Page 142 of Beautiful Secrets

“I have found her.”

My eyes dart up to his, and lock. Whatever anger had been on his face is gone. He looks…happy. Which I do not understand.

I have just told him I do not want any more children. Which means, even if he was happy to raise another man’s child—and who on earth would be fine with that, especially a man like Yuri?—I would never bear him his own son or daughter.

He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and scans my face like he is memorizing every freckle and every line. “I don’t want anyone else, Mika. I want you.”

I shake my head. “But you will never have a proper family with me. Why would you—”

He lets out a low, almost bitter laugh. But as soon as he speaks, his voice becomes warm again. “You’re not the only one who’s been keeping secrets. That was never in the cards for me, my little rabbit.” He inhales deeply, his chest pushing against my arm, and then he holds up the ring for me to see. “I want you to be my wife. I want Tavisha,” he glances down, smooths a hand over my belly, “to be our daughter.” His eyes come back to mine. “If you’ll let me.”

I blink free a tear, and quickly swipe it away with a knuckle. “You can do so much better. You could have your own daughter, or your own son. Why would you want—”

“I didn’t want children either,” he says.

Cold rushes through. But then I hear the tense in the words—didn’t. Past tense.

I frown at him, but he doesn’t let me speak.

“Until I met you. But then, the choice wasn’t mine anymore.”

“I…don’t understand.”

His eyes drop to my belly again. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. Not much to do when you’re in a fucking hospital bed.”

Guilt lances through my heart like a fire poker.

“What were you thinking about?”

“How I’d met the woman of my dreams.” His eyes lock with mine. “You’re beautiful, intelligent, stubborn as a goat. Everything I ever wanted in a wife and more. And Tavisha?” He strokes my belly, but keeps his eyes locked with mine. “I’m sure she’ll be every bit like her mother. Warm, and kind.”

“And stubborn as a goat?”

“God willing,” he says with a smirk.

I watch him for a few seconds. He still hasn’t answered me, but he knows it. I think he’s building up to it.

He shifts, gives me a little squeeze. “It pissed me off so much, coming out of Blackmoore and seeing everyone I knew had moved on with their lives. Like I’d been stuck in a cryogenic chamber for five years. Sure, I felt different. A better version of myself, but in there time stands still.

“Then I see Kill and his brood, and everything about it annoyed the living shit out of me. How happy they were. How complicated their lives had become.”

His gaze shifts as he starts toying with that same lock of hair that keeps falling out behind my ear.

“Deep down, I wanted that, Mika. I wanted my life to be complicated again—but I knew it would never happen.”

He twists my hair around his finger.

“Until you found the right person?” I whisper, when he stays quiet for too long.

“No. Not even then.” There’s a darkness in his eyes now, and it has nothing to do with the lack of light in the VIP room. “They ran a battery of tests on me in there, Mika. All sorts of shit to figure out why I was so fucked in the head. I learned a lot about myself—and more than just my blood type.”

“Like what?”

His lips flash into a sad smile. “Like the fact that I was destined to have an easy, uncomplicated life.”

“Cole.”

He finally looks at me again. “I can’t have children, Mika. Not now, not ever.”