by Aria R. Blue
My free hand goes to my stomach.
Two lives are growing inside me right now.
I don’t want to bring them into a bleak and dark world. I don’t want to expose them to the horrors I had just witnessed.
“And before you defend him, I want to say that I know—Leo just did what he had to do. But I was watching him. There was zero hesitation in his eyes right before he killed.”
He’s a killer.
My baby daddy is a killer.
I always knew there was a darkness lurking in him, but I never imagined it would be something like this.
I knew that he had his secrets, but never once did I think that they would make me want to turn my back on him.
The thought shatters my world.
I might have to detach myself from him. Peel myself away from his influence. He’ll always be holding my heart in his hands, but he might never hold me again.
“What are you saying, Belle?” Amy asks.
Michelle puts her phone away, waiting for a response.
I measure my words carefully. “I’ve never seen such…ruthlessness in somebody’s eyes. And I don’t think I want to be with someone who’s capable of that.”
They exchange glances. “You know that we’re trained killers too, right?”
“Yeah, but this is different,” I sigh. “I thought I knew everything there was to know about Leo. I thought he was like me. But…I’m starting to realize that we’re more different than we are alike.”
“Why does that matter?” Michelle asks softly.
“It matters because I thought I had him all figured out. But I don’t know the first thing about him.”
A steady stream of tears run down my cheeks.
I don’t know the man I love.
I don’t know the father of my unborn children.
“Shit, Belle. Don’t cry. We won’t tell him. Where do you want to go?” Amy asks. Her biceps flex as she grips the steering wheel even harder.
I stare out of the window with blank eyes. I’m seeing, but nothing I see even registers in my mind. “Downtown. Take me downtown. That’s where the Art Institute is, right?”
I want to forget about the real reason I’m in Chicago.
It was all about him when I first got here, but now, I need to look at something beautiful.
I need to see art. Proof that purity still exists in this world.
Twenty minutes later, I’m inside the museum.
I’m surrounded by artwork from all over the world. Modern sculptures and paintings that are hundreds of years old.
I soak in the history and the passion that went into every single one of the pieces.
My bodyguards trail behind me, offering me snacks and water every five minutes.
I take my time studying everything that catches my eye.
“You don’t have to babysit me,” I say over my shoulder.
Michelle is mid-yawn and Amy looks like she’s ready to take a nap on the floor right here.
“Oh. No, this is fun,” says Amy.
I raise an eyebrow at Michelle, who has a permanent frown etched on her face.
“Yeah, I see how well you’re enjoying yourself,” I chuckle. “At least go get a coffee or something. I’ll be okay alone for a few minutes.”
It takes an eternity to convince them that I can look after myself, but eventually, they leave. Only after grumbling that they’ll burn the whole city down if something happens to me.
I shake my head and look back at the display in front of me.
It’s a stained glass composition called America Windows.
It was a gift to the museum by a French man who admired America's spirit so much that he decided to commemorate it in his work.
The stained glass glows a sapphire blue under the dim lights of the hall.
Essentially, it’s a celebration of freedom.
Scattered across the composition are various motifs that are an extension of America’s freedom—an eagle, a city skyline, the Statue of Liberty.
My breaths slow to a steady deep rhythm as I study it all, soaking it all in.
It has a dream-like quality to it.
So much beauty.
My eyes close.
The blue light penetrates through my closed eyelids.
I feel like I’m floating inside a swimming pool. I grow gills that help me breathe underwater. I grow fins that help me swim.
I become one with the water.
I feel free.
Peaceful.
He’s there.
It’s no surprise. He’s always there in my mind.
I’m floating for him, stark naked, in the center of the pool. And he’s swimming circles around me.
Haunting me, caressing me, teasing me.
“Belle.” A voice that I’d recognize even with my eyes closed. I know I’m not making it up either. He’s really here.
I brace myself for his touch, but it doesn’t come.
His body heat radiates off him in spades, enveloping me in it.
I open my eyes, but I don’t turn around.
He’s not touching me, but I can feel his eyes on my body.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
“I took a wild guess.”
“They texted you,” I say. Disappointment slices through me. My bodyguards went ahead and told him even though I had asked them not to.
“Both of their phones are switched off. I guess their loyalties have shifted.”
I had misjudged. They hadn’t betrayed me.
“They switched their phones off only because I asked—no, begged them to.”
“You really wanted to get away from me,” he states.
“How did you find me?” I ask again.
“I know you, Belle. A girl who loves experiencing new things is in a new place for the first time. Of course she would choose to explore one of the world’s greatest art museums first. Of course she would want to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of beautiful artwork.”
My heart pounds.
He adds, “Also, I have access to all the road safety cameras in Chicago. I used them to follow the car you left in, and it led me to this museum.”
