Page 31 of Forbidden Pregnancy (The Buffalo Italian Mob Family #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Myra

Present Day

A weight lifts from me after telling CC the truth. But I don’t know if I should tell Michael, or if I even want to. He doesn’t know about what happened and over the years, I have come to believe that he never knew. I wrote letters. I disappeared. What do I expect Michael to even do about this?

The day after telling her, nothing changes around the house. CC might be a little softer, but it’s easy to attribute that to her guilt over drugging me in the first place. I would have never chosen to re-enter Michael Corsini’s life knowing what his family could do to me.

CC’s response to everything suggests that they’re responsible for all of this – the safe houses, Michael’s paranoia and what to me seems inevitable – my future assassination.

So imagine my surprise when I’m between twenty-six and twenty-seven weeks pregnant and Michael struts over to the breakfast nook where CC and I are enjoying oatmeal.

He wears more clothing with his sister around, and I feel a sorrowful pang at missing out on Michael wandering the house shirtless.

His sexy chest and stomach can sometimes numb the impact of his terrible attitude.

When he enters the room, Michael scowls at CC, but he doesn’t look at me. Panic surges.

Did she tell him?

CC waves at her brother, ignoring his scowl. By now, I know she’s used to him and his grumpy ways…

“CC, pack your things. We’re going back to Buffalo tonight. Myra? Bedroom.”

That’s it – not a question, not a polite greeting.

“I’m pregnant.”

Michael’s expression softens and he reaches for my hand. “Then I’ll help you up.”

He touches me and I wonder if he’s more distracted than harsh.

Michael grasps my hand and helps me off the couch.

The baby makes me feel more unbalanced than ever before.

Not just because of the weight, but the emotional state pregnancy leaves me with.

Michael’s touch comforts me, but the rest of his body language unnerves me.

Maybe she did tell him.

Once we’re in the bedroom alone, Michael shuts the door behind him and leans against it.

Twelve years after we first met and he’s definitely not the same man.

He lost an eye – I still don’t know how that happened – and he has streaks of grey along the front strands of his hair.

There’s a little grey in his beard, which only adds to how much older and distinguished he looks.

If I didn’t know that he was a mobster, I wouldn’t suspect a thing. The missing eye and Michael’s build might prompt me to believe he’s in the military instead. He rakes his fingers through his hair, tousling the thick front portion before he considers me seriously.

“We’re going back to Buffalo.”

“I heard you.”

“Before we leave,” Michael asks, looking up at me with that one icy blue eyeball. His false eye remains unfocused on me, staring straight ahead. “We need to talk.”

I don’t know what he means by that. Michael spreads his arms and gestures for me to embrace him. Slowly and with a fair degree of confusion, I approach and allow him to wrap his strong arms around me. Strange. Michael doesn’t hide from affection, but he tends to be more aggressive and sexual.

My baby bump presses into him and the contact is enough to make our little one flip inside my tummy in response to his closeness. What we both created feels truly beautiful, despite the turmoil of the outside world.

Michael scowls. “This isn’t easy for me.”

I don’t know what he means, but I try to offer some support.

“I can split the driving if that’s what you mean.”

Michael chuckles. “No, Myra. It’s not.”

His thumb runs over my lips slowly, forcing my gaze up to meet his. Michael’s expression softens.

“I know why you left.”

Those five words hit me hard. I should have known he was acting strangely. Then again, Michael does his best to conceal his emotions from me as much as possible. It’s not really possible to know how he feels, especially if he doesn’t want me to.

Without my consent, my body starts shaking. I never planned on telling Michael. Not out of fear as much as out of shame. Twelve years ago, I genuinely believed he would save me. I loved him and I thought he loved me.

Waking up alone, battered, bruised, forced to recover alone with an earworm from my assailants – This is a message from the Corsini family. Keep your dirty skin away from our people.

“If I had known,” Michael says, staring at me with so much intensity, that I grow rigid where I stand, expectant and concerned about Michael’s next words.

I can’t tell if he’s angry with me, if he sees this as an additional betrayal.

But my observations change as his skin flushes.

The redness spreads and his eyes change. “I would have done something.”

His voice chokes and his grasp on my cheeks gets so tight that even Michael realizes he might hurt me, so his hands drop to my shoulder. He is stern. Serious.

“I understand why you didn’t tell me.”

My throat tightens. I can’t form words. The entire world seems to be spinning around me except for Michael. He draws me against his chest but he doesn’t stop talking.

“I promise, Myra… I will spend the rest of my life hunting down whoever hurt you and when I find out who it is, they will die .”

A tear prickles at the corner of Michael’s eyes.

“When you left twelve years ago, I blamed you. But it was my fault all along.”

“It wasn’t.”

Michael keeps me against his chest. I can hear his heart racing nervously. He touches the top of my head, spreading warmth through my body. I can feel his love when he holds me and when he touches me. I don’t want to deny it anymore.

Love wasn’t what kept me away from Michael. I had to stop myself from loving him actively. I had to stop myself from caring for him. I had to push myself and beat myself up just to keep myself alive.

“I love you, Myra,” he says. “And if I had known, we could have had twelve years together that we lost…”

His voice catches again and Michael’s emotions are so strong that they become mine. Tears pierce the corner of my eyes. Right now, it feels like those years blurred past, but as Michael holds me, I feel the weight of it all. I’m almost forty years old now – and he is forty years old.

Old enough that we understand what it means to have a life together and to have lost one. I assumed that what happened between me and Micahel was just how God meant for everything to play out, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less that we spent over a decade mired in misunderstanding.

The thick fog between us cleared a little with the truth and I sniffle quietly while trying to hold it all together against Michael’s chest.

“I love you too,” I whisper back, my voice just as choked up as Michael’s.

“Will you trust me when we get back home?” Michael asks.

I look up at him with confusion. There are still tears in his eyes.

He won’t let them fall. His glass eye is such a clear, beautiful match to his other one that for a moment, I think I’m looking at the young man I fell in love with. That I shouldn’t have ever loved.

“I always trusted you.”

That part is true. I had to be beaten nearly half to death to lose my trust in Michael.

It hurts to look at him right now and see his disappointment.

He feels like he doesn’t deserve that trust because of what he heard.

But I don’t know how to fix this for us.

I don’t feel like it can. Twelve years ago, Michael’s family attacked and tried to kill me for the color of my skin.

All this happened before I got pregnant. Before I became a legitimate threat to the purity of their precious bloodline.

He sighs and I can tell this weight won’t leave him easily.

For me, it’s all so far in the past and deeply buried in a way I don’t want to dredge up again.

I had all the therapy I needed. I learned how to sleep at night.

I learned how to trust again. Tristan might have been a bum ass mistake, but at one point he represented growth and my ability to trust men again.

Michael doesn’t have therapy and I can’t imagine him believing that such a thing would work, so I have to worry about how he’ll handle something like this.

Hopefully not with too much gambling. His crash out over the last Colorado Avalanche game made me far too aware of hockey teams and the significance of a parlay.

“Michael… If you need to talk about this… we can.”

He scowls, darkening up the fair features on his masculine face. He won’t talk about this. I can tell.

“I will never allow anyone to hurt you like that again.”

“Without committing a crime.”

“I said what I said, Myra,” he says. “We never have to talk about this again. Ever. ”