“Yes. Y-yes, Amelia.”
She continued to stare at him. “So our baby was taken from us and now I can never have children...is that what you’re saying, Leo? Is that what my mother did to me?”
He stood and bent over the bed to hold her head in his hands. “You survived, Amelia. You didn’t bleed to death. I didn’t lose you. I have what matters most and you’re going to heal. You’ll get strong again and you’re never going to be at that woman’s mercy again. Not ever. All that is in your past. Now, y-you can focus on your future...our future.”
Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “A future that no longer includes children?” She swallowed against the bile that burned her throat. “A future without the ability to give you a child, an heir, when I know how crucial that is to your family.”
“It doesn’t matter…”
“It does matter, Leo. I’ve visited your family and there are few children. Only two of your distant cousins are boys. You are an only child. Your mother told me that each generation has fewer offspring and the De La Cruz line is fading away. Don’t tell me that my inability to give you children doesn’t matter, Leo. Never lie to me.”
His fingers tightened on her head. “I will never, ever put the need or desire for a child above you, Amelia. It doesn’t matter because without you, nothing else matters. The name Leonardo comes before De La Cruz, Amelia. I may be the heir but I am your Leo first and always.”
Her tears were hot on her skin and he kissed them away, held her as close as he could, and tried to absorb her pain into his own body.
A feat not even he could accomplish.
“Losing…” She swallowed past the painful lump in her throat. “Losing the child we made together on our first day truly together is devastating, Leo. I feel broken for a tiny being I didn’t even get to acknowledge before he was taken from me.”
He leaned back to look at her, his face wet with tears.
“Losing the ability to ever try again, to ever hold another baby we made together, to place him in your arms, makes the grief more intense.” Her voice was too loud as she added, “I have dreamed of being a mother for two years. I wanted to have our first child when I was twenty-four, our second when I was twenty-six, and a third before I turned thirty. I wanted us to be young parents when our kids went off to college. For us to have the rest of our lives to enjoy the family we built while we traveled and soaked up life.”
“We can still do all those things, Amelia. All of them.” He smoothed her hair. “We can adopt when you’re ready. Bring a child who wouldn’t have much of a chance into our home, our family, and live the life you dreamed. You’ve talked about adopting...”
“Yes, after I secured the De La Cruz line by giving you several children of your own.” She slammed her fist into the bed. “She stole my future. Destroyed my dream. Had some animal willing to rip my child from my body while I was unconscious and almost killed me...and now, I’m empty. Hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. Useless.”
Leo shook her gently. “You aren’t useless, Amelia! You’re more than a womb to carry a child!” She dropped her head against the bed and wept. He scooted her over carefully and held as much of her as he could. “I love you. Yesterday, today, and a million tomorrows, Amelia.”
Amelia cried for hours and Leo held her through it, reassuring her, loving her. As she felt herself beginning to drift, she murmured, “I have nothing to offer now. I don’t even feel like a woman anymore.”
She felt weak and empty.
The last sound she registered was Leo’s voice. “You offer everything I’ve ever wanted, Amelia. Exactly as you are, I love you. I need you. Don’t give up on me.”
Not even Leo could understand.
Chapter Eleven
They missed their graduation ceremony but the principal read Leo’s valedictorian speech to the graduating class and they said a prayer for Amelia’s recovery.
Everyone was told she’d been in a car accident that resulted in internal bleeding.
That afternoon, the students they’d known through high school started arriving and Amelia’s hospital room was quickly filled with dozens of flowers and balloons.
Several commented that it was odd to see her so quiet. Most of the time, Amelia pretended to be sleeping and Leo backed it up by mentioning she’d just received pain medication.
When visiting hours were over, she rolled to her side and stared through the window. “You’ve given up everything for me, Leo. You didn’t even go to your graduation and you were the fucking valedictorian. I’m a cancer in your life.”
Leo shook his head in disbelief. “Amelia, you missed your graduation, too. Something you had to work harder than everyone else to achieve. I’m right where I want to be. You’re not a cancer. You’re everything and I love you.”
“You love a parasite that takes far more than it gives…”
He bent over her. “Stop. Stop it, Amelia. That’s a horrible lie you’re telling yourself.” He stroked his hand over her head. “You have never, not one time, been a parasite. You give me so much more than you realize. I’ll do a better job of telling you how much you provide to my life.”
“Yes, sure. It’s definitely something you’re not doing that’s the problem, Leo. That must be it.” She laughed bitterly and didn’t look at him. “My mother killed our child and I couldn’t even protect him. You warned me for years…”
“Amelia, she’s your mother. How the fuck could you have known she’d do something so horrific?”
The silence drew out and she asked through gritted teeth, “Where is she? Where is the woman who stole my baby?”
“She was in jail for two days before your father agreed to post bail. He moved out of your house and filed for divorce this morning. He-he’s scared to face you.”
Coldly, she replied, “He should be. His love for her blinded him to the person she was.”
“Gil should have stepped in sooner, Amelia. I know he shares responsibility but...he deeply loves you.” Clearing his throat, Leo added, “He transferred money to an account under your name. There are no strings attached.”