My heart starts to float.
I turn around, and he grips both of my cheeks in his hands.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Belle?”
I look at the agony in his eyes.
This was supposed to be a happy moment.
My heart was supposed to be feeling whole, and his face was supposed to be wearing a smile.
None of it happens how I expected.
Blue lights from the display behind me dance in his eyes, bringing out the dark blue of his own.
He’s still wearing that black mask.
Hiding.
“I had a lot I wanted to tell you,” I say. “I figured I would just share everything with you when I saw you again.”
“So tell me.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to anymore. Can you take your hands off me, Leo?”
His hands drop, and his shoulders slump at the weight of my words.
We’re right back to where we started.
When it was my first day in his estate, and I asked him to never put his hands on my body again.
A group of school kids enter the hall. Their teacher, a pretty blonde woman, tells them the history behind the exhibit.
“Are you mad at me?” he asks.
I cross my arms. “Absolutely not.”
“Disappointed?”
“Not really.”
“Then?”
“Weary.” I feel like I don’t know who he is anymore.
“Because you saw me in the middle of a fight?”
“No, Leo. It’s because I saw a side of you that I wasn’t ready for. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
He takes a step back as if I just slapped him.
He doesn’t try to explain that he did it for me. For my protection. He knows that it’s the last thing I want to hear
.
“I can still hear it. The gunshot. It’s still ringing in my ears. You took away a man’s life without second thought.”
Leo remains quiet.
Again, he doesn’t try to explain that the man was coming to hurt me, that he deserved it.
“And…and…I don’t know. It’s a side of you that I’ve never seen before.”
That’s when it hits me.
The very definition of love.
It’s trust. It’s knowing that you can get hurt, but taking the jump anyway. It’s having faith that the person on the other end will catch your fall.
I’m not being fair with Leo.
I’m not catching his fall.
Love is supposed to be unconditional.
The inner essence of love is based on acceptance. Of not just the good, but the bad and the ugly too.
Leo takes a step closer. My eyes flicker to his mask, annoyed. I want to see all of his face.
He brings a hand up to his face, and with trembling fingers, he peels the mask away.
A hush falls over the room.
There are people around us.
Kids, parent chaperones, teachers, museum visitors.
It’s crowded here, and Leo just took his mask off. All because he knows that I don’t like seeing him hiding behind it.
He hands me the mask. I take it from him, and hold it between my hands. It’s still warm.
“You’re understandably upset,” he says quietly. “By what you saw. By what I did. I wish I could promise you that you’ll never see me like that again, but that would be a lie, Belle. I have no regrets about what I did. I would kill a whole army for you. I wish I could be the man you want me to be, but this is who I am. This is the world I was raised in. It will always be a part of who I am.”
I touch him then.
Right on top of the part he hides.
It’s a silent invitation. It has been months since we’ve seen each other, but he remembers the rule.
He only gets to touch me when I’m the one to touch him first.
His lips come crashing down on mine.
Starlight forms behind my closed eyes.
We’re in the pool again.
Only the distance isn’t there anymore. He’s not swimming in circles around me.
Instead, every inch of his hard body is pressed against mine.
Our bodies create a delicious friction. Muscled chest against tender nipples. My thigh raised and wrapped around his pelvis. His hands molding the flesh of my ass.
It’s all in my mind, of course.
There are children around us, so I pull away immediately after our lips brush. But I hold onto him like he’s my lifeline.
Half of the girls are giggling. The other half are rolling their eyes.
All of the boys are staring at Leo.
A little boy with curly blonde hair detaches himself from the crowd, and runs towards us.
He tugs on Leo’s sleeve.
Leo smiles at him and gets down on one knee so he’s at eye level with the kiddo.
“Hi there,” he says.
My heart shudders at the sight.
This is my man.
Kneeling before a little boy without his mask.
When I met him, he was afraid to show his face even to me.
He liked to hide in the shadows, covering his face with that cloak he always wore.
He thought of himself as a bird with a broken leg.
He thought he was just standing on one good leg. And by believing that, he had forgotten that he could fly.
The little boy says loudly, “I want to be as big as you.”
“Do you?” asks Leo.
“Yeah,” nods the child. “I wanna be big and strong. Like you. But how?”
A woman rushes forward. She has curly blonde hair too—probably the child’s mother.
“Kevin, that’s enough,” she reprimands. And then she turns to Leo, swallowing as she stands in front of his powerful presence. “I’m so sorry about this.”
Leo shakes his head, and looks at all of the other kids. With a voice loud enough for everybody to hear, he says, “I always eat my vegetables.”
Some of the kids stare at him with wide eyes, as if mentally noting that down.
The mother smiles and mouths a ‘thank you’ to Leo before taking her child away.
