"I guess that explains why he didn't press charges," I finally got out.  "Did he know she was his daughter when he hit on her?"

"No, but you know what?  I don't f**king care if he knew.  Bastard had this coming.  Can you imagine how that would mess with your head, to have your own dad trying to screw you?"

"Point taken.  Thanks for clearing that up."

"That's it then?"

"Yes.  It was my job to scold you, fine you, or penalize you, per the clause in your contract that forbids you from fighting, and the casino's attorneys were breathing down my neck about it, due to the fact that what you did is lawsuit territory, but I find I have no desire to pursue it.  Good job, man.  I'd have done the same.  Have a nice afternoon."

He was laughing on the other end when I hung up.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

MY LIGHT

We were driving home when it slipped out.  I'd regret it later, but like any deep cut, I didn't feel, or even recognize the damage I'd done right away.

We'd just had a wonderful visit with Tristan and Danika.  I'd spent the afternoon watching Bianca play with Ming and hold Nikolaj, and it had gone to my head.

"We could adopt," I suggested.

She'd been relaxed.  Happy.  Smiling.  It all shut down suddenly.  And she was stiff, distant, unreadable.

I tried to backtrack as soon as I saw her face.  "I mean, if you didn't want to get pregnant, or . . . I'm just saying there are a lot of options.  Tristan and Danika have had a great experience . . . I mean, I—it's just an idea."  I felt awkward, my usual ease with words just escaping me.

Not a word, not one iota of an expression change, not so much as one minuscule twitch in her facial expression, but I could feel her hurt, her pain, in the air.  It scared me.

I hated when she did this, when she shut me out.  It happened less frequently the longer we were together, but that just seemed to make it harder to cope with when it did happen.

"I didn't mean to offend you," I finally tried again.  "They just seem so happy.   It's clearly worked for them."

"I thought we were happy.  I thought we worked."  A hint of the accent that I rarely heard was in the words.  That's how upset she was.

My stomach dropped.  She said it like the careless thing I'd said somehow undid us being happy, undid us working.

Fuck.

"We are.  We do.  That came out badly.  That's not even remotely close to what I meant."

But the damage was done.

She withdrew.

She left me, for a while.  Someone occupied that body, but it was not my wife.  It was some stranger that shared nothing with me, none of her thoughts, none of her pain.

For days, she left me.

And then, she said it.  It.  The thing that broke my heart into a million jagged pieces.

"Maybe we shouldn't have gotten married."

I was having the damnedest time getting air in my lungs.  Was this a dream?  A nightmare?  Had she really just said that to me?

Those soul sucking eyes of her hit me like a punch.  Not only was she not taking back the awful thing she'd said, but she looked like she was getting angrier by the second, like she'd actually meant it.

"You should have always been honest with me about it," she clipped out.  "People should not get married until they have reconciled a thing like this.  We should have waited.  I . . . still don't know if I want to have children, but you clearly do."

"Yes, yes, I can't deny, I would love to have children.  With you.  I want that.  But not more than I want you.  Never.  I want you above all, over anything.  This is me being as honest as I can be."

She deflated a little, softened enough that I was dragging her into me, holding her, touching her, when she hadn't been touchable for days now.

"This is hard for me to say, to vocalize, to even utter out loud," she said softly, despair in her voice.  "But I'm not sure I can reconcile who I am, what I've been through, with being a mother.  There is a darkness in me, a bloody stain that comes from my father."

She was wrong.  She was light.  My light.  All of that darkness inside of her only made the contrast that much sweeter.

"I just . . . I need more time.  Please don't rush me.  Be patient with me, and I will work it out someday, I promise."

I held her so hard she couldn't have found it easy to breathe.  "Take all the time you need.  I swear, I won't mention it again.  Ever.  We are on your timeline here.  You know, I know you know, I can't do without you."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

MY BLISS

Something was up.  Bianca had locked herself in the bathroom.  She'd been in there for thirty f**king minutes.

I knocked again.  "Love, are you okay in there?  Is something wrong?"

She mumbled that she was.

I left, did a few things, and came back a good thirty minutes later.  She was still f**king in there.

I knocked again.  "Are you ill?  Did something disagree with your stomach?"

I was a TMI type of guy.

She mumbled a no, but she sounded strange.

I was just getting my phone out to call Stephan when he burst into our bedroom without knocking.

I blinked at him.  This had never happened before.  He knew very well that our bedroom was not a safe place to enter without knocking.  Odds were more likely than not he'd scar his eyeballs for life, doing a thing like that.