“Blood money,” she hissed. “Tell me, Leo...how much is almost killing your daughter and robbing her of the chance to be a mother worth in U.S. dollars?” He didn’t reply and she laughed. “Must be a lot.”
“You’re angry and you have every right to be, Amelia.”
“I’m glad we agree.”
“I didn’t protect you either. I should have taken you from that house…”
Turning her head, she stared at him in horror. “You don’t get the blame. You don’t get any of the blame. This - all of this - is on the fucking Whitehalls. Myself, my psychotic mother, and my cowardly father.”
Bending, he kissed her temple and rested his forehead there. “None of it is your fault, Amelia. You did nothing wrong…”
Choking on her tears, she whispered, “I did nothing. As usual. I let my mother control me and waited for you to rescue me.”
“No, Amelia. No.”
She felt his tears in her hair but couldn’t talk anymore. She didn’t know how to express her rage, her pain, about the overturning of what she expected to be her life.
He murmured to her, stroked her back, until she drifted to sleep. Always there for Amelia...no matter how fucked the situation was.
* * *
On the sixth day, Amelia spiked a fever. She’d contracted a staph infection from the doctor who fled the clinic when Amelia began to hemorrhage.
Baylor found him and brought him back to their town. Leo told her his bodyguard drove to the police station and popped the trunk.
The gagged and handcuffed man inside had lost his medical license years before but traveled around the Midwest giving quiet abortions for cash.
He would be going to prison for a long time.
Amelia was not his first victim nor was she the only botched procedure. Two of his former patients had died on the table. Another had succumbed to an in
fection she was too scared to have treated several days after she tried to abort the child of her rapist without her religious family finding out.
The clinic where he’d operated on Amelia was rented out for such things by the office manager and one of the nurses who used it to make extra cash. Both were sitting in jail.
The only person out on their own recognizance was Augusta Whitehall. Her dear mother…
Leo went downstairs to get them ice cream and Amelia made her way to the window looking out on the rear of the hospital. Beyond the parking lot was nothing but forest.
Her body hurt but it was nothing compared to her soul.
The love Leo had for Amelia made it impossible for him to blame her, to shame her, for how weak she’d always been in the face of her mother’s demands. It blinded him to the fact that the heir he needed - that the royal line from which he was descended needed - could never be of his blood.
Not with Amelia.
Never from her body.
Tears slipped over her face and off her jaw as she processed the fact that she would never experience the joy of pregnancy, of bringing a child conceived from pure, perfect love into the world, of seeing Leo’s face as he held their child for the first time.
All of that was closed to her now.
One of the nurses left her a pamphlet about surrogacy in her room but it was hard to think about such a thing with the boiling rage that moved through Amelia’s veins.
Walking carefully to one of tables holding several flower arrangements, she removed the card from her fellow cheerleaders.
Get well soon, Amy! We love you!
A-W-E-S-O-M-E! You’re awesome, awesome...totally!
The bitter laugh that left her body felt foreign but Amelia imagined there would be many things about her new life that would feel wrong.
Killed her child.
A child she would have adored with all of herself.
Stole her chance to ever have another.
Gripping the metal card holder in her hand, she raked the strangely jagged edge over the skin of her inner wrist. Blood welled and it fascinated her. She raked it across her flesh a second time and blood flowed faster.
She couldn’t feel it.
She felt nothing.
Pressing harder, hoping to feel something other than grief, pain, fury, she swayed on her feet as a puddle of her blood formed on the linoleum floor.
“Amelia!” Something hit the floor behind her and then Leo had her in his arms. He screamed, “Nurse! I need help!”
Amelia stared into his eyes as she lost consciousness. “Just let me go…”
When she opened her eyes hours later, it was dark and Leo sat beside the bed. He held her hand with a heavy bandage over the wrist.
“I won’t let you go. I know you’re hurting but we can get through this together. You’re strong and we love each other, Amelia. Don’t give up. Please don’t give up. We have so much worth fighting for.”
* * *
Nine days after being admitted, Amelia was healed enough physically to be discharged. She was given pain medication, antibiotics, and antidepressants.
Leo’s parents sat up front as Leo sat with Amelia in the back. They took her to their house and showed her to a gorgeous suite with its own bathroom. It was on the third floor, directly across the hall from Leo’s bedroom.
For two weeks, Amelia didn’t speak, barely ate, and slept eighteen hours a day. After three weeks, she requested and received a laptop.
She sat on the back patio with a long extension cord, chain smoking while she typed, day after day. When she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, she went to bed. She showered erratically and started drinking two pots of coffee a day.
Several weeks later, she connected the laptop to the printer in the De La Cruz home office. Carrying the thick stack of paper with her to her room, she crashed for almost a full day.
Leo checked on her later that night and saw the pages on her dresser. Frowning, he picked it up. It was titled A Manifesto to My Weaker Self.
