by Aria R. Blue
“Make a wish,” says Belle, grinning at me. “I’ve already made mine.”
I take in her beaming angelic face. “I already have everything I ever dreamed of.”
The smile fades from her face. She looks away.
I glance down at her neck, where her vein is pulsing harder than usual. Her breathing becomes faster as well.
When she turns to me, there’s a war dancing in her eyes.
“Leo, there’s something you need to know,” she says, swallowing hard. “I-I was going to tell you this earlier, but-“
She doesn’t get to finish the sentence.
I see a flash of cold black through the periphery of my vision. A shade of black that doesn’t belong in the middle of nature. Too shiny, too reflective.
The black of a passing car.
Intuitively, I pull Belle behind my back, blocking her body with mine.
At the same time, a gunshot pierces the air. A nanosecond later, a bullet bites my arm.
The car is already speeding away. In the moonlight, I catch a portion of the number plate.
Two numbers. 77.
I hear Belle screaming, but the sound of my own roar eclipses everything.
Not of pain, but of rage.
“Leo, you’re bleeding,” says Belle, desperation clawing at her voice.
“I’m fine. Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I say. And I mean it. Especially now that I actually have something to live for.
I cup Belle’s face in my hands. There are tears shining in her eyes. “You trust me, don’t you?” I ask.
She blinks rapidly. “Leo, you’ve been shot. We should get you to the hospital.”
“Baby, it was barely a graze,” I say. “I’m going to be fine.”
“Why would someone try to shoot you?” Pain laces her every word. “What if they come back, Leo?”
“Do you trust me?” I ask again.
Her panicked expression doesn’t abate, but something flickers in her eyes. Her strength. “Yes.”
“Good,” I say, taking her trembling hands in mine and kissing them.
And in this moment, I realize something very, very important.
I love her more deeply than I even imagined.
Because I’m not thinking about myself right now. I’m not letting my rage get the best of me.
If I were alone, I would have chased after that car and hunted the man down. I would’ve listened to my ego and have gotten the vengeance it demanded.
But my priorities have shifted now.
I’m thinking about what’s best for her.
What she needs.
I’ll put her needs before mine every single time. Her happiness matters to me more than my own.
Belle is unbuttoning my shirt, trying to inspect the damage. But I grip her smaller hands in mine. “Let’s go home first.”
It’s well after midnight by the time we get back to the estate.
“Can we at least call a doctor?”
“That won’t be necessary, Belle.”
“Leo, I need to see if it’s serious,” she says. “With all the black you have on, I can’t even tell how much blood you lost.”
I let her take care of me now.
She takes me to the study, and quietly points to an armchair.
I take a seat, and try not to smile as I watch her scurry about, gathering supplies. She lays them all down on a desk.
Medical gauze, cotton pads, petroleum jelly, scissors.
A strange tenderness seizes me as she takes my suit jacket and my shirt off. Her hands tremble when she sees the blood on my skin.
But she sucks in a deep breath to steady herself. She exhales slowly, tying her hair back in a no-nonsense braid.
All the while, she stares at the reddened slice of skin on my deltoid.
“See, just a graze.”
“Don’t,” she says, her lower lip trembling. “I don’t want to hear another word from you.”
I remain quiet as she cleans and dresses my wound with gentle fingers.
Her hands don’t stop shaking throughout the entire process. She takes breaks to steady herself, but her focus remains on my wound.
She’s good at it.
She mutters to herself as she works.
It’s obvious that the sight of blood scares her, but her determination to help me overpowers it.
“You don’t need stitches,” she says. “The bleeding has stopped, but the skin around it is swollen. We need to elevate the arm a bit to reduce the swelling.”
She grabs some throw pillows, and piles them under my left arm.
“How do you know all this?” I ask her, truly in awe.
She shrugs in reply. My heart squeezes at the sight of her on her knees, taking care of me.
Belle was standing to my left when it happened. I moved her behind my back, and the bullet grazed my left arm instead.
It was no coincidence.
The bullet was meant for her, and the man was aiming to kill.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
The pain I feel is raw and jagged around the edges. It’s deeply uncomfortable, and I can’t even get myself to imagine what I would have done if something had happened to her.
There’s only one thing left to do.
I ask her the question I’ve been mulling over the entire car ride here. “Belle, do you have any enemies?”
“Enemies?” she repeats.
“Baby, think. Is there anyone in your life who would want to hurt you?”
She holds my gaze, but says nothing.
And then she asks me a question, “Why?”
I pull my handkerchief out of my pocket, and unfold it. A tiny piece of silver metal rests in the middle—the bullet.
“This was aimed at…at…not me,” I choke out.
She stares at the bullet, and then at me. Comprehension dawns on her face. “You mean, that gun was aimed at me?”
I study her body language—the sagging of her shoulders, the softening of her eyes, the uptilt of her lips.
