CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Balor
I ’ve denied that I fell hard for Ella long enough.
I thought I wouldn’t ever let myself get so tangled and unraveled. Boy, I was so damn wrong, it scares the hell out of me.
Yet, here I am.
This is my moment, a moment I’d only ever gotten secondhand when my brothers announced they were going to be a father.
I never considered to ask how the news hit them.
This one feels like a searing crossbow into my chest.
But every muscle unclenches. Any breath I’m holding loosens. Any doubt I had about how I feel about Ella crystalizes in front of my eyes.
I’m pregnant.
She’s mine. And I love her.
“Are you sure?” I ask because that seems like the logical response. “About the baby?”
Swallowing, she sits back and only now it feels crappy that she just sucked me off. We’re talking about this in the shadow of my orgasm.
Fuck, that question of how I feel about her makes sense. I couldn’t put an answer into words. So I said something lame. Don’t my actions speak louder? Like telling her how much I missed her?
“Three at-home tests came up positive,” she says, pinching her sweater. “I have an appointment with my doctor at the end of the month. They asked my last period date and based on that—”
“When was your last period?”
“Before I left Sydney. I’m not very regular. My cycle fluctuates. The pills were supposed to help that, too.” She bites her lip and then looks up at me. “It’s yours, Balor. ”
I grip her face, shock rolling through me that she thinks I would even suspect it wasn’t mine. “Of course, it’s mine.”
Considering she told me she wasn’t on the pill when I fucked her in L.A. where I pulled off the condom and filled her with my cum out of uncontrollable lust, this pregnancy is my fault.
“My brother, Darragh, will arrange to have you examined by a colleague right away. Today.” I reach for my phone, but she stops my hand.
“I don’t want to be a bother to your family.” She sounds like doesn’t want my brother to know.
“I just want to make sure everything is okay. That you’re okay.” I hold her against my chest.
“I feel fine. Just...emotional.” She looks up at me. “And really dying for sex.”
“Can you play hooky from school, little girl?” I tease her.
Smiling, she says, “The negative part of working for a school is that calling out messes up the day for a lot of people. Including the kids.” Her lips close around my jaw. “School will be closed for the February break soon.”
“Okay. Good.” I get out of bed and get my thoughts under control.
It’s not Darragh I’m worried about. It’s Lachlan who plans to kill her father.
Fuck, Corvin is my child’s grandfather.
This poor kid won the gobshite grandfather lottery. My da is no prize. I have to live with pretending what I saw that night didn’t happen. That I didn’t see him beat my mother. That I’ve forgiven him. But I’ve kept his secret because I honestly don’t know what my brothers would do. The sheer audacity of Da’s arrogance to lay a hand on the mother of seven fucking sons, five of whom he groomed to be killers just like him .
I was only sixteen at the time, and after witnessing his violence against Ma, he pulled me aside.
“Do yourself a favor, don’t get married. Don’t have kids. I got enough sons who will carry on my name. Women are fucking trouble. Pay one to suck your dick and be done with them.” The alcohol on his breath dulled the meaning of his words, and I told myself he didn’t mean it. “You’re the smartest one, Balor. We had you tested. You’ll do great things.”
After he stumbled from his bedroom, I ran to my mother to help her, troubled by the disgusting mix of my father’s compliment with his confession. It made me want to throw up, and I questioned what was true and what was drunken babble.
Ma held her head high, wiping the blood from her nose, and sternly made me promise not to tell my older brothers.
To this day, I’ve kept their secret, privately holding a grudge against Da. And upset at myself for being too small, too afraid to intervene.
It’s only been tempered by the way he’s been taking care of Ma since her illness intensified.
I have to come to terms that I’m saving Ella because I couldn’t protect my mother that night. But it confuses me if what I feel for her is real. Or some transference that will blow up in my face later.
“Balor, do you have anything else to say about this?” Ella knocks me out of my thoughts.
I’m shocked where they went. Had I been bottling all that up?
“We can wait for you to see your doctor.”
Her eyes go glassy. “Nothing else?”
My heart seizes. Is she expecting me to tell her I love her? Or to propose? Right here, right now? “No. So long as you’re feeling well and don’t need anything.”
“Okay. ”
“Was there something you expected me to say?” If she gives me an opening, maybe I will propose.
If she’s pregnant with my baby, we will be getting married. Full. Stop.
Her body tenses. “Fuck off?”
A wave of anger floods my veins. I clench my fists and take a deep breath before I respond. “Fuck off? Are you serious?”
She flinches at my harsh tone and hops off the bed. “What are we doing?”
“According to you, we’re having a baby.” I smile to get her to smile.
“I thought you’d tell me again how you don’t want kids. How you don’t want a relationship and—”
“That was before. Now it’s the complete fucking opposite.” I don’t mean to sound so gutturally angry, but how can she think I’d tell her to bugger off?
“We don’t have to get married.” She steps farther away from me. “I don’t want to get married yet. I’m only twenty-seven. I didn’t plan this.”
I stand there, still naked, my dick not quite flaccid yet. “I know you didn’t plan this. And if you haven’t bled since we were first together, I take responsibility for pressuring you to take me without protection.”
“I said yes. I’m responsible.”
“These can’t be our wedding vows,” I joke as the idea of marrying her shines brightly with no shadows or clouds in my thoughts, nothing haunting me about the decision.
“Seriously, you don’t have to marry me.”
“Seriously, that’s not how this works in my world.”
She steps back. “You can’t force me.”
“Wanna bet?”