Flipping to the first page, his eyes widened at the rage Amelia expressed at herself. One line after another filled with vitriol about her ignorance, her cowardice, and her refusal to rock the boat with her mother before Augusta had Amelia’s baby ripped from her body.
Leo didn’t know how to bridge the painful gap that was opening between them. His heart ached for her and his soul called out for her.
Only his strong belief that his love would be enough to pull her through kept him from giving in to despair.
His mother advised patience and Leo tried to be strong.
Augusta was tried for kidnapping and assault, among other things. Amelia didn’t attend the trial but insisted on going the day her mother was sentenced.
Gil sat in the back of the courtroom and started to cry when Amelia entered and took a seat.
When the judge announced that Augusta Whitehall would serve three years, Amelia started to laugh.
Augusta’s head whipped around. “Amy! I’m sorry, Amy!”
Amelia continued to laugh as she left the courtroom with Leo at her side. By the time she made it to the SUV, Leo was carrying her. Her laughter had devolved into wracking sobs that made it difficult for her to breathe.
She passed out in Leo’s arms in the backseat and he tucked her into her bed when they got to the house. It was as if a knot of stress had left her body all at once. She slept fully around the clock.
Leo woke at three o’clock in the morning to Amelia riding him. His heart soared at the sight of her. She looked like herself for the first time in two months.
He lifted at the waist and held her to his chest, touching her, loving her, everywhere. “Amelia…”
He suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing a condom and started to pull her away on instinct to get one.
Cupping the side of his neck, she told him sadly, “There’s no need for it now, Leo. We’ve only been with each other.”
He stroked her face and hair. “I’m sorry, Amelia. We can still be happy - deliriously happy - while we do the things we’ve always dreamed about. I’ll put everything I have into making your life all that you want it to be. You’re everything to me, Amelia. I belong to you.”
She never paused in her movements above him. When she spoke, her voice was clearer than he’d heard it in months. Still, her question confused him.
“Leo, why haven’t you left for college? You should have already been settled in your dorm for summer session. You always talked about getting a head start.”
“I wanted to be sure you were okay to travel, Amelia. We have to find an apartment. When you’re ready, we can fly to Boston and scope out places to live. I’ll start school in January. When I explained the circumstances, the dean was glad to give me the time I needed.”
Amelia placed her palms on either side of his face, “You give up too much for me, Leo. Again and again you do it. One day you’ll have nothing left. You care for me, protect me, rescue me over and over. I’ve become dependent on you to be stable. To help me get through one bad situation after another. When does it end? When is it your turn?”
“You give me so much, Amelia. I don’t know why you can’t see that.” He rolled her to her back and braced her with his hands on her shoulders. “I will love you through this. We can get through it together. We can do anything as long as we’re together.”
He made love to her for a long time. Only when the second orgasm crashed over her, when she was limp beneath him, did he allow himself to come. He held her to his heart, whispered about his love, as their bodies returned to earth.
Leo fell asleep on top of her and woke to roll them to their sides. He spooned the back of her body and buried his face in her hair.
The feel of her cradled in his arms went a long way toward healing the bleeding wounds inside him.
“I love you. Thank you for coming to me, Amelia. Everything is going to be okay now.” Despite fighting it, Leo drifted back to sleep. “My Amelia.”
<
br /> “I love you, too. More than you know, Leo.”
When the sun came up, he was in bed alone. Blinking, he saw a letter on the pillow beside him.
With dread, he reached out to pick it up. His name was on the front of the envelope in her bubbled handwriting. His hands shook violently as he tried to pull the page from inside.
My darling Leo…
I’ve loved you forever and always will. I can’t be with you anymore. It’s too painful to know what I can’t give you, what I can’t be for you. Please don’t try to find me. Let me go, for both our sakes, let me go.
I need to start over...try to figure out who I am without my mother running my life or your constant strength holding me up.
It’s time to learn to stand on my own feet.
I know you’ll hurt. That you’ll think you can save me again. I leave you with one promise…I won’t hurt myself. I swear to you I won’t. I realize now it was the coward’s way out and it spit in the face of every single thing you’ve ever done for me. I’ve left an email address at the bottom of this letter and you can write me.
I need time, Leo. You once said you’d give me anything I needed. This is what I need. I can still smell you on my skin. It comforts me to have that. You loved me so well the first time…even better the last. I have those memories to carry me through.
Thank you for loving me. For always being the best man, even when you were just a boy. Keep being that person and maybe we’ll meet again one day. I carry years of your strength with me, Leo. It will keep me safe.
It’s time to live your life, love. To start what I’ve delayed for so long. For me…do what you were always meant to do. Find love again with a woman who’s worthy of it. It will give me peace to know you have what you deserve.
I love you, Leo. I’m sorry.
Your Amelia
Walking into the bedroom Amelia had slept in for the past months, every trace of her was gone as he knew it would be.
He stepped out on the balcony of her bedroom and lit one of the cigarettes she’d left behind. It burned his throat and made his eyes water but he forced himself to finish it as his heart shattered and his entire world flipped upside down.
Feel My Love: The Damaged Series - Book Two Page 8