Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins (42 page)

Flynn frowned, deep and hard.

‘And then my petition was granted. And by then the embryos were the centre of my hollow, vacant world, and preparing my body for them became my entire purpose. And I somehow convinced myself that being with family—being together—was the most important thing for them. I ignored how ill-prepared I was to be a mother. How inappropriate my flat was. How little support I had without my sister. How I was going to support them, long-term. None of that mattered as long as I kept them in the family. In my family. It was such a
grand
purpose. And
that
was the urgency,’ she said, answering a question from weeks ago. ‘The urgency was in me.’

Her chest heaved with the enormity of what she was about to do and her hands shook from the terror. ‘But I was selfish. I was doing it for me, not for them. I think I lost sight of what really matters in my grief. Their health. Their happiness. But I remain resolute on one point … These boys will
not
be separated. Not while I breathe.’

Flynn stared at her. ‘You’re going to keep fighting for them?’

Tears filled her eyes. ‘No, Flynn. I’m finished fighting. I’m giving them to you.’

‘Bel—’ Alice gasped. Denise echoed her shocked intake of air.

‘But you’re their mother! They need you,’ Flynn said.

She spun on him. ‘And I’m
being
a mother. How I feel can’t matter. Those boys will not grow up separated, only hearing about each other online.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You, of all people, should understand the importance of keeping their family together.’

Panic was written loud and clear on his face. ‘Then stay. Raise your boys here.’

Pain sliced deep into her. Asking her to stay was his clear and desperate last resort. And it would kill them both. ‘You know that’s not going to work, Flynn.’

‘We’ll make it work.’

‘A marriage based on lies will only hurt the children it’s meant to protect.’

‘We’ll make it work,’ he repeated roughly.

‘Without love?’ God, how it hurt to say that out loud.

‘I—’ He couldn’t hold her eyes.

‘She’s not welcome to stay,’ Denise chimed in, her voice thick. ‘She’s disrespected our whole family.’

Flynn snarled towards his mother. ‘She did that for me.’

Bel pushed to her feet. ‘It doesn’t matter, Flynn. I won’t stay where I’m not welcome. I won’t be treated the way Gwen was.’

Arthur dropped his gaze to his feet.

‘Then we’ll leave together,’ Flynn improvised. ‘Raise the boys together. Away from here.’

‘No!’ Alice’s voice this time.

‘I will not be responsible for breaking up your family,’ Bel cried, hoarse and heartsore.
And I will not live with you, loving you, without your love.
It was going to be hard enough continuing to breathe away from him.

Flynn’s face was granite. His voice dropped. ‘But you’ll have no one, Bel …’

Hearing it said out loud hurt almost as much as realising he couldn’t love her. She forced the lump blocking her throat aside long enough to swallow the pain. ‘I’ve got me. And it’s about time I started believing in myself.’

‘Bel, this is ridiculous. You can’t leave.’ Arthur finally spoke. He turned to Alice. ‘This can be worked out.’

‘No,’ Denise said firmly. The woman who’d helped bring her children into the world just a week ago now wanted her gone. Long, long gone.

Bel swung towards Flynn urgently and spoke to him as though they were alone in the room, blinking past the tears fast gathering behind her lashes. As though none of the distance or pain of the past few days existed. She spoke to him as she might have if they’d been lying in each other’s arms, determinedly
not
sleeping together. ‘Flynn, I lived seventeen years in enemy territory and it nearly broke me. It was unhealthy and intolerable. I cannot do that again—’

He said under his breath, ‘Then I’ll—’

‘No. You already hold yourself responsible for the fragmentation of your family. I won’t let you do what Drew did. Isolate yourself from them. For me.’

He looked to the babies.

She fought back the ache. ‘They will grow up surrounded by love and nature and wide blue open skies. They’ll run and hide and fall into the stream and track mud into the house and
Alice will growl at them. They’ll be good and they’ll be bad and even when they are they’ll have three generations of family to support them and guide them—’ Despite what they might have unconsciously absorbed here today ‘—and a world of opportunity as Bradleys.

‘Forget what’s happened between us,’ she begged. ‘Just let me go. And love those boys twice as hard for me.’

He stared at her, his chest heaving, his dark eyes pained.

‘Flynn. You said to make it count.’ She wrung her hands together, twisting her fingers.

A deep frown folded down between his eyes.

