“If he’s damaged, you did it to him,” I snap back, narrowing my eyes. “You forced him to fuck me in front of strangers with a gun to my head. Told him it was his fault if he refused, his fault if he did it, if I died either way.Youdid this to him. So don’t suggest that it’s anyone’s fault but yours. You wanted to destroy any chance of Liam and I being together by making him all but rape me. Instead, you just destroyedourchances—yours and mine. It doesn’t matter how much I once loved you; I can’t look at you without remembering that. Without remembering how you let Yvette use you because she was jealous.”
Alexandre is very quiet for a moment. “You saidloved, petit,” he says after a few seconds of silence. “Do you not love me still?”
I hesitate. I shouldn’t have. I should have sworn to him, instantly, up and down and to my grave, that all the love I had for him is dead. But instead, I pause, my heart leaping into my throat as I try to say the words that aren’t entirely true, and Alexandre grabs onto them like a life raft for a drowning man.
“So long as I believe you have a shred of love for me,petit, so long as there’s a chance the baby is mine, I won’t leave. I won’t go back to Paris, and I won’t abandon you. You aremine,petit, and I will not leave so long as there is a breath of a chance for us.”
“I’m not a book or a painting!” I get to my feet unsteadily, my heart racing in my chest. I know he meant the words to be romantic, but in my current emotional state, all I feel is panic. “I don’t belong to you, and neither doesmybaby, no matter how much you paid for me!” I’m breathing hard now, feeling myself flush red. “I don’t belong to Liam, either. If I choose either one of you, it’ll be for myself and possibly the baby. I won’t beowned, not by anyone. Not after everything I’ve endured.”
Alexandre’s brow furrows, and I see a flash of anger mar his handsome, artistic features. “What do you mean by this,petit?” he asks, his voice taking on a dangerous edge. “Are you considering not keeping this child?”
I throw up my hands in frustration, letting out a sharp, angry breath. “I’ve known I was pregnant for less than an hour, Alexandre,” I retort. “I couldn’t possibly know right now one way or another what I’m going to do.”
“You will not choose anything other than this baby!” Alexandre roars, and I stumble back, nearly falling into the tub in my sudden, frightened shock. I regain my balance, but tip forward, falling to my knees on the tile, and the impact takes the wind out of me. I start to cry, tears trickling down my cheeks as I shudder with a few sudden, gasping sobs. Before I can push myself back up, Alexandre is on the floor next to me, reaching for me, gentle all over again.
“I am sorry for my outburst,petit,” he whispers, his voice cracking, and when I look up, I see tear tracks on his cheeks, too.
“Alexandre—” I blink at him, reaching out despite myself to touch the damp line on his cheek, just below the sharp bone. “What—”
“I am sorry,” he repeats. “I—my stepsister, Margot, who I loved and had an affair with as a teenager. She—” He swallows hard, and I know what he’s going to say before it comes out of his mouth.
“You got her pregnant?” I whisper, and Alexandre nods, his blue eyes brimming with fresh tears.
“Our father discovered it,” he says in a hushed tone, his hands curling into fists. “He forced an abortion on her. He wouldn’t take her to a doctor, either—he said a slut like her didn’t deserve it. He did it, out—out in the barn. He made me watch.” Alexandre’s face crumples at that, his head dropping forward onto my shoulder.
I’m frozen in shock, unable to move. The horror of it feels like ice in my blood, Alexandre’s pain softening me towards him despite myself. Whatever there is between him and me—whatever pain and hurt and history—has nothing to do with this. His stepsister certainly didn’t deserve it, and I can see that Alexandre’s pain is real. His shoulders shake as he cries, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he finally looks up at me, swallowing convulsively, his eyes reddened.
“It was only a few days later that she died,” he murmurs.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “Alexandre—I can’t begin to explain how sorry I am, truly—”
He shakes his head, sitting back on his knees as he wipes at his face, giving me a tight, sad smile. “It was long ago,” he says quietly. “And not your fault. But you see why the idea of you not keeping this child is so—difficult for me.”
“I do,” I say quietly, and I mean it. My personal choice aside, I can understand his pain. “Did you want the baby?” I ask delicately. “You and Margot, I mean. Did you talk about it, before—”
Alexandre nods. “She told me the morning she was certain, alone. Before our father discovered it—discovered…us. She was overjoyed. We made plans together—plans to run away, be married, and escape him. It was the last time we ever made love, before—” His voice breaks again, and he looks away.
“We were going to be a family,” he says finally, looking back up at me. “We were going to be together, the three of us, and that was stolen from me.” His jaw tightens, his blue eyes burning into mine. “I will not allow that to happen to me again, Anastasia.”
My heart lurches in my chest. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry that happened to you and your stepsister. It’s horrible. What happened to her—it’s the worst thing I can imagine. But I don’tknowwhat I want to do, Alexandre. I haven’t had a chance to even process this yet, let alone make decisions and choices for my future—and ithasto be my choice.Mine. Not anyone else’s.”
Alexandre’s face smooths, and he smiles at me, reaching up to touch my cheek gently. We’re both still kneeling on the floor, very close, so close that I can feel his warmth and smell his cologne and the scent of his skin. Familiar smells, smells that once made me feel safe.Loved, even. Protected.
“That is why you loved me,petit,” he murmurs. “I made all the choices for you—all you had to do was obey. It could be like that again.”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head, and I can feel tears rising up in my eyes again. “It can’t, Alexandre. It really can’t.”
“So long as you love me even a little,petit, I don’t believe that.” Alexandre shakes his head. “Come back to Paris with me. We’ll be together. If you want to make choices,petit, if you want to be Anastasia and not my little doll, I will try to learn to live like that again. It can be different for us. We will be a family, just as—”
“Alexandre—” Tears spill over my lashes, and I shake my head, feeling as if he’s cracking my heart open all over again. “I don’t believe you. Ican’t. Maybe the Alexandre who loved Margot, maybe that man could have been a husband and a father, maybe he could have lived that life. Maybe–maybe you could, still. But not with me. We began things a certain way–and I don’t think we can change that. Perhaps there’s someone out there who could heal you the way Liam has helped to heal me–but I can’t, Alexandre. I wanted to so badly. I did.” I try to stop the tears, but I can’t. They’re falling harder now, and I lean forward, pressing my forehead against his. “There’s no future for us that makes sense.”
I reach for his hand, feeling his long fingers brush against my palm. Artist’s fingers, pianist’s fingers, the hands of a man who loves beautiful things. “You love everything that is beautiful and broken, Alexandre,” I whisper. “And I’m starting to heal, here. You’re right that I do still love you. I think a part of me always will. But I’m starting to believe, more and more, that this is where I belong. That Liam is who I belongwith. I felt that before the baby, and this baby won’t change that. No matter whose it is—”
There’s a hard, heavy knock on the door and Liam’s voice from outside. “Ana? Are you alright? It’s been a while—I think it’s time we talked. You and I—alone.”
Slowly, feeling shaky, I stand up. I hold out my hand for Alexandre, to help him up too, and he looks up at me from where he’s kneeling with wet blue eyes. In that moment, it feels like something has shifted between us.
He takes my hand, his palm warm against mine, and gets to his feet. He holds my gaze for a long second, and I expect him to say something else, but he doesn’t. He simply turns away, walking towards the door. As he steps out, Liam pushes past to enter the bathroom, and Alexandre looks back at me once, sorrowfully.