Once Touched, Never Forgotten - By Natasha Tate Page 0,45

circled her until he faced her. “Your father didn’t want you?”

She forced herself to meet his eyes, feigning a strength she didn’t feel while her throat worked with the confession. “I was a burden he didn’t want, and the only reason he and my mother married.”

A hint of anger stole across his features. “Surely they didn’t tell you that?”

“They didn’t have to. They were miserable, and wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t been born.”

His nostrils flared while he regarded her in silence. After a taut moment, he asked, “How old were you when you figured this out?”

“I overheard them arguing about me when I was eight.”

Dropping his gaze to her mouth, he inhaled. Exhaled. And then raised his eyes back to hers. “It wasn’t your fault,” he told her fiercely.

Colette knotted her hands at her sides, hating the fact that they were trembling. Hating the fact that she felt so exposed. “My mother said as much, but I knew it was just to keep from hurting my feelings. I wasn’t blind. I knew my father hated her for getting pregnant and forcing him into marriage.”

The back of her nose burned as she remembered the way she’d tried so hard to be the perfect daughter, her hair neatly braided and her skinned knees hidden behind tight white socks. She’d wanted a daddy who loved her so badly.

“I knew he hated me.” She blinked back the stupid, stupid film of tears that had gathered and lifted her chin as if her father’s rejection no longer bothered her. “And I never wanted Emma to feel that way. I was afraid if you knew about her, you’d—”

“I’d never reject Emma.”

“But how could I have known that? My father wasn’t nearly the playboy you are—were—and he hated the obligation we forced on him. He hated that my mother and I stripped him of his future. He died a depressed, miserable man because of it. Because of me.”

“You ever think it was your father who was at fault for not crafting a better future out of the choice he made?”

“He didn’t make the choice,” she insisted. “My mother and I foisted it upon him.”

“I’m pretty sure you had nothing to do with your father’s decision to sleep with your mother,” he observed dryly.

She bit her lip and cast her gaze toward her shoes. “Even so, I was the unfortunate result.”

“Don’t say that,” he ordered, tipping her face back up. Anger radiated from his expression. “Ever. They were damn lucky to have you.”

She hadn’t relied on a man to validate her worth for a long, long time. And having Stephen do so made her feel off balance, as if the bedrock upon which she’d built her life had suddenly turned to quicksand. “I don’t want your pity,” she said, stepping back to create more space between them. “I only told you this because I wanted you to understand my reluctance to tell you about Emma.”

His eyes flashed. “I would never hurt our daughter.” He stepped closer, lifting both hands to her shoulders and forcing her to meet his gaze. “No matter what happens, I will never make her feel that I resent her for being born.”

She blinked, forcing her voice to remain steady. “Thank you for saying that.”

“I didn’t just say it. I meant it. Emma’s my daughter, Colette. Mine. And I never intentionally wound what’s mine.”

She remained silent as her throat thickened, the icy barriers she’d nurtured for so long threatening to crack. To thaw.

His grip on her shoulders gentled. Turned into a subtle caress as his thumbs brushed over the knobs of flesh and bone. “Do you believe me?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“And just because I demanded marriage when I found out about Emma, it doesn’t mean we’d be unhappy the way your parents were.”

“We would be.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because you never would have asked to marry me if Emma weren’t in the picture.”

“How can you possibly know that?” “Don’t you?”

“No.” The word held an edge of finality she’d never heard from him before. “Neither of us does. Who’s to say what might have happened if you hadn’t conceived Emma? Maybe we would have gone together to Paris. Maybe instead of breaking things off with you I’d have decided I couldn’t live without you, child or no child.”

Confusion rioted in her chest, making it hard to breathe. “But you never—”

“My point is, you don’t know what might have developed had you not gotten pregnant. Nobody does. But looking backward instead of forward is

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