Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 124

Chapter 124

Jaxon

“I still love you.” I blurt out of nowhere.

It comes out without strategy. Without the careful construction I usually apply to things I say to her. Just the truth, with nowhere to put it. What the fuck was I thinking? But it’s too late to take it back.

“I know I don’t deserve another chance. I know exactly what I’ve done and what it cost and I’m not asking you to forget any of it.” I look at her. “But even after everything-I want one.”

Skye is quiet. Surprisingly not the quiet of someone gathering a refusal. Something more complicated than tha

“I feel it too,” she says finally.

I go completely still, afraid to move, afraid to breathe for fear of losing the sound of those words. So I just hold my breath and wait for her to continue.

“The bond. I still feel the pull toward you.” She looks at her hands on her belly. “I don’t know what to do with that I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with it for months.”

“Skye-“My voice cracks on her name but I don’t care.

“Let me finish.” Her voice is steady. “The bond was never enough. I spent three years believing you’d eventually love me back because the bond told me to, and you spent three years resenting me for it. The pull doesn’t mean anything if nothing else is there to hold it up.” She sucks in a breath, the words costing her too. “And maybe there could have been something else. Maybe if things had been different from the beginning, if you’d been different, we could have built it. I don’t know.”

“We could still-“I start to implore her but she cuts me off.

“Jaxon.” She says my name quietly, gently. Not unkindly. “I’m still hurt. I’m still angry with you. Admitting I still feel the pull of our bond doesn’t change any of that. It doesn’t magically erase all the reasons I left in the first place.

“I have a baby coming. That’s what I can hold right now. That’s all I can hold.” She takes a breath. “I can’t even fully deal with the divorce, let alone examine what might or might not exist between us while I’m eight months pregnant and still trying to figure out what my life looks like. It’s not fair to you, it’s not fair to me, and it’s not fair to Benji.”

I want to argue. The old version of me would argue. Would push. Would find the thread she’s left and pull at it because she said I feel it too and that’s enough, that’s something to work with.

I sit with her answer instead, let it be what it is. “Okay,” I say.

She looks at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“I hear you.” I mean it. “Take care of you and Benji. That’s what matters right now.”

Something in her expression shifts. Just a fraction. Like she was braced for a different response.

“I want to be in the room,” I say, changing the topic again. “When he’s born I’d really like to be there. If you’ll allow it.”

Skye looks at me for a long moment. Studying, the way she’s been studying me for months. Looking for the manipulation she’s learned to expect. The angle. The ask underneath the ask.

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“I’ll think about it,” she says finally.

not a no. I think it might be the most honest yes she can give me right now. I’ll take it.

I’m heading to my car when I find Nicolai on the front steps. He’s not waiting, exactly. But he’s not not waiting either. He doesn’t move to let me pass. But he doesn’t exactly block me. Just stands there in a way that means: your move.

I stop. We haven’t spoken directly since the inquiry. Since I stood in his house and watched my accusations collapse and Skye walk away from me with that look on her face.

“I got your message,” Nicolai says in that deep rumble that I should probably find more intimidating if I knew what was good for me. “About the inquiry.”

“I meant it.” I’d apologize a hundred times over if I thought it would help her to hear it.

Chapter 24

Then I start the engine and drive home. Because what Skye needs most from me is space.

Man give her that.

For now.

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Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

D

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