I never wanted that kiss to end.
My arms wrapped around her, and I pulled her close. This should have been the beginning for us, not the end. This should have been a time for us to fall further in love as we bonded with the child we’d made together. But now it was going to be the hardest moment of my life.
She pulled away and let her hands trail down my chest. “When will you be back?”
I held her gaze and felt my pulse quicken in both wrists. It was impossible to look this woman in the eye and not say what she wanted to hear. It was nearly impossible for me not to get on my knees and give her whatever she wanted. “I’m not coming back…”
Her eyes slowly changed as she processed what I said, morphing from sadness to confusion. They shifted back and forth quickly so she could take in my expression as much as possible, to absorb any detail she may have missed. Her fingertips were suddenly light against my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I saw the fire before the spark. I saw the inferno before the rage. “It means what it means. I’m not coming back.”
Her hands slid the rest of the way until she no longer touched me. Like her fingertips had been burned, she stepped back. Her eyes smoldered in anger, and there was practically smoke rising from the surface of her eyes. “Hades.” That was all she had to say to explain how she felt, to ask the questions she couldn’t provide answers for on her own.
“I can’t keep seeing you. It’s too fucking hard.” I took a deep breath before I continued. “Every time I go back, I’ll have to start over. I can’t keep torturing myself over and over again. I wish there were another way, but there’s not.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “And our son? Your son?”
I shook my head slightly. “I can’t see him either.” That hurt more than losing Sofia. My boy would never know me. I would never know him.
Her eyes became so ferocious so fast. “So, you’re just going to abandon your son?”
“Having me as a father will do him more harm than good. I’m a liability.”
“That sounds like a shitty excuse to me.”
If only she knew the whole story. “I can only come down once in a while, so he’ll hardly see me anyway. And one day, you’ll be married to some other guy, so I’ll have to come and see your happy life and know I’m no longer a part of it. I’ll have to watch my son look up to some other man as a father because I was never around. I can’t do that to myself… I can’t.”
There was no sympathy coming from her. “It shouldn’t matter what happens with me, if I do get remarried or not. Nothing should ever get in the way of being with your son. If you really never want to see me again, Ash can always pick him up. We have options.”
It was still too much. “I can’t do it, Sofia.”
Her entire face began to flush. She’d never looked like that before, like a red-hot volcano about to destroy everything around her. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m never going to move on if I have to watch you have your own family, if I have to watch my son love some other guy. It would be torture.”
“Coward.” She said the word slowly, like she was feeling it on her tongue for the first time. “Fucking coward. I don’t like this either, but I would never turn my back on my boy.”
“Because you get to keep him.” My temper flared. “You get to start over with a new life. You can work at the hotel and raise a family without looking over your shoulder. You have no idea how shitty my life is, all the bullshit I have to put up with. Don’t call me a fucking coward. You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed for you. I’m doing this for both of you. All I ever do is cause you harm. And I can’t do that to my son.”
Tears billowed over the edge of her lashes and dripped down her cheeks. “So, what? That’s it?” She spoke through her tears, her voice cracking. “We’re just never going to talk again? I’m never going to see you again?”
“You can always call me if you need anything…but that’s it.”
She turned her head slightly as if I’d slapped her. “I don’t need anything from you, Hades. The only thing Andrew and I want is you.”
My heart thudded in pain, but I kept up my expression.
She watched me as if she expected me to change my mind, to come to my senses and realize how harsh this decision was.