She just…visibly relaxed when she understood what had happened. When she found out that the man was trying to hurt her and not me.
Her reaction makes it clear to me.
She loves me back just as fiercely.
21
Belle
“Give me a name, Belle.”
I shake my head. There’s a dangerous glint to Leo’s eyes. I don’t want him to go and do something stupid that will land him in trouble.
It’s morning now.
I fell asleep curled up next to him, but his bloodshot eyes tell me that he’s been up plotting all night.
“You should have rested,” I say.
His jaw hardens. “I had a lot on my mind.”
“Your body needs to heal. If you deny yourself sleep, the wound might get infected.” I try to keep my voice from wavering, but the shock of the situation hits me again.
All of it still feels surreal.
But every time I see his left arm or think about last night, I’m reminded that it wasn’t just a bad dream.
Leo brushes my cheek with the back of his hand. I look up at him.
“It’s going to be alright,” he says.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m always going to take care of you. I’m always going to look out for you, and nothing will ever happen to you as long as I’m here, okay?”
The sun hits his face.
The left side of it is a deep red and purple. The right side of it provides a vivid contrast. His deep blue eyes have black striations that remind me even more of the night sky.
Of moonlight and the stars. Of safety.
Home.
He has become my home.
A safe place.
“Okay,” I say, leaning up to kiss his square jaw. His hands twist in my hair, and he drags me further up.
Lips meet with desperation. Frenzy. Love.
He savors me deeply, slowly, taking his time to memorize every corner of m
y mouth.
He kisses me like we’re lovers who have been separated for five years, only to be finally reunited in this moment.
Stars turn into supernovas inside of me.
By the time we separate, I’m left feeling heady. Like I’m swimming through some dense liquid that tastes absolutely delicious.
“Okay,” I repeat.
I feel it now, all the way down to my toes.
He’s got me. He already has his name stamped all over my heart.
The lovely moment doesn’t last long enough.
A wave of nausea slams into me.
I fling off the white bedsheets, and run to the bathroom. I barely have time to lock the door.
My knees hit the cold tiles of the bathroom floor as I hurl into the toilet.
Leo is standing right outside the door.
He doesn’t knock or demand me to open the door, but I know he’s standing there. And I know he can hear me.
When I’m done, I flush the toilet and stand up.
Morning sickness.
Another reminder that I should tell my baby’s father about the pregnancy.
“Belle?” His voice is tentative.
“Just give me a minute,” I call out.
My knees buckle. There’s so much happening at once, and it’s so overwhelming.
I know that I can lean on him.
I know I can confide in him, and that he’ll be the happiest man on Earth to hear the news. But something holds me back.
I’m nervous.
This is all so new.
I look around the bathroom—Leo’s.
Usually, he spends the night in my bedroom. But for the first time, he brought me to his room last night.
Even his bathroom looks masculine.
The walls are all black marble, with streaks of glittery gold smeared across. It complements the circular dark brown rug on the ivory floor.
I go to the sink, and wash my face.
There are some rolled-up heated towels in the cupboard above. I take one, and dab my cheeks and forehead dry.
There’s only one thing left to do.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” I say, opening the bathroom door and clicking it shut behind me.
He glances down at my puffy eyes and pale face. “What?”
“I’ll give you a name if you let me call a doctor for you.”
I might not be ready to tell him about the baby yet, but I should tell him about my suspicions.
About who the man from last night could have been.
“Agreed,” he says. “But first, are you okay?”
I drop my eyes, and nod.
Has it crossed his mind that I might be having morning sickness?
“Kane Cavenagh,” I blurt out. “We went on this date together. Actually, it was barely even a date; it was a high school dance. And now he thinks that he owns me. You might have heard of him. He’s the town sheriff of Silver Falls. He’s got blond hair, like you, but his is lighter. He’s tall too, but not as big as you.” I’m rambling, and I can’t seem to stop.
The hard expression that’s been on Leo’s face since I said the word ‘date’ doesn’t soothe my nerves.
“This…Cavenagh guy. Has he threatened you in any way?” Leo gets to the crux of the matter, saving me from making a fool of myself.
I bite down on the inside of my lip.
I can’t back down now.
I need to tell him the one thing I’ve kept buried inside myself all this time. The one part of my life that I keep hidden away.
Sensing my discomfort, Leo places a hand on my lower back. “Let’s get you some tea first.”
He takes me to the kitchen. I sit down on a wooden stool.
My hands are restless, so I place them underneath my thighs to keep myself from fidgeting so much.
When I have a hot cup of ginger tea in front of me, I place my hands around it. Tendrils of steam rise off it, the soothing smell of ginger with honey and lemon calming me instantly.
I take an experimental sip.
It tastes divine. Especially as it goes down my raw throat.
He passes me some baked crackers as well.
