It ends here

Eleanor was watching Kan as his brows furrowed in deep thoughts, wondering who had sent his wife the video that she was overjoyed the woman had at last seen.

“That solves it then,” she said,

“What?”

“Since we are no longer a secret to her, I don’t see why we should go on hiding,” she said, and his eyes flamed so much that Eleanor flinched from the memory of what he had done in the past.

He must have seen this because his eyes became soft again, and he reached out and caressed her face lightly, “Stop saying nonsense, sexy.”

She stared at him and the harrowing hell she had been through in the last few hours came back to her. 

She gently lifted his hand away from her face.

“Nonsense?” 

“Ariel matters to me. I love that woman, what don’t you understand about that?” Kan asked with sad eyes. "I wish she never found out. Now that she has found out, it still does not make any difference. I am not going to let her go, but if I am going to convince her, I cannot have her thinking I would not stop cheating.”

As he spoke, Eleanor just stared as tears began to stream down her face afresh. 

She felt so alone, so unimportant. 

She really did not matter to this man. At least, not where his wife stood. 

It did not matter that she had known him almost all their lives, hugged him through the darkest days, waited in hope of a relationship even if she could have moved on. 

None of these things mattered to him, because of Ariel.

“Do you realize what you are even doing?” She said, her eyes red and raw from crying. “Do you realize what you are telling mere hours after having our baby?” She was staring at him, and how he looked like someone who was hypnotized.

These days, his eyes were glassy and steadily sad, and you could see how much he was pinning. 

He wanted Ariel and could not see past her. 

He did not care about anything else, even the fact that she had just given him his first child.

“You asked.” His back stiffened as he looked down at her.

“You care more about her feelings than our son, who is in that incubator?” Her shoulders shook now as she continued speaking through tears that racked her whole body. “Don’t you even feel sorry for him, Kan. He is fighting for his life, probably in pain and struggling to breathe.”

“What the hell are you on about?” He finally lost it and stood up. “What have I done so far to give you the impression that I don’t care?”

She shook her head at him, as she brought her palm up to her lips to stifle her tears. 

“He is my son. Mine. I always care for my own.”

“But you would never acknowledge him in public. He would not bear your name or be listed in your family registry.” 

She wanted to add that Ariel’s son would always be his real heir, but it would seem like she cared about his wealth, which she actually did not.

She simply wanted her son to be recognized and live with the full privileges of having someone like Kan Sullivan as his father. 

She did not want her child to go through life like she had, treated like a dirty secret.

“All that may happen in time, Eleanor,” Kan said, running his hand through his hair in distress. “I am no monster, don’t make me out to be one when I am simply trying to protect my marriage, which you have been aware of the whole time.”

“When.” She said, ignoring the clear jab he had thrown.

“What?”

“When is the time you'll publicly acknowledge my son as yours, next months, next year, ten years, twenty?”

“Why is this even important right now? Why ask these questions now?”

“Because I will not make the same mistake I made with my son. I did not plan for his birth but best believe I will protect him.” She sat up on the bed now, her voice firm and her eyes burning. “I will stand up for him the way I was unable to stand up for myself.”

He was staring at her in surprise now. “When did you become feisty and disagreeable?”

“Fuck you Kan. Fuck you to hell,” She yelled now. “This thing we have, this nameless relationship limbo you put me in, has been sustained by my spineless agreeableness, never asking questions, only taking what you gave. I will not do that with my son, who did not ask to be born.”

“Did I ask him to be born?” He yelled angrily now, beating his hand on his chest. “The last I heard you were on a birth control plan.”

“Fuck you to hell!” She shrieked even though her mind warned her that she might start bleeding badly since she just had a baby, and she had to be here to take care of her child, since his father was way too obsessed with an early twenties woman to care for him. 

“You can say that now when you were shoving up in me as far as you could go the whole time.”

He gasped, stepping back at her vulgarity.

“I never lied to you. Do you think I wanted to bring a child into this mess? With a man who is too cowardly to choose me, but too Goddamn selfish to let me go at the same time?”

“Is this what you have thought about me the whole time? I thought you cared about me?”

“I did, stupidly, so much that I forgot about myself. What would Kan feel? It’s not really his fault, he is hurting from all his traumas while ignoring what you were doing to me.” She yelled. “You have scared me, Kan. And you have wasted the best years of my life.”

She shifted towards the edge of the bed, wincing even though she was feeling dizzy now. 

She wished she could stand up.

“Look at me, Kan.” She said, and the man did, not because he was one to listen to a command, but he was probably shocked to see her speak up for the first time. 

“It ends here. You will not play this card with my son. You are either here or not.”

“What?”

“I can give my son a good life. Maybe not the life of a trillionaire, but he will live in a big home and attend any private school he fancies in the world, prepaid. She said, “If you do not want him, leave and forget today happened. You never had a son today.”

He stood, staring at her eyes.