whole turning him down thing, and you have a perfect storm of emotions that even he doesn’t know how to handle.”
Eric was a psychologist to the shadow world, and I forgot sometimes that he was very good at what he did.
Alan rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “Please, he went through puberty years ago.”
Eric glanced at him and then at me, his eyes serious. “Think about it as a second puberty. The one he is hitting now. . . well, it’s basically his paternal clock ticking. I think part of the reason he wants you is because he could see you’d be a good mother—”
“She can’t get pregnant,” Alan spat out. “Couldn’t carry to term. All that money spent on in vitro, and nothing. So maybe Corb’ll leave her alone if she tells him that.”
My stomach turned as the old disappointment—so bitter, so wrenching—tumbled through me.
Eric’s eyes softened, and he reached over and put a hand on mine, which had suddenly gone cold. “Bree, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
I stood up. “Eric, thank you. I’m going to go lie down. Alan, if you come near me in the next few hours I will take you back to Marge and ask her to stuff you into a voodoo doll.”
Through blurred eyes, I found my way to the stairs and stumbled into a bedroom.
Of course, it wasn’t mine.
I bumped into Crash’s chest—smelling him before I truly saw him—and bounced back, feeling my way blindly back to the door. I couldn’t even speak. There were no words for the wave of emotion and grief that had caught me so off guard.
Years, it had been years since I’d last tried to get pregnant, but those losses still hurt. They still reminded me of the one thing I couldn’t do. Something I, as a woman, should have been able to do.
His hands swept up and settled on my shoulders. “Easy. What happened? Are you okay?”
“Corb wanted to get me pregnant, and I can’t, and that was the only reason he wanted me. That’s not how it works for me.” The words blubbered out of me, along with a fair number of tears and probably snot.
The miscarriages, the inability to get pregnant without help, all of it was my fault. Okay, yes, I knew it wasn’t a fault thing but that was how it felt. Like I was broken, or less of a woman because I couldn’t have a child.
A sob escaped me, and I clapped my hands over my mouth. No, I wasn’t allowed to break down about this—of all things!—now. Two people I loved were depending on me to find them.
Crash scooped me up then sat in a large chair in the corner of the room, cradling me in his lap.
“Let it out, lass,” he whispered into my ear, holding me tightly against his chest.
Those four words undid me, and the tears and whimpers slipped out of me in a way I’d never allowed to happen before. Yes, it was the loss of those sleeping babies. Yes, it was the loss of never being a mother.
But it was also the loss of Gran.
Of my parents.
Of all those years that had been a blur with Alan because I’d been too afraid to step up and demand better from him.
Sitting in that jail cell, thinking I’d be killed for a crime I didn’t commit. All those emotions had welled up without getting any release, and they’d come for me with a vengeance.
Crash didn’t shush me. He held me tightly and let me sob against his chest as I clung to his shirt, my nails digging into the soft material. The warmth of his body curled through me like a blanket just pulled out of the dryer on a cold night, and I breathed it in. Warmth and safety, he was both, and I needed it more than I wanted to admit.
The emotions came in waves, and I just let them flow through me, out my eyes, and down my cheeks. For the first time, I really let myself process everything that had happened to me.
“It isn’t weakness to feel this way, lass,” Crash murmured. “You’ve handled all that’s been thrown at you, and that includes me being an ass when you needed me to be better. It was bound to come out at some point.”
He kissed the top of my head and a final hiccupping sob popped out of me, and that was the last of it. Not that I wouldn’t feel any