Page 202 of The Billionaire's Secret

Each time, he would hang me upside down and throw questions at me. Anytime I couldn't answer, I was flogged on my feet until I managed to come up with the right answer. That day, I knew I was close to my breaking point. My brain was fogged. I had used up all of my reserves of energy. When he asked me the question, I barely heard it." His throat moves as he swallows.

"What happened then?"

"He whipped my feet. Every time he stopped and asked me if I knew the answer, I couldn't form the words. The blood flowed down my legs, along with it my life. The beating went on longer than any time before. Until I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. Until the fire from the wounds ran down my legs, down my spine, slammed into the back of my head. Until some of the capillaries in my eyes broke, and blood ran down my cheeks. Darkness crowded in on me. I thought I was going to die... I never did guess the answer that day. He left me hanging there for hours... Days... Who knows?" He shrugs, "That's how the cops found me when they rescued me. I woke up in a hospital, wondering what the answer was. I couldn't guess it all this time... Then the answer came to me as I paced the floor of the waiting room outside, appealing to whichever higher power might hear me that you’d be okay."

"Oh," I swallow and a hot sensation grips my chest. "What was the answer?"

"Forgiveness," he peers into my face.

"That was the solution to the riddle?" My heart begins to race.

He nods, "Will you forgive me for everything I put you through, Victoria?"

I try to pull my hand away, but he holds on.

"Why?" I purse my lips.

He frowns.

"Why should I forgive you, Saint?" I ask. "You refused to accept our child."

"The one you didn't tell me about?" he retorts.

"I all but revealed it to you in the form of a puzzle."

"You could have come outright and told me," he scolds.

"To you? The master riddler?" I throw up my hands. "You who can crack almost any puzzle?"

His jaw tics. He shuffles his feet.

"You tested me again and again with your games. Yet the one time I asked you the one question, the answer to which mattered so much to me, you pretended not to know the answer."

He squeezes the bridge of his nose, "I think I knew what you were trying tell me. I guessed it, my subconscious alerted me it, but I didn't want to accept it." He winces. "I made a mistake."

"Wow," I blink, "You're actually acknowledging that you're not perfect."

"Seems today is a day of many firsts." He rubs his thumb over the pulse on my wrist, "Including my telling you that I want you, Gigi." He leans over and cups my belly.

A shiver runs up my spine.

"And I want this child more than anything in the world. If anything had happened to the two of you, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."

He whispers his knuckles across my jaw, "Promise you'll never scare me like that again."

"I scared myself." Tears prick my eyes.

"Hey, don't." He wipes away the moisture that trickles down my cheek, "I am here, and I'm not going anywhere."

"Never?"

"I plan to be by your side. Through sickness and through health. Through ups and downs. Even when the children we have together are grown up and have left home, I'll be there taking care of you, protecting you, providing for you."

"Saint," I whisper. A ball of emotions chokes my throat.Is he saying what I think he is?My heart stutters and a warmth fills my chest.

"It's true," he nods. "I was too afraid to acknowledge what the thought of becoming a father does to me."

"What is that?"