Chapter 197: Chapter 197

MICA

Morning came through the hotel curtains slowly and Mica lay still and listened to Adonis breathe beside her, she stared at the ceiling and thought about everything she had said last night and everything she had not said yet and knew the not said part was coming because it always came.

She wondered what will become of them after this.

Adonis stirred and she knew immediately that he was awake because of the specific change in his breathing and the slight shift of his body, she lay still and waited, contemplating if she should pretend to be asleep, but then he turned his head and looked at her and their gazed met and held and the room went even quieter and warm, what had taken place between the both of them the night before was sitting between them real.

"Good morning," he said, his voice husky from sleep.

"Good morning," she replied, not knowing exactly how to act in the aftermath of their love making, she quickly sat up, ready to bolt but his hand shot out and dragged her back to bed, wrapping his heavy arm around her.

He looked at her face for a moment and then asked, "your husband. What happened to him."

Mica looked at the ceiling, remembering that ugly moment of her after marriage.

She had known this question was coming and she had been preparing for it in a way, in the way she had been preparing for everything difficult in her life, by pressing it down until it was unavoidable.

"He died," she replied very quickly before she changed her mind.

Adonis went still beside her and just stared at her.

"The morning after the wedding," she said and her voice came out steady at first and then less steady. "I woke up and he was not in the room and I went outside and he was sitting in a chair on the patio and I called his name and he did not answer and I went to him and... he was...." She stopped. "He was gone. He had been sitting there all night in the cold and he was just gone."

"That's awful," Adonis said quietly, stroking her hair, his calm demeanor encouraged her to say more.

"I panicked," she said and the tears arrived without warning and she pressed her lips together and kept going because stopping now was not an option. "I was nineteen and alone in a resort that nobody knew I was in and my husband was dead on the patio and all I could think was that nobody would believe me, that they would say I had something to do with it, that they would take me to prison and." She stopped again and pressed her hand over her mouth for a moment. "I covered him with a blanket. I took some money and I ran. I cut my hair and changed my name and I ran and I have been running since then."

She turned her head and looked at Adonis, unsure of what his reaction would be but her breath caught at the look on his face.

His face was doing something she had never seen it do before, and he was looking at her with eyes that were bright and his jaw was working and he said nothing for a long moment.

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that alone." He finally managed to say.

"I think about it all the time," she said quietly, getting comfortable. "Every single day. I wake up and I think about it and I wonder if they are looking for me and I wonder what would happen if they found me and I am so scared Adonis, I have been so scared for four years and I have had nobody to tell and nowhere to put it."

He sat up, pulled her into him and held her and she just let him hold her as the tears come properly this time, not the managed kind, the kind that had been waiting all four years of carrying everything alone and he held her through all of it.

When it was over she pulled back and wiped her face and looked at him and he looked back and his eyes were wet and he did not try to hide it.

"This is my fault," he said. "All of it. If I had been there, if my father had not sent me away, you would never have been in that situation and you would never have had to run and you would never have had to carry any of this alone." His voice broke on the last word. "I am so sorry Mica. I am so sorry."

"You did not know," she said murmured.

"It does not matter," he said. "You went through all of it alone and I should have been there." He took her hands in both of his and held them and looked at her directly. "Henceforth. Whatever happens. Whatever comes from any of this, I am by your side. Every single day. I am not going anywhere and you are never carrying anything alone again. Do you hear me?"

She looked at his face and nodded slowly, she said nothing because words were not available right now.

He looked at her hands in his.

"Mica," he said carefully. "If you were pregnant before the wedding and your husband never." He stopped and looked at her face and the question was already in his eyes before he finished saying it. "Does that mean."

"Yes," she said and her voice came out barely anything.

He looked at her.

"Leo is your son Adonis," she said.

The room went completely silent.

Adonis sat on the edge of the hotel bed and looked at her face and she watched the words land in him one by one, watched his face do something she had never seen it do before, completely and totally emotional, the composed hockey captain and the angry boy from last night and every other version of him she had ever known all falling away at once and leaving just a man sitting in a hotel room finding out he had a four year old son he had accidentally bumped into once.

His eyes filled, "I have a son," he said and his voice came out broken on every word.

"Yes," she said.

He looked at her, the tears running down his face and he did not wipe them and she had never seen Adonis cry, not once in all the years she had known him, and she felt her own tears arrive again and let them.

"Four years," he said.

"Yes," she said.

"I have missed four years of his life," he said and the grief in his voice was complete and total and she had no answer for it because it was true and no answer made it less true.

He looked at her and wiped his face with the back of his hand and breathed.

Nothing else mattered right now except this room and this moment.

"I want to see him," Adonis said. "I want to see my son."

Mica looked at his face and felt the love and the grief and the four years all sitting in her chest at once and nodded.

"After the finals," she said. "I will bring him to you after the finals. He will watch his father play and promise me you're gonna score a goal for him."

Adonis looked at her and nodded and took her face in both hands and pressed his forehead against hers, "I'll score for the both of you, you just have to tell me how many goals that you want."

"As many as possible." Mica replied and they both laughed softly.

They sat like that in the quiet of the hotel room and said nothing , filled with contentment.

AUTHOR'S NOTE..Sorry my dear readers, I wasn't able to update these past few days because I've been on sickbed.

I'll try to update more to cover

for those days... thank you all for your understanding....I love and appreciate you all😘😘😘