“Love, I need you to wake up,” I whisper a minute later after regretfully walking into the master bedroom and turning on the bedside lamp.
I love my love, but letting her sleep while I suffer untold horrors is not something I can do right now.
“Love, Jewel needs a change,” I say louder, hushing the baby when she lets out an unladylike squawk and screws her chubby face up.
Ashley’s lashes flutter before opening, revealing the gray eyes I’ve missed so much. Something flickers deep in those eyes for the briefest second before she sits up and throws the duvet aside, taking my burden with a muttered curse.
“Come on, Ju, let’s go do something about that before Mommy comes back to do something about that.”
A strange sense of foreboding hits me when my previously loving wife throws me a scathing glare and stomps out with the baby, her body stiff and unyielding. She comes back a few minutes later, after I’d listened to her whisper and mutter over the baby monitor while she changed and settled Jewel.
“Okay,” she breathes, closing the door and prowling my way, her eyes shooting sparks at me.
“Can I have a kiss?”
“Huh! Not in this lifetime, asshole,” she mutters furiously, folding her arms and backing away when I reach out to touch her.
“You have some explaining to do before I let you put your paws on me, buddy. I’m gonna give you one chance to tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing, and if you even think of lying to me I will take my shit and my kids and be gone so fast you won’t be able to blink. You got me?”
“Uh, yes?”
“Good. So tell me where you were.”
“Germany, you know—”
“I know you said you went there to fix something. What I don’t know is if that’s the truth!”
“I have never lied to you!” I yell, feeling my anger rise now with the look of distrust and the scorn directed at me.
“Yeah?” she asks sweetly, making me cringe—she’s deadly when she gets sweet, and that’s not something I need right now.
What I need is for her to shut up and kiss me hello before I lose control and have her under me for a long due claiming.
“Ash—”
“You’ve never lied, huh? So when you went and got your dick snipped and didn’t tell me, that was what? Loss of memory?”
Uh, shite.
“That, I was going to tell you. I just—”
“Lied! No, tell me the truth, Luc. What were you doing?”
My gut clenches when I look at her and see something in her eyes I haven’t ever seen. Defeat. My love is a fighter, a come up swinging kind of lass with a mouth that shoots nails and barbs that always hit their target.
She has always been quick to temper and even quicker to retaliate, never down and ready to quit, something that scares me straight and warns me that lying to her now will accomplish nothing but a loss for me.
“I did go to Germany. For a day. And then I went to the UK to get my ex-wife to stay the fuck out of our lives, and threatened my meddling mother with a lawsuit if the two of them attempted to extort money from me again.”
My answer knocks the breath out of her, a sound I feel more than hear, and she crumples to her knees, her mouth wobbling into a teary smile.
“I’m so glad I’m not a hopeful moron,” she says in a strangled tone, burying her head in her hands. “But I was so sure you were cheating on me to try and get back at me for… And then I was gonna leave, but I couldn’t because I love you, and I wanted to believe you wouldn’t do that to me. And then I—I started thinking about that time you left me and how I was so mad that you walked away without letting me explain what really happened. And I got mad and decided to stay and wait and give you the chance you never gave me and—”
“Shh, love, hush. Don’t cry so,” I croon, dragging her up and into my arms.
It’s only when her arms come out and around me, her hands fisting my hair and clinging, that I let go of the tight knot in my chest and breathe again, closing my eyes in relief.
“I would never cheat, love. You’re way too much woman as it is,” I tease, pushing my anger to the back of my mind and concentrating on my woman instead.
I’m pissed that she’d be so easily swayed to think me unworthy, but so relieved that she stayed long enough for an explanation that I feel weak and grateful all at once.
“You still love me?”
“Always,” I swear, pushing away to cradle her face and lick away her tears. “You’re mine, the only one I want. Forever.”
“O-okay. I’m… Can we maybe talk about what happened…then?” she asks, and I sigh, wanting to refuse but knowing I have to face this if I’m ever to get her past that event.