‘That first day in Oberon I said I’d let you know when I knew what I wanted in return for everything we’ve done. You told me to make it count. Well, this does.’ She curled her fingers around his and his eyes dropped to the white gold ring she returned. ‘I need to go, Flynn.’

His whole family held their breath and Bel knew she’d already torn a fissure as wide as a valley in their fabric. But then he spoke, low and choked, and her heart ripped completely free.

‘I’ll drive you to the airport when you’re ready.’

She burst from the house, her eyes locked forward as she tripped down the porch steps to go and pack, heart breaking, not even pausing to say goodbye to her little men. She’d done that a hundred times since discovering the Crown’s decree, since recognising that she couldn’t bring herself to part them from each other. Every look, every touch, every kiss was a farewell. She’d stockpiled her memories and a fridge full of expressed milk and once that was gone they were on their own. Lots of babies grew up healthy and strong on formula. Alice would see them right.

‘Bel …!’

She stumbled in the snow and struggled to right herself, to keep moving. It was stupid to run from Flynn when he’d have hours with her in the car heading for the airport but, right
now, she couldn’t face him. She’d never get that image out of her head. The awkwardness of his demeanour as she laid her pulpy heart out on the examination table. The dread.

That was what she’d remember most from her magical time here.

‘Bel.’ This time his hand snagged her arm and yanked her to a halt, but her furious forward momentum spun her and sent her sprawling into the freshly fallen snow. She scrabbled away from him and desperately tried to right herself but the tears streaming from her eyes made it impossible to see.

‘Bel, don’t,’ Flynn groaned, lurching headlong into the snow, snagging her foot and using it to get a better hold on her. In a heartbeat she was under him, both of them prostrate in the icy drift.

‘Don’t touch me, Flynn!’ She couldn’t bear it. To smell him. To feel him. Knowing she’d never do either again. She sobbed and shoved weakly against his weight.

‘Bel, listen …’

She struggled under him, screeching her frustration at being trapped. So very apt.

‘You can’t do this.’ He forced her face around to his. ‘Not this. It will kill you.’

Very probably.
He shimmered and swam in the tears filling her eyes. ‘What else can I do? I can’t stay.’

‘We’ll get our own place, in Oberon. That’s not leaving my family.’

‘You don’t love me, Flynn.’ Her words were like blood, pumping from her fractured heart. ‘You can’t love me.’

‘Bel …’

The defeat in his voice hurt her most of all. ‘Is that what you want for me, Flynn? To live forever surrounded by people who only tolerate me?’

‘You’ll have the boys.’ It was desperate and he knew it.

‘And what kind of men will they grow up into, seeing that? What kind of lesson will that teach them?’

His frustration puffed as mist from his lips. ‘It’s something.’

‘It’s not enough. I’ve finally realised that I’m worth more. I’m worth someone’s
beyond compare
love, no matter how I grew up or what mistakes I made along the way. And that makes me stronger.’ Because God knew she’d had to grow strong this past year.

‘Enough to do something this unthinkable?’

No. Probably not.
‘Enough to survive it.’

‘How will you put them out of your heart?’

‘I won’t,’ she said fiercely. ‘Not any of you. But as much as remembering will hurt, it isn’t a patch on how much staying would hurt.’ She found his eyes and snared them with hers. ‘You accused me of not knowing what love looked like, of having no point of reference.’ Her chest heaved. She swiped at the tears that tumbled out. ‘
You’re
my point of reference, Flynn.’

And he always would be. No matter what happened today.

‘Bel—’

‘I understand, Flynn. You made me no promises. I built ice castles around a bunch of feelings I thought were there but really weren’t.’

‘Bel …’

She laughed emptily. ‘Seems to be a habit of mine. I may know what love feels like but I clearly have no idea what it looks like coming back at—’

‘Bel, will you shut up and listen?’

Her teeth clacked shut.

‘I need to know something.’ He breathed down on her, frost puffing out with his words. ‘When you look at me, what do you see?’

She swiped at the tears blurring her vision and stared at him, uncomprehending. ‘I see you.’

‘Look deeper. Who do you really see?’

The fear in his gaze was evident. Bracing himself for hurt.

‘I see a boy who worshipped the ground his brother walked on and never got over being sidelined by him. I see a man
who’s lived his life expecting the same kind of disappointment and who unconsciously hunts for evidence he’s been let down. Because it’s all he knows.’

