Chapter 9

Ava

My robe left hanging about my chest as it was that two chapters before when Killian had wrung a moan out of me. My lips were still swollen even though it was not because of lipstick-it was him. But my heart? That was something else now, Something stiff. Then something was becoming glass inside me.... it was a video, what I was watching on my phone. One which should be kept a secret, by nobody, under no name, no warning. I clicked it and I was frozen like a corpse.. It was Killian, shirtless and smilling in a bedroom having the same gold trim curtains I had chosen out of a catalog one Tuesday night when he said he liked soft things. He was smiling but it was not at me but at her.

I used to believe that the same woman was no more than a mistake. A one time deal, a possibility, or nothing.. But she was not a rumor any more, she was real and she was pregnant on the video, big belly, big grin. Fat belly with the explanation why I has made my mark on the divorce papers.

and the tone of voice in which she said "I will keep it. And he does not want to know that yet." it was cool, wicked, and cold. I stood up and every bit of my body was in support. I walked down the hall, and past the wine glass and past the mirror and past the bed I just barely did not allow him to go into again.

I did not knock at the door of the guest room, i opened it. Killian looked up, his shirt was still off like nothing ever happened. Such as it was not the truth that had come straight out of my screen like a bullet.

"You slept with her," I said. I did not break my voice, I broke my leg. I would not allow them to express it.

He stood up. "Ava-

"She was pregnant, Killian." He blinked and

Swallowed.

"You knew."

"No," he said quickly. "Ava- I didn't know. I didn't know." But he was stuttering, it was the first time in my life that I ever saw him stutter.

“And so you slept with her, and did not even bother to ask her whether she was pregnant with your child?” I laughed. I was hardly trying to sound cruel, but it sounded so.

"Ava. That was during the break. You said we were over. You walked out—

“I vented out because you ceased to struggle on my behalf.” He didn't speak and I did not give him an opportunity. I held the phone out, refreshed the clip. Her face,

her voice, her laugh, her belly, his silence, the video was over the room remained dark.

I mumbled, as though a ghost, "you broke me, and now you want to lie to me also?" He got nearer but I went out.

And I did not bang the door to this time. I left in open, so he could follow, that he might see how the ruins appeared.

that he might fume the smoke of that he burnt.

***

Killian

I was sitting with the phone buzzing in my hands. It was on the lawyer, not her lawyer but mine. the one which I was to trust and a message came that set my jaw clicking.

"She knows." I did not ask how, i already knew, i had

peeped at her face. She walked out and left the air cold behind her the way she did. and I dug in my pockets, and pulled my keys, my shirt. I was unable to keep sitting.I never got so far as the door, because it opened first and standing there tall and radiant with the guilt like perfume--She was there. My bad, the female featured in the video.

"Killian," she said, soft.

“What are you doing, snooping around here?” I asked. She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and in her arms a baby.

“You brought a child in to her house?“ my voice was too loud. I could not take a step back as it feels like the baby is on fire.

And she had said, speaking very deliberately, as though she could read my thoughts: "I told you he was yours," she said, my dear, you just don't want to hear it."

"Now's not the time. You need to go-"

"No. This is the time now", she flared out.

“That is because Ava knows and you bet what that means, Killian?". I said nothing, with burning eyes she advanced.

"It means I have no longer time to wait. you shall see it now, her, me, the baby and the truth." My knees felt like air. I could already hear the footsteps of Ava through the hall. I was tangible with her hurt coming back again like another storm. And at that moment I felt the truth was going to kill somebody, maybe her, maybe me or the both of us.

***

Ava

I stepped out of the bedroom since I had forgotten my phone charger but what I saw? That caught my breath away. She was here, the woman and she was holding a baby.

A baby with his eyes. I didn't scream or cry.

I simply came out and asked. “You let her into my house?" Killian swung around, as a lad who has been cheating at a game.

“I did n't know she would come--"

“But then you did not even force her to have to leave.” The woman smilled, the sick sort of grin women have got on when they think they get the better of it.

“All that I intended doing was introducing him,” she said.

"To me?" | asked. "Or to his father?"

“Both.” She put the baby facing Killian and i swear by God I could not breathe, the reason was that the child resembled him. The storm inside me? It exploded. I did not pitch across a glass and smack anyone. I simply stared him in the face and I told him....

“You even do not deserve to be in this house.” and then the baby started crying.

Someone knocked at the door, not even once or twice, then i heard a voice from behind the door.

"Ms. Ava. You might want to see this." It was my assistant.

"It's about your company."