Page 44 of Across Eternity

I lean down and brush my lips against his cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper, and then I turn and follow Henri outside the bar.

The car sits just down the street. He holds the door for me and I scold him as I climb in. “I can’t believe you wasted the petrol on this trip. After the baby comes, God only knows where you might need to drive, and drive quickly. Why are you even here?”

He slides into the driver’s seat. “That’s a fast crowd,” he says. “I’m sure it seems innocent now, but they do things I don’t want you exposed to.”

My fists clench. His overprotective bullshit was bad enough back before he’d ever hurt me. Now, it’s unbearable.

“What kind of things?” I ask. “Will one of them take my virginity, talk about marrying me and then knock someone else up instead? No. Only you sink that low. I’m going back.”

My hand goes to the door but he catches my arm. “Sarah,” he whispers. “Please.”

I jerk away from him. “I told you not to use my name again, and I don’t need your help. Have you forgotten what I lived through over the past year? A situation like this is laughable by contrast. And I’m capable of disappearing at will, remember?”

His eyes narrow. “Yes, turning invisible in front of the men from my town is just the kind of attention my family needs.”

“Is that why you’re here?” I demand. “Because you’re worried I’ll embarrass you?!”

His shoulders sag. “No.” He sighs heavily, staring at his lap. “I’m here because the idea of you with one of them tortures me. And I know how unfair that it is, under the circumstances. Marie told me so, a hundred times before I left. But I’ve never claimed to be a saint.”

“Tortures you? How could that be true? You’re married, for God’s sake.”

He glares at me. “Do you really think this marriage of mine could possibly change how I feel about you?”

“If you felt enough,” I reply, my voice choked, “you’d never have married her in the first place.”

“You’re wrong,” he says. “What I told you was true, about finding your skeleton, how it destroyed me. What I didn’t tell you is what happened afterward.”

I wait, and my heart begins to thunder in my chest. The shame of whatever it was weighs so heavily on him I can see it like a visible scar.

“I put Marie up in a hotel,” he says. “And then proceeded to get so drunk that I don’t know what bar I was in or when I left. But I thought I’d found you. I remember that. I remember believing I’d found you—out having a drink in Paris. I was enraged. I couldn’t believe you’d been in Paris all along, hadn’t even told us you were safe. But you apologized and I was so happy that I couldn’t stay mad. And you kept begging me to forgive you. I remember that. You kept saying, ‘show me you forgive me.’”

My pulse is in my ears now and I stop breathing entirely.

“And then I woke up beside Yvette. She’s never admitted to trying to trick me that night, and I was so drunk that I can’t be sure enough to accuse her of it. But two months later, she came to the farm and told me she was pregnant.”

The image of it hurts so much I press my hands to my heart. “So you married her,” I whisper.

He reaches out and slips his fingers through mine. “What else could I have done?”

I can think of several alternatives, but they are nothing he’d have ever considered because he’s honorable, and because he will always do the right thing, no matter how much it hurts him. I love that about him.

“Are you even sure the child is yours?”

He stares straight ahead. “Only time will tell. But I didn’t even know her last name until we filled out the marriage certificate. We’d never even shared a meal. I knew nothing.”

I wish I’d known. I’ve been so broken up over this, and I’ll remain broken, but knowing he cared might have made it bearable, at least. “Why didn’t you tell me this when I first came here?” I ask. “I’ve spent weeks believing you just moved on.”

His tongue darts out to his upper lip. “Because she is still my wife. It seemed…disloyal…to admit that I don’t love her, and that this marriage is not what I’d have chosen.”

And yet, he’s never going to leave her. He’s never going to abandon this child that may or may not be his, and all I’m doing here is causing trouble. And making my own situation worse. Was I seriously considering sleeping with Luc just moments before? Sleeping with him and remaining in this time instead of my own? It was insanity.

“I’m going to go home,” I tell him. “This situation…it’s only going to cause us both pain.”

“I thought you were staying until the end of the month,” he says. His voice rasps, a quiet plea.

I shake my head. “There’s no point. I don’t know why Cecelia insisted I stay, but nothing good can come of it.”

He closes his eyes. “Will you ever come back?”