Flynn frowned and then his lips tightened. ‘Why the hell would you love that man? An emotional train-wreck.’

She shrugged. ‘Even wrecks deserve their chance at love, don’t they?’ She was building her whole life on that hope. ‘But you’re so much more as well. Bright and focused and loving. Loyal and strong and enduring. And, to be honest, I’m no prize.’

‘Do you really think that?’ he said when she finally ran out of steam, his brow flat and furrowed. ‘That you’re worthless?’

She sagged, emotionally spent. ‘My whole life, I’ve lived in fear of disappointing people. Of seeing expressions like your mother’s tonight on people’s faces. I make mistakes, Flynn, a lot of them. I’m not a good fit for a man who’s scrying disappointment out wherever he goes.’

‘Yet you were willing to bind yourself to me for ever?’

She didn’t miss his use of the past tense and her chest compressed even further. She shifted uncomfortably under him, soaked to the skin on her lower side and toasty and warm on the upper. It was the perfect metaphor for how she’d been feeling all year. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. Poor decisions have a way of finding me.’ She sighed. ‘You’re better off being on the other side of the world from me.’

‘Who are you trying to convince?’ He smiled. ‘Me or yourself?’

She shivered.

His face sobered. ‘Are you cold, Bel?’

‘I will always be cold.’
If you’re not there.
She pressed her lips together to stop their tremble.

He adjusted himself more comfortably on her, taking his weight on his elbows and stroking wet hair back from her face.

‘You’re not letting me up?’ She squinted.

He smiled again. Two in thirty seconds: world record. ‘I
told you chivalry was locked in the barn for the next year.’ She frowned her confusion and he took pity on her.

He took a deep bracing breath. ‘I was looking for a reason not to love you, Bel.’

She blinked, her eyes widening.

‘My feelings were so easy to keep corralled on a day-to-day basis, but then you asked to stay and I … I panicked. I overreacted. I shoved you away.’

She sucked in a tight breath. All she could manage under his warm weight.

‘I’ve had a few days to think about what you said, about what it means. For me.’

She blinked up at him.

‘I was desperate for something to fail you on, Bel. The spoiled princess who stole my brother from me. But you came here and were
so
not what I expected. You fitted in immediately, you worked hard, you did all the right things with the pregnancy. You were beautiful and sexy and one hundred and ten per cent the wrong person for me, yet I still found myself totally entranced.’

She forgot all about the ice numbing her bottom.

‘Even while I was taking you in my arms at night—in fact, particularly because I was—I was always watching for a reason we couldn’t be together and kept finding none. Nothing reasonable. So I started fabricating reasons to keep my feelings at arm’s length. Your sister. Your relationship with Drew. I was just waiting for that other shoe to drop and for life to deliver the blow I knew was coming.’ He stared at her. ‘And then it finally did. In the worst imaginable way.’

The tears prickled back and threatened to freeze where they pooled.

‘The woman I loved only wanted me to keep the babies. I can’t tell you how that felt. How many old hurts and fears it fed off. I was destroyed. I wasn’t listening and I certainly wasn’t hearing you, Bel. I’m sorry.’

She just shook her head fractionally.

‘And then I used the custody declaration to destroy you right back. Apparently, that’s the man I now am.’

Desire to protect him—defend him—surged through her. ‘You were angry. Upset.’

‘I was a jerk. A-class.’

‘Well … yes … But no one’s perfect.’ Except he was perfect for her.

His eyes clouded over. ‘Perfection is hard to live up to.’

The urge to protect him from any more hurt swamped her. From the lofty vantage point of a woman in love with the better man—the best of men—it only served to show her how deep her love for Flynn truly ran. And how
visible
she’d felt since stepping onto that flight with him.

‘You were right when you said Drew wasn’t perfect, Flynn. He made mistakes, lots of them. But he tried to learn from them.’ She tilted her head and wished her arms were more free to wrap around him because what she was going to say might hurt. ‘I think him being so loving and warm and inclusive of me was his way of … making up … for how wrong he got it with you.’ She touched his face. ‘I think he might really have regretted how badly he handled himself when he was younger. And he was determined to get it right the second time around.’ She took a breath. ‘I think maybe you two could have found a better place again if he’d had a bit more time.’