Chapter 119: Hundred and Nineteen

We lay tangled in sheets that still held the heat of what we had done. Declan’s arm was draped loosely around my waist, his hand resting against my stomach like it belonged there. It should have felt comforting, but instead my chest ached with the weight of everything unsaid.

He shifted behind me, and I felt his breath stir the back of my neck. “Willow.”

I turned slightly, just enough to see the outline of his face in the dim light. His eyes caught mine, unwavering. “Why did you leave?”

I knew the questions would come. But in my mind, I had wanted to stay in that romantic daze a little longer.

I swallowed hard. “Declan, I don’t…”

“No,” he interrupted, his voice steady but tight. “Don’t give me half-answers this time. Don’t tell me it was complicated, or that I wouldn’t understand. Just…please. Tell me the truth.”

The plea in his voice broke me more than the demand.

I stared up at the ceiling, fighting the sting in my eyes. My fingers twisted in the sheet, searching for courage. “There was a video,” I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of it.

He went still. “A what?”

“A video of us,” I said, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “That night. Mara had it. She said if I didn’t walk away, she’d send it to everyone who mattered. To your mentors, the university, the press. She said it would ruin you.”

I couldn’t look at him. My shame was too sharp. But I felt the tension ripple through him, the sudden rigidity of his body.

“Jesus Christ.” His voice was low, rough. “And you believed her?”

Tears burned hot at the corners of my eyes. “What choice did I have? You were on the edge of everything you’d worked for. You were getting that award, and your research was getting attention… your career, your reputation. And me? I was,” My voice broke, and I pressed my hand against my mouth before the sob could escape. “I couldn’t be the one to destroy all of it.”

Declan sat up slightly, leaning over me, his hand gripping my chin until I had no choice but to look at him. His eyes were fierce, burning in the dim light.

“You think I would have cared about that? You think I would’ve traded you for a damn job?” His voice cracked on the last word. “You should have come to me, Willow. We could have figured it out. Together. Don’t you see? Life would have been different.”

I shook my head, tears spilling now, hot trails down my cheeks. “I know. I know it was stupid. I’ve told myself that a thousand times. But I was terrified, Declan. She made me believe I had no choice. I thought I was protecting you. I thought…I thought leaving was the only way to keep your world intact.”

His hand softened against my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear. His eyes closed briefly, as if the weight of it hurt him physically.

“All this time,” he whispered, more to himself than to me. “All this time I thought I wasn’t enough. That you didn’t love me enough to stay. That you hated me. You said those awful things to me, before you left.”

The words tore through me. I grabbed his hand, clutching it against my face. “No. God, no. You were everything. That’s why I left. Because you were everything, and I couldn’t bear to be the reason you lost it all. And I said all that because…I needed you to hate me. To not come after me.”

His forehead dropped against mine, and for a moment the silence was louder than any words could be. His breath was shaky, his fingers trembling where they touched me.

“I never hated you, not for a second. I loved you the moment I saw you, dove.”

He kissed my forehead, my cheek, the tip of my nose.

“You went through that alone,” he murmured. “You carried it all, by yourself, and I…” He broke off, his voice raw with regret. “It kills me, Willow. It kills me to think of you suffering while I… while I thought the worst of you.”

I wanted to say it was okay. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t to blame. But the truth was messier, more complex. And it wasn’t the end of my confession.

“There’s more,” I whispered, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes again. “After I left…a few months later, Jacob found me.”

His body stiffened instantly, the name bitter in his silence.

“I was..I was a wreck,” I said. “I was pregnant and and I was scared, sick, exhausted. Jacob…he stepped in. He took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. He made sure I ate, made sure I had a place to stay. And when Noah was born…he was there. Every day. Every night. He became what I couldn’t give Noah on my own.”

Declan’s eyes darkened, but not with jealousy. Something heavier, something pained.

“And for a while,” I continued softly, “I let myself believe it was love. Maybe it was, in its way. He proposed, and I said yes. Because how could I not? He’d given me stability, given Noah a father. It felt like the right thing. The only thing.”

Declan’s jaw tightened. “And now?”

Now. The word felt like a knife twisting in my chest.

“Now I feel grateful to him,” I admitted, my voice breaking. “But also guilty. Because what we did tonight, what’s happening between us, it isn’t fair to him. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve me betraying him like this.”

Declan’s hand dropped from my cheek, curling into a fist against the sheets. He looked away, jaw clenched, shoulders rigid as if holding back words that might shatter us both.

Finally, he spoke, his voice low and unsteady. “You’re right. He doesn’t deserve it. But you…” He turned back to me, eyes fierce and wet. “You don’t deserve to be in a relationship because you feel like you owe him something.”

The words sank into me, and I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t know how. “I do owe him a lot.”

Declan shook his head. “I know. And I do, too. He took care of my son - “

“Noah is Jacob’s son as much as he is yours. I can’t take those five years away from him. I can’t make it disappear.”

I felt Declan’s mouth twist. But I knew, he understood. “I don’t know what to do.” I admitted, honestly.

He pulled me to him.

I pressed my face against his chest, my tears soaking into his skin. His arms wrapped around me, strong and unyielding, like he could hold the pieces of me together even as they threatened to fall apart.

For the first time in years, I let myself cry. Really cry. And he held me through it, his lips pressing into my hair, his voice a broken whisper over and over:

“You should have come to me. We would have figured it out. We still can.”

And God help me, some part of me wanted to believe that too.