Leo turns to me.
I look into his eyes—the deep sapphire blue of them brought out even more by the blue lighting.
Looking into his eyes is like looking at my own reflection.
We’re so alike.
We have different faces and different bodies, but there’s something inside the two of us that’s made of the same material.
We’re separate, but we’re the same.
His eyes drop down to my lips.
I bite my lower lip. Hard.
He leans down and whispers in my ear, “Let’s get out of here. There are some not-so-PG things I’ve been dying to do to you.”
38
Leo
The city lights blur into one giant streak of red, white, and blue.
Belle and I are seated in the back of the car. There’s a privacy glass between the driver and us, blocking out any sight or sound.
My fingers are splayed over her belly. She’s sitting in my lap with her head resting on my chest.
With my woman in my arms, that gaping void in my heart starts to heal.
I can’t remember what I was thinking when I left her behind in Silver Falls.
It would have been much less painful if she was here with me. For both of us.
“You have no idea how much I missed you,” I mumble into her hair. “Not even an hour goes by that I don’t think of you.”
“I’m here now,” she says, closing her eyes. “You’re here now.”
I tip her chin up with my index finger, and lean down to kiss her on her soft mouth. She sighs and melts into it.
“Never again,” I promise. “Never again will we spend time apart.”
“You did what you had to do,” she shrugs.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I did what I thought I had to do. If I really wanted to, I could’ve found a way to keep you safe.”
It was shame that held me back.
I didn’t want her to see the world that raised me. Every other excuse that I told myself was just that—an excuse.
“Leo?” she whispers sweetly.
“Yeah, baby?”
“Why didn’t you call me? Or text me or reach out to me in any way?”
I take a deep breath. “Look at me now, Belle. I can’t go a second without touching you or holding you in some way. Do you think I would’ve been able to stay away if I heard your voice?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “I just wish we had done this sooner.”
I swallow as I glance down at her pregnant belly. “Did you know?”
She knows exactly what I’m asking. “I found out the day you took me to the waterfalls.”
“I missed out on so much,” I breathe out. “Does…does it kick?”
She makes a face. “It? That’s how you address your child?”
“Do you know the gender yet? Is it a girl? Tell me it’s a girl.”
“What if I told you it was a boy?”
“Is it a boy?”
“What if I told you it’s both?”
“What. How?”
“We’re having twins, Leo. A baby boy and a baby girl.”
I thought I knew what joy was.
It was the moment I laid my eyes on Belle for the first time. The time she tended to my bullet wound with gentle fingers even though the sight of blood made her hands shake. The way her slow smiles break my heart every single time.
But all of that is mild compared to what I’m feeling now.
“Twins?”
She looks up at me, a small smile dancing on her face. “How do you feel about it?”
All the words in the world won’t be enough to describe this joy. “
I never thought I would be somebody’s Dad. It’s something I always wanted, but Belle, I honestly never thought I would get here. And now the woman of my dreams is telling me that I’m about to be the father of two?”
Bright hues of gold and blue choke my throat.
My heart is swollen, and it’s bleeding joy into each and every corner of my body.
It delights me.
It humbles me.
I want to fall to my knees and beg her for forgiveness. The thought of not being there for her is a needle to my heart.
“You had to do this all on your own,” I breathe. “Belle, I’m so-“
She silences me with her fingers over my lips. “I’ve had enough of sad evenings. I don’t want tonight to be another one. I know, Leo, I know. I know your heart, and I know that it must have killed you to be away from me. Because I was feeling it. All of your pain and mine.”
My head is still stuck on one thing—guilt. “All of the milestones and doctor’s appointments.”
“Trust me, all you missed out on is my morning nausea and cranky moods.”
“I wasn’t there for you.” I had failed her.
“Leo,” she hisses, snapping my attention back to her. “Stop. It’s not your fault. And I missed you, but I still had people looking after me. My sisters were there every step of the way. The bodyguards you sent have done so much more than you can ever imagine.”
“They did?”
“Absolutely. From taking me to hospital checkups to buying us groceries, they were super helpful. Also, we got pretty close. So having extra emotional support was nice too.”
That’s a small relief.
But still, I’ve been such a coward.
I told myself I was distancing myself from her for her benefit. I told myself she’s too delicate for this.
But she’s seen me at my worst today.
And she’s still in my arms.
“I made them send me photos of you,” I say. “Every single day.”
“Other girls would find that creepy,” she says, undoing the first two buttons of my shirt and pressing her lips against the bare skin there.
“Not you?” I say, hands automatically fisting her hair.
Her little tongue darts out to taste my skin.
She moans and says, “I already knew. Did you really think those were candid pictures, Leo? That was me getting all dressed up and posing for you every single day. It kind of gave me something to look forward to, actually.”