'Til Death - Part 2 (13 page)

“Marcus,” Katia whispers. “This is your daughter, Penny.”

I stare at her, unable to speak, emotions overtaking my tired, damaged body. My daughter. Mine. Ours. Perfect.

“Penny, this is your daddy.”

Daddy.

It’s as if someone has punched me in the chest.

Daddy.

M
arcus looks as if he’s going to pass out. He’s staring at Penny, his mouth opening and closing, his eyes red rimmed and glossy. He reaches up, running his fingers over his face, trying desperately to calm himself. Penny reaches over to the dangling gold bracelet hanging around his wrist as it passes her face.

When she catches it, he jerks and his eyes dart down to her.

She starts tugging it and he’s forced to take a step closer.

My heart breaks.

“Hi Penny,” he finally croaks, leaning down so she can pull him closer.

“You can touch her,” I whisper. “She won’t bite.”

He turns his pained brown eyes to me and we share something, something I haven’t felt since I first fell in love with him. We have a connection; something we’ve both desperately tried to fight. My heart aches to reach over and touch him, to take the pain out of his eyes. Pain I put there. Was this how he felt when I looked at him with the same pain in my eyes?

He slowly turns his face back to Penny and reaches over, stroking his fingers over her forehead. She stares up at him, still holding the chain on his wrist. He reaches up, touching her soft curls, and he makes an agonized sound deep in his throat. Tears prick my eyes and I have to try awful hard to swallow them down.

“She’s perfect,” he whispers.

“Yeah, she is.”

He leans down, brushing his lips across her forehead. She lets his bracelet go and reaches up for his hair. He smiles, showing that gorgeous dimple, and presses another kiss down, this time to her cheek. After a moment, he stands. He turns to me. “What’s going on with her?”

I gather myself and say, “The doctors thought she might have pneumonia, though since she’s been on that drip she’s perked right up. She’s smiling and showing life. They’ve done some tests, and she’s on antiviral medication, so we just have to see. They’re keeping her overnight, but it’s all looking good.”

He nods, pulling out his phone. “Ulio, yeah, I’m at the hospital. Need you to take my business dinner tonight. Can’t be there.”

I blink.

He’s staying?

“Thanks. Call me if you need.”

He hangs up, snapping back into Marcus mode and waving down a nurse. “Yes sir?” she asks.

“We’ll need two pullout beds. If you can’t fit them in here, you move us all to a bigger room. I’ll pay, no matter the cost.”

The nurse nods. “Of course, sir.”

Twenty minutes later we’re in a bigger room, with two fold-up beds laid out. Penny has fallen asleep, tucked up in her crib. She’s still coughing every half an hour, and every time she does Marcus is by her side, rubbing her chest, soothing her. My heart is breaking into a thousand tiny pieces.

“I’m just going to,” I start, but my voice wavers. “I need some fresh air.”

Marcus, who is standing by Penny’s side, looks up at me. “You doin’ okay?”

I smile weakly. “Sure.”

I’m not.

I turn and rush out of the room as the tears flood my eyes. I’m so sick of tears. So sick of crying. Why couldn’t I have found a wonderful, beautiful love that was easy? Not this. This is so fucking hard. Tears pour down my cheeks as I power down the halls, needing fresh air. The moment I burst outside, I collapse to my knees and I cry.

I cry for Penny.

I cry for Marcus.

I cry for my mom.

But most of all, I just cry for me.

~*~*~*~

I
t’s late, Marcus is asleep, and Penny is too. I get out of the uncomfortable hospital bed and walk over to the window, staring down at Marcus as I pass. He’s in the bed, arms up behind his head, sleeping rather soundly. I take in all his beauty and my heart aches to curl up in his arms and stay there. Fucking aches. I sit on the chair by the window and stare out at the city lights.

I tuck my legs up to my chest and just stare. It’s all I can do. I’m too emotional to sleep. I’m deep in thought when a low, gravelly voice penetrates the darkness. “Penny looks like my mother.”

I flinch. The only thing he’s ever told me about his mother is that she died and his father re-married.

“She must have been beautiful then,” I whisper.

“She was.”

“Did your father love her?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “No. My father was as selfish as me. He treated her badly, bashed her all the time. One night I found her dead in the bathroom. She had overdosed.”

