I felt Liv’s comforting warmth as she gently nudged me aside on the chair and snuggled in beside me so she could pull me into her arms. And then everything just disappeared as I let her comfort me, the tears soaking her shirt a testament to the fact that I wasn’t alone.
I wasn’t aware of the shaking stopping, or the tears drawing to a halt. Everything was just black as I finally fell into the deep relief of sleep.
***
My eyes felt crusty as I tried to open them, consciousness coming to me, and with it the feel of a heavy warmth resting on my waist.
As I opened my peepers I realized they felt swollen and that’s when I remembered why. I tensed at the memory of crying in Liv’s arms at the same time I looked into my husband’s sleeping face.
The heavy warmth across my waist was his arm.
We were lying in bed together.
I didn’t know how we’d gotten there.
I started to cry again.
Braden’s arm tightened around me and through the blur of tears I saw I’d woken him.
“I wasn’t not happy,” I whispered, licking the salt water off my lips. “I was so happy I was terrified.”
His warm fingers brushed my chin and I felt the gentle pressure of his touch as he tilted my head back so I would meet his questioning eyes. “Terrified?”
I nodded. “Just because I’ve come a long way, doesn’t mean I still don’t feel that way. You wouldn’t let me explain. I’m still terrified of losing all the good we have together.” Had together.
Braden frowned as he sat up. “You’re afraid of losing our baby, so you shut me out before I—”
“No!” I sat up, glaring at him. “You shut me out.”
“I thought we were past all this.”
“Then let me f**king explain!”
He glowered at me but shut up.
I glowered back. “You know I’m afraid of losing the people I love. But my kid, our kid, I already love this kid so much I can’t breathe. The thought of something happening . . .”
Braden shook his head slowly. “You kept avoiding talking about having kids. . . . I started to worry that you didn’t want them. I thought with you running off to the castle it meant you were gearing up to shut me out because . . . you didn’t want our kid. Then when you tried to explain, I was . . .” He sighed.
“You were what?”
“Scared,” he admitted softly, his eyes locked with mine. “My mother never wanted me, Jocelyn. Never. I was not a happy kid and I would never wish that kind of childhood on anyone, let alone my own kids. I promised myself if I ever had children I’d be the kind of father mine never was and I certainly wouldn’t marry a woman who wouldn’t treat them like they were her whole world. So I didn’t know how to feel about my wife not wanting our kid. I didn’t know how to react to that and what it meant for us.”
A knifelike pain cut across my chest. “Is that why you’re moving out?”
“What?” he asked incredulously, his eyes darkening. “What are you talking about?”
“The letter.” I lifted a shaky hand, pointing out to the hall. “I found the letter in the guest room. The one asking the tenants of your old apartment to move out within the month.”
A thick silence fell between us.
Braden slipped out of bed, staring at nothing for a moment before turning to me with a very familiar anger. “That’s the second letter to those tenants. The first one told them they were being evicted because of the complaints I’d received from residents of the building. The letter you saw was a standard notice telling them how much time they had to get out.”
Oh.
Fuck.
“You thought without talking to you, or trying to work this shit out that I . . . that I . . . was leaving you!” he yelled in disbelief.