“Eat,” he orders.
I nibble on one, but I just want to drink the tea concoction he made for me. I need it to give me the strength to tell him the things I’m about to.
“Remember that first time we kissed, Leo?”
“Of course.”
“And how I ran away from you after?”
“It bothered you when I said that thing about taking a picture of you for my bedroom wall.”
His observation catches me off guard. “You noticed?”
He shrugs. “I played that interaction over and over again in my mind that night. And that was the exact moment your body tensed.”
“You didn’t ask me about it, though,” I say.
“No. I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I figured you’d tell me in your own time. I was prepared to play the long game with you, Belle. Even back then.”
I stare at him.
He’s much more perceptive than I give him credit for. He’s completely aware that I have demons that haunt me.
“I lost a piece of myself the night of the dance,” I whisper. “Somebody had spiked the punch bowl. It tasted vile, but I was in high school. I drank from it because everybody else was as well.”
I can’t get myself to look at Leo as I say this.
A memory surfaces.
One I’ve been running away from for the last five years.
One I try not to think about, but it floods my vision anyway.
“I remember dancing with my friends and then with Kane. But everything after that is a blank canvas. I don’t know what happened afterward. I just remember waking up, and…”
Leo lets out a low growl. “Did he take advantage of you?”
“He…he had his phone out, and he was taking pictures. Of me. While I was asleep. I didn’t confront him about it, but by the next day, those photos had circulated. Everybody was talking and pointing fingers at me. I was mortified. It felt like the end of the world.”
Leo is as still as a statue. But then he gently takes my hand in his, and squeezes it.
Comforting me.
Comforting us.
“I spent the next two years of high school hiding. I didn’t want anybody to look at me.”
I lift up my free hand, and softly touch the left side of his face. He freezes for a moment, but then leans into my touch.
“So I know what it’s like, Leo. To feel the need to hide from other people. All because you’re afraid of being judged. We weren’t in the same situation, but we had the same emotional reaction.”
Leo nods, his eyes reflecting my own pain.
“But the people who judge us aren’t worth our time anyway. Kane went and told our entire class that he slept with me. A lie. We hadn’t even kissed. I wish I confronted him about it when I was younger. But I didn’t have the guts then. I wasn’t brave enough to stand up for myself.”
“You never told anybody about this?” he asks.
I shake my head. “That’s the worst part. Not only did I not stand up for myself, I didn’t have the courage to tell anybody about it either. I just decided to live with it. And now that I’m a little older, I feel bad for my younger self. I wish I could go back in time and tell her that what he did wasn’t okay.”
“No. It wasn’t,” Leo grinds out. His face is emotionless—a marble sculpture.
“And after high school, he went on to become the town sheriff. Everybody adores him and all the girls flock to him. But his warped mind thinks that I’m the one for him. He thinks we’re destined for each other. And he pretends like that whole incident in high school never even happened.”
A tear slips down my cheek. Leo wipes it away before it has the chance to fall.
I notice that his hand is trembling.
I glance at him, and find that his whole body is trembling.
“Leo?”
He stands up.
I have to crane my head all the way back to look at him. He presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Stay inside the house. Nothing’s going to happen to you, okay? I won’t allow anything or anyone to ever threaten you again.”
“Leo?”
He’s walking away though. He grabs his black cloak and then his car keys. “Don’t stay up for me.”
“Where are you going?”
He turns around, and only then do I realize my mistake.
When I was telling him about Kane, he appeared to be unusually stoic. Way too calm.
It was a mistake to think that he wouldn’t go beat up the boy who wronged me in tenth grade.
Leo Blackwood is a protector.
He heard the story out in perfect stillness. And now, like a predator about to ambush his prey, he’s come alive.
His whole face is contorted with rage.
His every muscle is tense.
He doesn’t even look at me as he says, “I told you I’d see a doctor. I’m going to do that.”
“You’re going to do more than just see a doctor, aren’t you.” It’s not even a question.
“I might make a pit stop along the way.” His jaw clenches and unclenches.
“Leo. Don’t.”
“You can’t ask me to not go. Your life was in danger last night, Belle.”
“I know that. I do.” I seize the moment, and rush to his side. His arms open for me, and I crash into his body, hugging him tightly. “But you said so yourself. We’re safe inside this house.”
Leo doesn’t reply.
He just holds me in his arms before letting go.
“Leo, please. We don’t even know for sure that it was him.”
“I caught a portion of the license plate. I’m going to cross-check everything before I act.”
“Can’t we wait until your arm has healed?” I plead. I’m clutching at straws now.
“I’ll get it checked by a doctor. As I promised,” he says.
And with that, he’s gone.
22
Belle
I just stand there for a while.
I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have told him about Kane Cavenagh.
With the rage I saw flickering in his eyes, I might as well have given him an order to erase the sheriff’s life.