I close my eyes, my body trembling. Jesus.

“You’re nothing like that,” I say hoarsely. “You’d never hurt someone like that.”

“Wouldn’t I? Didn’t I?”

“No,” I say. “You didn’t. You’re a lot of things, Marcus. You ripped my heart out, but you never, ever hurt me physically, and I know you never would.”

He’s silent again.

I go to turn when he speaks once more. “After she died, my father just went on with life, as usual. As though he had no part in her death. As if he did nothing to lead her there. I hated him. I despised him. When he re-married, I hated her and her kids just as much. I went to live with my grandfather when I was twelve with the permission of my father. I never saw him again after that. He died a few years back. Cancer.”

“Justice was served,” I whisper.

“Yeah.”

“And your grandfather?”

“Hard, cranky, selfish. My entire family was like that. The only thing he taught me was how to be strong, to have a backbone and to never feel. He knew I could run that business; he saw it in me at a young age. Unfortunately, he also saw I was reckless and a whore.”

I flinch again, closing my eyes, hating that word.

“I slept around a lot. I never kept a woman. It was a bad ‘look’ for the business. When he died, you know what he said had to happen.” He sighs. “I thought that business was all I had, Katia. I never thought there could be anything better out there for me. I believed it was the only thing keeping me afloat. Until I met you.”

I close my eyes, tucking my knees closer to my chest. “Why me?”

He shrugs. “I met you by chance that night, but you were so broken, so tired. You put on a good front, but your life was hard. I knew you would benefit from my lifestyle. I knew your mom would, too. It was a win-win, in my eyes.”

“You didn’t expect to care, did you?”

“Not at all.”

I keep my eyes fixed on the glass in front of me.

“Katia.”

I don’t turn.

“Come here.”

I still don’t turn.

“Katia.” His tone carries a warning.

“What did it feel like?” I whisper. “When I left?”

“Like someone had ripped out my heart and crushed it.”

“Then why did you let me go? Why did you say all those horrible things?”

“Do you not see? I was setting you free. I wanted you to hate me. I wanted you to leave and get away from the monster I was. You deserved so much better than me.”

I narrow my eyes. “But setting me free would have meant no business for you? If Walter hadn’t died . . .”

“I would have lost everything.”

I turn slowly to stare at him. He’s staring at me, sitting up, his big body calling me.

“You set me free, knowing you could lose everything? Not only would you lose that, but you would lose me too?”

He nods. “You deserved so much better. Hurting you and making you hate me meant you would move on, and you would find someone to give you the love you deserved and so desperately searched for in me.”

“Marcus,” I whisper.

Emotion hits me like a brick. He set me free. He said all those nasty things on purpose so I would go and wouldn’t come back.

“Why did you try to find me, then?”

He looks down. “At the time, letting you go made sense. When you were gone, my heart fucking ached. Suddenly I found myself desperate. I wanted to know where you were. I wanted to give you money. I needed to know you were okay.”

“You wanted your cake, and you wanted to eat it too.”

He laughs low. “Yeah. At the time, I knew what I was doing. It wasn’t until you left that I realized the mistake I’d made. I had set you free, but I had captured myself in doing so.”

“And Walter?”

“He destroyed everything, Katia.”

“Maybe,” I whisper. “Or maybe he released me from an awful trap.”

“He didn’t do that for you; he did it for himself. If you think he cared that you were hurting . . . you’re wrong.”

“Did you kill him, Marcus?”

He looks up sharply. “Does it matter?”

I tilt my head. “I guess not.”

“I’ve done a lot of things in my life, Katia. Until that day, I didn’t realize that marrying you was the best damned thing I ever did.”

My heart clenches. “And now?” I say softly.

“Nothing has changed.”

“Marcus, I tried to have you killed.”

“You were angry, hurt, and you had just lost someone important to you. I can’t hate you for that.”

“It doesn’t make it any better.”

“No,” he admits. “It doesn’t. But it’s finished. We have a daughter now, a daughter who needs us to function.”

“I don’t know if there can ever be an us,” I say, dropping my head.

He sighs. “Neither do I.”

“Marcus?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Another sigh. “Me too, baby.”

