Page 104 of Wrecked By You

“Putting a baby in you will make me the happiest man in the world, and I’m already fucking ecstatic.”

Relief rushed through me, my heart reattaching, beating strong and true. “Really?”

“God, Ella, yes. Did you think otherwise?”

“But we haven’t talked about it. We haven’t even been together that long. And a baby is… I honestly don’t know what came over me.”

He replaced his lips with his hand, his large palm almost covering my entire midriff. “Time is meaningless. I love you. You love me. There are people who live together their whole lives and never achieve the kind of connection we have. A child would be a natural extension of our love.”

He moved up the bed to lie beside me once more, threading our hands together.

“Before Sadie, before the attack, I dreamed of having a family one day, and for a brief moment in time, I’d thought she might be the one.”

He laughed, a bitter sound that I didn’t like. I kissed his shoulder in solidarity. If I ever got my hands on that bitch, I’d throttle her until her eyes popped out of her head. Not that I ever would find her. If the police hadn’t, then what chance would I have?

“Then when it happened, and I withdrew pretty much from the world, I gave up on those dreams, throwing myself into the nightclub business instead. And now you…” He slipped his arms around me and pulled me even closer. “You’ve given me back those dreams. So yes, I do want kids. Lots of them. And I want them with you.”

My chest prickled, happiness spreading through me. “I want that, too,” I whispered. “I always wanted a brother or a sister for Chloe. I grew up an only child, and I never wanted that for her.”

“I love her like my own. You know that, right? No matter how many kids come after her, she’ll always be our first.”

He looked so earnest, so worried, and my love for him tripled. “I know.” An idea I’d toyed with and then discarded roared back to the surface. “I don’t know if this will ever be possible, but I was thinking we could look into adoption. I mean, Mateo probably won’t ever agree, but it’s worth a shot, right? You’re more of a father to her than he ever was.”

“Oh, Ella.” His eyes shone, and he brought my fingers to his lips, kissing the tips of each one. “I would be honored to adopt Chloe, but even if it can’t happen, a missing piece of paper won’t make a difference to me. Parents are the ones who raise children, not create them.”

God. This man. My heart almost burst.

“I’m so glad I ran to LA and found myself at Level Nine. So blessed that you took a chance on me when you knew I was hiding something.”

“If I look back now, something inside me changed that day. I wasn’t aware of it, but my subconscious reached out and gave you that job when the businessman in me knew I should have sent you packing. It was as if an ancient instinct recognized you as my savior, my healer. My future.”

“It was the luckiest day of my life.”

“The luckiest day of both our lives.”

Chapter34

Ella

Time to give vengeance her head.

One Year Later…

I’d never been in a courtroom before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It smelled… old somehow, a little musty, although the walls looked freshly painted and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere in sight.

Keeping my eyes forward, I made my way to the witness stand, conscious of Mateo’s dark stare burning a hole in the back of my head. My knees knocked, but I kept my spine erect and my shoulders back. Aaron, the district attorney in charge of this case, had briefed me well, although he’d warned me that the defense counsel would rip me apart trying to discredit me. I was prepared for that. I knew the truth, and Johannes believed in me. That was all I cared about.

I made my oath and swept my hands underneath my dress before taking a seat. I was the last witness in a three-week-long trial, the trump card whose evidence was supposed to put the final nail in Mateo’s coffin. The pressure weighed heavily on me, but I was up to the task. I had to be. For my sake and for Chloe’s.

I searched for Johannes, finding him sitting beside my parents and my mom’s husband, and right behind the prosecuting counsel’s desk. The sight of him, dressed in a navy blue suit and a pale blue shirt open at the neck calmed my racing heart. No more black sweaters and matching pants. He’d come a long way. We both had.

“I love you,” he mouthed.

I dipped my chin in acknowledgment and wiped damp hands over my thighs. The assistant district attorney, a young, bright woman named Annette, approached me with a reassuring smile.

And so we began.

Two hours later, I stepped down from the witness stand, battered and bruised from some of the brutal questioning, but with my pride intact. I’d told the truth, and now it was up to the jury to decide what happened next. I couldn’t do any more to influence the outcome. Somehow, I’d managed to avoid looking at Mateo once throughout the whole ordeal, but as I passed between the opposing tables, I caught his eye.