Page 230 of Unleashed
The sobs that come out of me are inhuman. I grab fistfuls of his shirt and bury my face in his chest and scream into the fabric because I can't hold it anymore. None of it. Not the fear, not the guilt, not the grief, not the months of silence and loneliness and pretending to be someone I'm not.
He doesn't shush me. Doesn't tell me to calm down.
He just holds me.
His arms wrap around me so tight I can feel every muscle in his body. His cheek presses against the top of my head. One hand cradles the back of my neck. The other spreads across my lower back, pulling me into him, closing every gap until there isn't a millimeter of space between us.
His heartbeat hammers against my ear. Fast and strong, just like the one I heard on the ultrasound screen.
"I've got you," he murmurs against my hair. His voice is rough. "I've got you, sweetheart. I'm here. I'm right here."
I cry harder. Because he is. He's here. After everything I've done, he's on a kitchen floor in Los Angeles, holding me like I'm the most important thing in the world. Like I've always been worth the risk.
"I'm sorry," I choke out. "I'm so sorry, Ace. I?—"
"Shh." He presses his lips to my forehead and holds them there. "Don't. Not right now. Right now, you just breathe. That's all you gotta do, baby. Just breathe."
So I do. I breathe. In and out. Matching the rise and fall of his chest. Letting his arms hold the weight I've been carrying alone for weeks. Letting the sound of his heartbeat replace the silence that's been eating me alive.
He rocks me. Gently. The way you rock a child. Back and forth on the kitchen floor. His hand moves to my belly, just drifting, settling there the way his hands always settle on the parts of me that need him most.
He stills.
His hand presses flat.
I feel him stop breathing.
"Harper." He chokes out.
I pull back. Look up at him through swollen eyes. His face is inches from mine. Those dark eyes with the amber flecks. That jaw. That mouth. Everything I've been missing, right here.
His hand is still there. But his fingers are trembling.
"Is there something you need to tell me?" he whispers.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Ace
Song- Once In A Lifetime, John Michael Howell
"I-I'm pregnant," she says.
My chest implodes. The air leaves my lungs and doesn't come back. The kitchen tilts. All of it falls away until there's nothing in this room except her face and her hands on my hands and the word she just said.
Pregnant.
"Fuck, Harper," I hiss.
I grab her face with both hands and look into her eyes. I don't need to ask. I can feel it in my soul. That baby is mine.
And even if it's not, even if biology tells a different story, it doesn't matter. They're both mine. They always will be.
I kiss her. Softly. And she melts against me the way she always does, her whole body going slack, surrendering the weight she's been carrying alone. I can't bring myself to break this moment. Because with one word, she could shatter thefantasy building in my head—the one where this is it, the moment I have everything I've ever wanted.
My girl. A baby. A family. A future.
Nothing else has ever mattered. Not the bull riding. Not the ranch. Not the empire or the money or the title. My world has always orbited around Harper Jones. Every decision I've ever made, all of it was just me, circling her gravity, waiting for her to pull me back in.