Fuck.

My heart cracks open.

“Marcus?”

He chuckles softly. “Yeah?”

“Can you hold me?”

Silence. Deafening silence.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

I crawl out of the chair and walk over to his bed. I climb in between his legs, tucking my body flush against his. I put my arms around his waist and press my cheek to his chest. It doesn’t take him long to wrap his arms around me, pulling me tight to his body. I breathe him in. I let his body consume mine, and suddenly I don’t feel like life is so bad.

For a second, it feels just how it’s meant to.

H
e smells like Marcus—masculine, intense, slightly musky. I close my eyes, breathing him in. His fingers glide down my back and it feels so damned good, so damned right. I want to stay here forever, going back to before, back when I was oblivious to the kind of man I’d fallen in love with. Back then things were so much easier. Time was always going to ruin that for me, though.

“Katia?”

I lift my head off his chest with a sigh, and look up. I can feel his breath on my face and suddenly the world seems to go still. I’m moving closer to him, he’s moving closer to me, and everything is quickly spinning out of control. He’s going to kiss me. I’m going to kiss him. This time, it’ll be different. Want to know why? Because this time we both want it, and it’s real.

It’s probably the most real kiss we’ll ever have.

As we inch closer, our breathing becomes ragged and short. I have my hand against his chest and I can feel his heart pounding against my palm. His breaths are still puffing out, warming my cheek. My heart is pounding, my skin is tingling and I’m so damned nervous my stomach is twisting. My eyes flutter closed and he’s so close it feels almost like his lips are touching mine.

“Ma’am?”

We both jerk back as if we’ve been stung. I turn my face away, shame rising in my cheeks. Marcus makes a throaty, disgusted sound. I’m not sure if it’s at me, or the nurse. Either way, my heart drops. I turn to see Penny is still asleep. The nurse comes in. Her face is pinched, her hair up in a tight bun. I know what she’s thinking—she’d be wrong.

“Yes?” I say in a scratchy voice, not bothering to attempt an explanation as to why I was in Marcus’s bed with my lips so close to his we might as well have been kissing.

“It’s time for me to check Penny.”

“Right,” I say, getting up. I sway to the side, exhaustion getting the better of me.

“Hey,” Marcus says, arm snaking around my waist. “Take it easy.”

“Sorry,” I whisper. “Just tired.”

“Then go home. I’ll stay with her.”

I stiffen. He sighs.

“She’s my daughter, Katia. I might be a whole lot of ugly, but that little girl is my beautiful. I’m not going to hurt her in any way; you need to trust that.”

I close my eyes. I know he’s right. He’d never hurt her. Still, leaving her just doesn’t feel natural.

“I don’t feel right leaving her,” I admit.

“Then come back. At least go and shower, have something to eat.”

I can probably do that.

“Okay.”

He lets me go and walks over to the bed, taking the seat beside Penny. She stirs as the nurse starts checking her over. She’s been coughing quite a bit, and upon stirring, it starts again. My heart aches for her. Marcus’s face scrunches up and I can tell he hates it as much as I do. He looks to me and I force a weak smile. “She’ll be okay.”

“She’s responding well,” the nurse says. “Her fever has gone, and it seems like the mucus is moving from her chest.”

“Thank God,” I breathe.

“Go home, have some sleep. She’s doing well, and as long as one of you is here, she’ll be fine.”

I look to Marcus and he’s pleading with his eyes for me to just let him do this. With an exhausted sigh, I say, “I’ll go home, sleep for a few hours. Then I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be right here.”

I walk over to Penny and lean down, brushing my lips across her head. “Mommy will be back soon, baby. I promise.”

I close my eyes, lingering close to her face. I breathe her in, stroke her curls and then stand. Marcus is watching me intensely, but he’s got a softness in his eyes I’ve never seen there before. I give him a weak smile and then leave the hospital, praying I’ve made a good choice.

S
he’s so fucking small.

Her tiny body is curled up in that big bed, a bed that just makes her look so . . . fragile. I didn’t think this through. I didn’t think that maybe she’d wake up and want her momma, and not me. What if she screams? What if she hates me? Something clenches deep in my chest and I find myself pacing the room, waiting for her to wake and crush me.