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“I trust you with my life.” He held my face still, so I’d be forced to look at him. “With my fuckin’ life. Tell me you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t.” It wasn’t a lie. “You broke me.” A sob wrenched out of me. “You called me a whore.”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “I can’t even apologize, baby, because words mean horseshit.”
“You know what Nash used to say?”
“What?”
“That ‘apologies are like pissing in the wind—feels like you’re doin’ something, but all you get is a mess.’”
He laughed then through his tears. “Nash was a wise fuckin’ man. But he wasn’t wise enough, was he?” He looked at me and brushed his lips against mine. Tremors shook my body. It was a tender, gentle kiss full of love and affection. “He didn’t marry the woman he loved. He didn’t take care of her. I won’t make that mistake.”
“You already made your mistakes, Duke. Mistakes neither of us can recover from.”
“No. I refuse to believe that we can’t come back from that. I refuse to believe you’ll let a twenty-year-old dickhead take the love of your life away from you.”
I pushed him away, anger surging through me. He fell on his ass. “You destroyed me.” I straddled him and began to pound at his chest. He didn’t stop me, just let me hit him. “You killed me from within.” I was screaming now as I struck him. My fists hurt because the son of a bitch had abs.
I began to cry, and he pulled me to him, settled me in his arms, my thighs nestled between his. And maybe it was the grave, or maybe it was the fact that we were finally stripped bare, but the words came easier than they ever had.
“I lost our baby,” I wailed.
His grip tightened on me. “Tell me.”
I couldn’t. Instead, I sobbed my heart out, grief pouring from me in ragged gasps, the burden too much tocarry alone any longer. Duke let me break, let me empty out every ounce of pain until there was nothing left.
When the tears finally dried up, I sat up, my body heavy, my throat raw. Duke slid his arm around me, solid and steady, anchoring me to the moment, to him. He didn’t rush me, didn’t push for words I wasn’t ready to say. He just held me, letting his warmth soak into my bones, letting me know I wasn’t alone.
And then by the graves of Nash and Mama, beneath the open sky, surrounded by the land that had shaped us both—I told him the sad story.
“After you left, Nash…he said worse than you did.”
“Tell me,” he insisted.
“He called me a whore and a slut. He said you were off limits, and how dare I think I could have something to do with his boy. He said I was an uneducated tramp, and you were destined for better.” I hung my head, the shame of his words still making me weak. “And then…Mama said she was disappointed. She said that I was going to end up like her, a mistress and nothing more, and maybe I deserved that.”
“Fuckin’ hell.”
“I was pregnant. I was going to tell you when you came back. I was so scared and?—”
"Goddamn it, Elena," he choked out, his head dipping to my shoulder. "I'm so fuckin' sorry."
I felt his tears, hot against my skin, his breath shuddering as he held me tight. And for once, I didn’t mind that hewas sad—because it meant, for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t alone.
“It gets worse so you may want to hold on to your dramatic responses,” I quipped.
He let out a watery chuckle. “Okay. I can do that.”
I sniffed, swiping at my face before shifting back, putting just enough space between us so I could look him in the eye. I needed the distance to say this part—to lay it bare without the warmth of his touch softening the edges.
“I went by the river and…I was so lost. So scared. So alone.” He was going to say something, but I raised my hand. “This is hard enough to tell you without you interrupting me.” He shut up. “I was about ten weeks pregnant, I think. I didn’t go see a doctor or anything; I just did a home pregnancy test. I was by the river,” I said again, “and I decided to….”
“Florecita?” The pain in his voice matched what was in my heart.
“I jumped in.”
“No,” he moaned.