The Man Who Has No Sight - Victoria Quinn Page 0,75

morning workout. He just got dressed and left, taking Derek with him while barely saying a few words to me.

My fear was affecting our relationship, so I may as well just tell him.

I was running out of time anyway.

His footsteps sounded.

“Oh god…oh god…oh god…”

The doorknob turned.

“Fuck.”

He stepped inside, set his bag on the entryway table, and hung up his coat.

I didn’t feel joy like I usually did when he came home. Now, I was terrified, like I wished he would leave and give me more time to suck up the courage.

He turned around and surveyed the condo. After a quick scan, he could read the energy, knew something was wrong. “Where’s Derek?”

“He’s with your mother for the evening… I wanted to talk.”

He stood still, looking down at me, his walls up. Now he was the one who was distant, like he didn’t want to come home as much as I didn’t want him there.

My hands were shaking. My voice was weak. I was so fucking nauseated. “Can we talk?” I could barely get the words out of my mouth. They were breaking in the middle of the sentence, and I even felt the muscles of my back twitch like I was freezing cold.

He stared at me for a hard minute before he moved to the couch and sat beside me. There was no affection. No kiss. He even left a few inches of space between us. His elbows were on his knees, his hands together. He didn’t look at me.

Our relationship was already over. I could feel it.

He was behaving the way he did when he ambushed me, when he was livid with me.

I hated this. So much. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how distant I’ve been…” My voice shook more, my lips started to quiver. Before I could control myself, tears sprang from my eyes, I started to shake harder, and I could barely talk at all.

He turned to me, giving me a whole different expression, full of concern. His eyes were wide as if my reaction caught him by surprise. He watched the tears pour down my cheeks, watched my arms and shoulders shake. “Baby…” His hand went to my thigh.

I wanted to defend myself, tell him it wasn’t deliberate, but I had to tell him the truth first. So, I just did it, because my body was breaking down and I was incapable of more than a few words at a time. “I’m pregnant…” I closed my eyes, more tears falling. “I didn’t do it on purpose…” I started to sob, my eyes opening, and I looked at my phone on the coffee table. “I swear, it was an accident. I don’t know how it happened. I need you to believe me… I would never, ever—”

“Baby.” He came closer to me, his arm moving around me, his other hand cupping my soaked cheek and directing my look on him. “I believe you.”

My tears stopped instantly because I couldn’t believe his response, how he was so calm, how he was so understanding. I expected him to storm out of the condo or tell me to get the hell out. I expected him to accuse me of horrible things. I expected him to view me like Valerie, like history was repeating itself.

His eyes softened as he looked at me, like my fear, tears, and pain were horrific to him. “It’s alright. Everything is alright.” He wiped my tears away with his thumb, his other hand rubbing my back.

“I didn’t want you to think I did what Valerie did—”

“I don’t.”

“And I…I was so scared you were going to leave me—”

“Never.” He grabbed my hand and held it on my thigh. “I trust you, baby. If you say it was an accident, it was an accident. Pregnancy is a side effect of sex, and we have a lot of sex. Birth control is not a hundred percent effective.” He moved his fingers to my hair and gently pulled the strands from my face so they couldn’t get wet against my cheeks. His brown eyes were kind, the same eyes I looked into every single day when he came home. The love was still there. “Take a few deep breaths and calm down.”

“I…I didn’t expect you to take this so well.” It was a miracle, to be honest.

He returned his hand to mine and held it. “I didn’t. I was upset…”

“What do you mean?”

He was quiet for a while as he looked into my tear-stained face. “I figured it out last night…when I