wanted because you never tell me anything. It’s like you expect me to come to all these conclusions on my own.”
“Don’t play games, Tatum. You knew how I felt about you, how things changed between us. You were just too scared to acknowledge it, to admit it.”
She got off the bed, the collar around her neck glinting under the light, the “mine” of diamonds taunting me.
“If you had been through what I have, you would doubt everything, too. You would see deception behind every word as well.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. My mind was on the brink of exploding. For the last ten minutes, I hadn’t been unable to form a single coherent thought. My entire world changed within the blink of an eye, and I had no idea how to deal with that. How to deal with the fact that I was no longer in control ofanything.
Irony, you son of a bitch. I changed her world within the blink of an eye, and goddammit, she just did the same to me.
So I left. I turned around and stormed out the door, slamming it shut behind me. And then I locked it. I locked her inside the bedroom…again. I was losing control, and I fucking hated it. This goddamn woman was causing me to lose myself. She was making me weak, unsure about everything, and right now I couldn’t afford that. I had Vico to worry about. I had the family business to worry about. I had Tatum to worry about.
And now I have a baby to worry about.
Frustration ticked in my jaw, anger simmering inside my veins as I pulled my fingers through my hair, suppressing the need to scream.
Pregnant?What the fuck was the universe trying to do? How in God’s name did we manage to create a life when we were surrounded by death and lies from the start? All the plans I had for her, for us, no longer mattered. A few simple words and everything changed.
I leaned back against the door, and I could hear her whimpering from inside the room. The sound of her sadness tamed my anger, and for a second I tried to think about how she was feeling.That’s what people do when they love each other, right?
Of course she would be afraid to tell me. If it were me, I’d be afraid too. This was a whole new world for her, a world I’d been in all my life, and she’d only been here for a short while. And then finding out she was pregnant by the man that at first wanted her dead? I couldn’t blame her.
I closed my eyes trying to imagine a baby—our baby. It wasn’t something I ever thought about wanting. A family. I’d been living with a dark depravity inside me for so long, I didn’t think a family of my own would be possible for someone like me. But dear God, here I was with a woman I had fallen completely in love with, and she was carrying my baby. There was a life growing inside her, a life that was half her, half me.Jesus Christ. We were having a baby!
“Fuck!” I turned, unlocked the door, and stormed inside, kicking the door closed behind me.
Tatum was sitting on the bed, still naked, and crying. She had loosened the ponytail in her hair, and golden strands covered her face like a veil.
“You’re pregnant,” I stated the obvious.
She nodded, her soft sobs filling the room.
“You’re pregnant,” I repeated to myself.
She looked up, and when I saw her tear-stained face, the emotional pain radiating from her crystal blue eyes, it pierced straight through my chest, shattering my heart into a million pieces.
I launched forward, pushed her down on the bed, pinned her arms above her head, and straddled her.