SEALed With A Kiss(26)

She didn’t have to open her heavy eyes to know that Vinny was sitting in the chair next to her bed, his brooding gaze on her face. She could sense him there, staring at her, willing for her to wake up so they could talk. Except, she didn’t want to talk because then she’d have to accept her guilt and deal with it.

Talk to him, you coward, her conscience commanded.

It wasn’t fair to Vinny to leave him just sitting there, awash with confusion. She owed him an explanation. She owed him way more than that, but it was too late now.

Dreading the conversation to come, she drew a bracing breath, forced her eyelids to open, and turned her head to meet his bloodshot gaze.

God, if he looked that bad with deep brackets around his mouth and dark circles under his eyes, then she had to look a total wreck. “Hey,” she greeted him, in a voice scratchy with disuse.

His gaze seemed to tunnel through her eyes into her mind. “Hey, yourself. How’re you feelin’?”

“Sore,” she admitted, swallowing against a dry throat. “Could I have a drink of water?”

He handed her the large plastic cup off the wheeled tray, and she whispered her thanks, nursing the chilled water from the straw while she formulated what to say to him. She thought she recalled apologizing at the cemetery when they’d been reunited, but one apology scarcely atoned for the enormity of her sins. She didn’t know where to start.

“How long did you know?” Vinny demanded, diving right in. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he awaited her answer.

The reminder that the precious little life she’d been guarding was gone drove a shaft of pain straight through her heart. She lowered the cup to her lap and stared down at it, devastated. She had tried turning over a new leaf. She had wanted to put the baby first, and now it was too late. “Almost two months,” she admitted, too ashamed to even look at him.

Stunned silence followed her reply. “Two months,” he finally repeated, in a voice that resonated with betrayal.

“I was going to tell you,” she rushed to assure him, “but I was afraid you’d force me to quit my job and I wasn’t ready…” She cut herself off, dismayed by how petty she sounded.

“You weren’t ready.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his hands gripping the edge of the chair he sat in, as he fought to rein in his incredulity. “Is that all you ever think of—yourself? What about the baby?” he demanded with controlled rage. “What about me? I haven’t slept or eaten or breathed in thirty-six hours because you didn’t tell me what you were up to. If I had known you were interviewing Rawlings, I would have recognized his name and realized what you were up against, and I would have protected you. None of this would have happened!”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Remorse twisted through her, wringing tears from her heart. “I was going to tell you.”

“Really?” he scoffed, his volume climbing. “After all the secrets you’ve kept from me, how do I know you had any intention of telling me at all?”

She gasped at the hurtful words, wrenching her gaze up in a desperate bid to convince him. “I was,” she insisted. “On Christmas day, I was going to put the pregnancy strip in your… stocking.” Her voice broke at the realization that that would never happen now. The poor little life inside of her had never stood a chance. She’d endangered it by continuing with her risky plan, knowing all the while how villainous a man Rawlings truly was. “Is he—did he get arrested yet for what he did to me?” she asked in a desperate bid to shift some of the blame off her own narrow shoulders.

“Not yet.” Vinny sprang to his feet and stalked to the window, his agitation a clear sign that Rawlings’ continued freedom chafed at him. “The cops and the district attorney want to make sure he won’t find some kind of loophole to get around the charges.”

An aching silence fell between them. Vinny kept his back to her. She watched his shoulders rise and fall as he fought to bring his emotions under control.

“I swear, Vinny,” Ophelia said, in a last-ditch effort to elicit his understanding, “if I’d known what Rawlings would do to me, I would never have taken chances with our baby.”

He turned his head at her assertion. But the look in his eyes wasn’t even one that she recognized. He looked at her as if he’d never seen before—or like he was seeing for the first time who she really was. The look encased her heart in ice.

He had finally realized what she’d known all along—that she did not deserve him. That she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.