his shoulders still strain against his shirt. “I believed her. Trusted that she’d really hit her bottom in that facility, and was ready to climb back up for the sake of our family.”
“Hit her…bottom.” Once more I echo him in a stutter, but it seems the only sane way to properly process this. Like the night I first learned about Lily and her significance in his life, my gut has been hollowed out then kicked in—by a horse named shock.
He was going to be a father.
Sweet Creator.
What if he still is one?
“Everyone in recovery has a different bottom. And regrettably, nobody knows what theirs is…until they’ve hit it.”
He turns back around, stiffly and slowly, though his gaze sharpens once seeing me again. I cannot even think about hiding all my feelings. There are too many now, clamoring on top of each other.
“And you thought Lily had gotten to hers,” I finally rasp. “But she started drinking again?”
Something passes over his face. Not a shadow. Something darker. “No.”
Double take. “No?”
“That was when she started taking the drugs.”
*
Cassian
“By the Creator.”
I re-steel my nerves as the words practically gasp from her—because I know what’s going to come next. After the astonishment, there’ll be the sap and the sympathy. The fucking pity. The look I have hated on anyone’s face who knows this story. The expression I haven’t even thought of on hers—because just thinking of it there is enough to set off a nuclear bomb in my blood.
I can’t let it happen.
I refuse.
“Stop.” I dictate it as her posture surges forward, already writing me an advance check of the shit. “Just stop the fucking cart right there.”
For one exhilarating second, a furious scowl replaces her sorrow. Then she’s all mush again. “Stop…what?”
“The cart full of your pity.” I fold my arms. “The weeping wagon, feeling ‘awful’ for the poor husband of the drug addict.” My teeth clench hard enough to hurt. “It takes two to make a baby. I was not a goddamn victim in the situation.”
“Hmm.” It’s her base coat expression, used when she wants to start with neutrality but color the meaning into something else. This time, it’s a reprise of her anger, given in a swift jump of her brows—to which I respond by crunching my own.
“I watch over my own, dammit.”
“I am well aware of that.” Her posture straightens, fused with the same fusion of strength and serenity that bowled me over when meeting her the first time, back on Arcadia. Just like then, I’m flooded by gratitude—but unlike then, it’s for a different reason. In that reception hall in the Palais Arcadia, my soul knew she was different…remarkable. This time, my mind confirms it too.
Which should scare me.
And does.
For a disgusting ton of reasons. But right now, I can only address the first.
She deserves the rest of this story.
Every damn, ugly detail.
I glance upward. Hey big guy…could use a little help in the fortitude department. But the Almighty isn’t fond of my endearment right now, even if I did borrow it from Mom…
Until He drives me to my knees again.
Using the one weapon He knows I won’t refuse.
My sweet little Arcadian.
“Come here, Cassian.” When she gestures to the floor next to the chaise, I drop down without second thought. Let her twine our hands together in the middle of her lap. I gaze at the union of our fingers, her slender tapers wrapped against my long logs, and soak in every fortifying drop of the sight.
Thanks. This time, I know the “big guy” has heard. I’ve found my strength. Now I’ll find the words. Somehow.
“To this day, I have no idea what the shit even was,” I begin. “Even the coroner said it was a designer mix…a pharmaceutical cocktail intended to make her feel pretty damn good. Well…her idea of good.” I stare across the room—and swear I can still see Lily there, a smile finally lighting her face, the day she walked into this little room for the first time. I would have done anything to keep that look on her face forever—and I sure as hell tried. “For a while, the bubble had finally returned,” I rasp. “And it was more breathtaking than before…probably more so, since I actually thought she’d gotten her shit together after just two weeks in rehab.”
Her fingers twist tighter around mine. “You believed the best in her,” she murmurs. “Because that is what you do when you love someone.”
Dammit. Her words are as good as a tether—in the exact moment I