Chapter 15 Chapter 15: Tell Me Everything
Catherine’s P.O.V
“Xavier,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, “I need you to tell me… everything. I need to know exactly what happened.”
He exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair, and looked at me with a mix of weariness and something I couldn’t quite place.
“Cathy… it’s not easy to say.”
I felt my chest tighten, the weight of his words settling in. “Xavier…” I said, my voice small. “That child… it will be yours alone… not mine. You understand how that makes me feel, right?”
“No,” he said quickly, reaching for my hand. “It will only be biologically mine, Cathy. Which… which means it will be yours too. In every other way that matters, it’s ours. I promise.”
I stayed quiet, staring at him, trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the secret he had carried for months. “You should have told me,” I murmured finally. “You should’ve told me when this began.”
“I know,” he said, his voice almost breaking. “I thought I was protecting you. I thought I was protecting us.”
I shook my head, tears threatening to spill. “Protecting me… by hiding something so huge? Do you know how that feels?”
“I do,” he said softly, his thumb brushing my hand. “And I regret it every single day. But I never stopped loving you, Cathy. Not for a second.”
I looked down at our joined hands, my mind racing with questions, hurt, and… something else. Something that told me, despite everything, he was still the man I had loved.
“Xavier,” I whispered again, “I need… I need to know we’re in this together. That this isn’t just about your family, or their expectations. That it’s about us.”
He nodded, eyes glistening. “It’s always been about us, Cathy. Always.”
“Then I need to hear it. Please,” I urged, leaning forward. “Tell me what happened. Tell me about the day you agreed to this.”
He nodded, eyes dropping for a moment before meeting mine again. “Eight months ago… I got a call from the house. My mom… she had fainted. I rushed straight to the hospital.” He paused, swallowing hard.
“When I got there, the doctors told me she was stressed. That she needed to keep her mind calm. That’s when… that’s when she told me why she was stressed.”
“What did she say?” I asked, my heart pounding. Because I already knew the answer.
“She told me…” His voice caught, and he looked away for a second. “She said all her stress… it’s because the Dalton family has no heir yet.”
I blinked, trying to process his words. “No heir? But… your sister has children. Aren’t they…?”
“They’re not considered Daltons,” he interrupted softly. “Not in her eyes. She said it herself. My father… he’s getting old, tired. She told me he needed someone to step up. Someone to make sure the Dalton name continues properly. And she… she told me it was up to me.”
“So that’s when this… all this started?” I whispered, the pieces slowly clicking together. “That’s why you made the decision?”
He looked down at his hands, clenched together. “Yes. She… she made it very clear. It wasn’t just a suggestion, Cathy. She needed me to do something. To… ensure the future of the family. I thought… I genuinely thought… that my mother wouldn’t need to force us into anything, that…we might get pregnant before all this. But…”
But…I wasn’t. I couldn’t get pregnant.
I watched Xavier shift uncomfortably across from me. His eyes kept darting away, and I felt my stomach knotting with a mix of dread and curiosity. Finally, he exhaled, like he’d been holding his breath for years, and looked straight at me.
I frowned, leaning forward slightly. “Okay… tell me what happened next?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady, but I could feel the tremor in it.
He swallowed, then began, almost in a rush, as if getting it all out at once would ease some pressure.
“After… after all these years of her nagging me…constantly, I finally told my mother that I was willing to donate my sperm if it would give her some peace of mind. So that she would stop nagging us about it, every time we visit.”
I blinked, not sure I’d heard him right the first time. “Wait… what? You told your mother… that you’d… donate your sperm…so she stops nagging?”
Xavier nodded, and there was a flicker of guilt in his eyes. “Yeah… I know, I know. It sounds sudden, but… she agreed. And… and that’s how, about four months later, I found out… not only had my mother found a surrogate, but… there was now a healthy embryo.”
I froze, my heart skipping a beat. “You… you knew for four months?” I whispered, my voice tight. “And you didn’t tell me?”
He looked like he’d been punched. “I wanted to tell you immediately, Cathy, I really did. But… my mother… she told me not to. She said we had to wait for three months at least, for the fetus to be stable. She… she said not to disappoint you unless everything was going smoothly.”
I felt my chest tighten, my throat dry. “So… you just… left me… in the dark?” I asked, my voice small.
Xavier reached forward, taking my hands in his. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I was scared. I wanted to tell you the moment I could, but… I had to follow her advice. I didn’t want to give you hope if something went wrong, Cathy. I thought… I thought it would be better this way.”
I pulled my hands back slightly, trying to make sense of it all. “Better? Xavier… better for who? For me? Or… for your mother? Because from where I’m sitting, it feels like you kept me out of one of the biggest things that’s ever happened between us.”
He flinched, and I saw the shame in his eyes. “I know… I know it looks that way, but I didn’t. I never wanted to keep you from this. I just… I didn’t know how to handle it. I thought… maybe… if I waited until it was safe, until I knew for sure, I could tell you and it would be… perfect.”
“Perfect?” I echoed bitterly, shaking my head. “Xavier, perfect would’ve been telling me the truth from the start! Perfect would’ve been letting me be part of this journey with you, not finding out like this.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them, looking at me with a mix of pleading and regret.
“Cathy… I get it. I screwed up. I should’ve told you. I wanted to. I tried to… but I didn’t know how. I thought I was protecting you, but I see now… I was only protecting myself from the fallout. I’m sorry. I really am.”
I stayed silent for a long moment, my mind racing. Part of me wanted to scream, the other part wanted to cry, and yet… somewhere deep down, I knew he had tried, in his own clumsy way, to do the right thing.
“So… what happens now?” I finally asked, my voice softer, though still hurt.
Xavier reached for my hand again, this time holding it gently, as if he was grounding himself in the connection between us.
“Now… we move forward together. I want you with me, Cathy. I want you to be part of this… everything. The surrogate, the baby… I don’t want to do this without you. I was wrong to wait. I see that. But I’m here now. And I think…looking back at how sudden all of this happened, I think that my mother might have lied to me from the beginning.”
“Lied?” I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I think…my mother had faked her illness so I would donate my sperm.”
I looked at him, searching his eyes for any trace of dishonesty, any hidden agenda. But all I saw was raw, unguarded truth. And despite the whirlwind of emotions inside me, a tiny spark of hope flickered. Maybe…there was still hope.