Chapter 152

Chapter 152
Anna POV

"I tried to tell you," I said, and now the tears were coming, hot and fast, streaming down my face even though I'd promised myself I wouldn't cry. "That night in the hospital, and the next day, and the day after that. I kept trying to make you listen, to make you believe me, but you just kept saying I was upset, that I wasn't thinking clearly, that I needed to rest and stop making wild accusations. And eventually I stopped trying because I realized you were never going to believe me. You were never going to choose me over her."

Edward made a sound—low and wounded, like something being torn in half—and then he was moving around the table toward me. I flinched instinctively, my body remembering all the times his proximity had meant control, meant demands, meant him taking what he wanted without asking, but he stopped immediately when he saw me pull back, his hands dropping to his sides.

"Don't," he said, his voice hoarse. "Please don't—I'm not going to hurt you. I just—fuck." He ran both hands through his hair, leaving it standing up in messy spikes, and when he looked at me again his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "She killed our baby. Vera killed our baby, and I didn't believe you. Jesus Christ, Anna, I didn't believe you."

The words hung in the air between us, stark and terrible and absolutely true, and I watched as he processed what he'd just said, watched as the full weight of it crashed down on him. His knees seemed to give out and he sank down onto the floor beside my chair, not touching me but close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body, could hear the ragged sound of his breathing.

"I'm sorry," he said, and his voice broke on the words. "God, Anna, I'm so sorry. I should have listened. I should have believed you. I should have protected you, and instead I—" He stopped, pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Instead I called you confused. I told you to stop making things worse. I chose her over you, over our child, and I can't—I don't know how to live with that."

I stared down at the top of his head, at the way his shoulders were shaking, and something inside me that had been frozen solid for six months started to crack. All this time I'd imagined this conversation, had played it out in my head a thousand different ways, and in every version I'd pictured him denying it, defending Vera, telling me I was wrong. I'd never imagined this—him on his knees beside me, breaking apart, finally believing what I'd been trying to tell him all along.

"She looked me in the eye," I said softly, and I saw him flinch like each word was a physical blow. "Right before she pushed me. And she smiled. Like it was fun. Like she was doing something clever."

Edward's hands dropped from his face and he looked up at me, and the expression in his eyes was so raw, so completely devastated, that I had to look away. "I'm going to destroy her," he said, and his voice was cold now, deadly calm. "I'm going to make sure she never hurts you again. I'm going to take everything from her—her freedom, her reputation, everything—and I'm going to make absolutely certain she pays for what she did."

"Edward—"

"No." He cut me off, his jaw set in that stubborn line I knew so well. "This isn't negotiable. She murdered our child, Anna. She pushed you down a flight of stairs when you were pregnant and then she let everyone believe it was an accident. She let you suffer, let you grieve, let you think you were crazy for six goddamn months. And I—" His voice cracked again. "I helped her do it. By not believing you. By making you doubt yourself. By being so fucking blind that I couldn't see what was right in front of me."

I reached out then, almost without thinking, and put my hand on his shoulder. He went absolutely still under my touch, like he was afraid that if he moved I'd take it back, and I could feel the tension thrumming through his whole body.

"I need you to know," he said quietly, not looking at me, "that I loved that baby. I know I didn't show it. I know I treated the whole pregnancy like a business arrangement, like you were just fulfilling a contract obligation. But I—" He swallowed hard. "I used to imagine what they'd look like. Whether they'd have your eyes or mine. What their laugh would sound like. And when you lost them, I told myself it was just a setback, just something we'd try again for, because if I let myself actually feel it I would have fallen apart. And I couldn't fall apart because I was Edward Frost and Edward Frost doesn't break."

The tears were streaming down my face now, and I couldn't have stopped them if I'd wanted to. "They would have been beautiful," I whispered. "Our baby. They would have been so beautiful."

"I know," he said, and now he was crying too, silent tears tracking down his face. "I know they would have. And I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry I made you go through that alone. I'm sorry I didn't protect you, didn't believe you, didn't—" He stopped, took a shaky breath. "I'm sorry I wasn't the husband you deserved. The father our child deserved."

I slid down off the chair and onto the floor beside him, and then we were both sitting there on my kitchen floor with the untouched breakfast growing cold on the table above us, and I was crying in a way I hadn't let myself cry since the hospital, great gasping sobs that felt like they were being torn out of my chest. And Edward pulled me into his arms—carefully, tentatively, like he was afraid I might shatter—and I let him, because for the first time in six months, someone finally believed me.

"I've got you," he murmured against my hair, his arms tight around me, his own body shaking with the force of his tears. "I've got you, and I swear to God, Anna, I'm never letting anyone hurt you again. Never. I don't care what I have to do, who I have to fight, what it costs me. She's going to pay for what she did. I promise you that."

I don't know how long we sat there on that floor, holding each other while we cried for the child we'd lost and the marriage that had been broken long before it ever had a chance to work. But eventually the tears slowed, and the morning light shifted across the floor, and I became aware that I was clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had gone liquid and uncertain.

"We should eat," I finally said, my voice hoarse and thick. "The food's probably cold."

"I don't care," Edward said, but he loosened his hold on me slightly, enough that I could pull back and look at his face. His eyes were red and swollen, his cheeks wet, and he looked more human, more real, than I'd ever seen him. "Anna, I—there's something else I need to tell you."

I tensed instinctively, bracing myself for whatever was coming next, but he just cupped my face in his hands—so gentle, so careful—and looked at me like I was something precious.

"I want to try again," he said softly. "Not the baby—not unless you want that, not unless you're ready, and maybe not ever if that's what you need. But us. I want to try again with us. Not the arrangement we had before, not some new version of the same disaster. Something real. Something where I actually show up, actually pay attention, actually treat you like you matter more than any deal or inheritance or family obligation."

My breath caught in my throat, and I stared at him, searching his face for any sign that this was manipulation, that he was playing some angle I couldn't see. But all I saw was sincerity, raw and unguarded, and something that looked a lot like hope.

"I don't know if I can trust you," I whispered, and I saw him flinch, saw the words land like a blow. "You hurt me so badly, Edward. You made me feel like I was nothing. Like I didn't matter. Like our baby didn't matter. And I don't know if I can survive going through that again."

"I know," he said, and his thumbs were moving gently across my cheekbones, wiping away the tears that were still falling. "I know I don't deserve another chance. I know I fucked up in ways that should be unforgivable. But I'm asking anyway, because I can't—" His voice broke. "I can't imagine my life without you in it. And I know that's selfish, I know I have no right to ask you for anything, but I'm asking anyway. Please. Let me try to be better. Let me try to be the man you deserve."

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of the decision pressing down on me.