Chapter Forty-Nine
“My Bella.”
Javi’s voice pulls me from my daydream, and I open my eyes. The sun is shining, but his body shields my face from the worst of it.
The hammock rocks in the breeze and I cradle my belly, resting the book I was reading atop the bump as I give him my full attention.
“What is it?”
“You have been out here too long,” he says. “Your skin will burn in this light.”
Concern mars his features, and I give him a gentle smile. He is unguarded. Still wild, as he always has been. But there is something so different about my Javi now.
He is no longer ashamed of his scars. He no longer hides from me. He is beautiful and primitive. He still struggles with control. With asking questions or making suggestions instead of demanding them.
Like right now when I can see he would prefer to simply pick me up and carry me back into the house. But he is trying to be patient.
He is trying to learn. We are trying to learn together. I teach Javi patience, and he teaches me strength, and together we make it from one day to the next.
“Bella,” he says again. “Come inside, yes?”
“Yes,” I answer him. “I will.”
“Now?”
He is anxious. The baby will be here any day.
“I need help.”
I hold out my hands, and Javi tugs me up from the hammock, cradling me in his arm as he walks me into the house. We sit down at the kitchen island, and he makes me a cup of tea while I watch.
Since his return home, Javi has been busy remodeling Moldavia. The first thing to go was the surgery room. The walls of the house have been re-papered and painted, and the floors polished and shined. The only thing that remains is the locks on the windows. I feel more secure knowing they are in place.
Javi no longer works for the agency. He tells me that they will not come for us, but I can never really feel one hundred percent comfortable when it comes to the agency.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel completely comfortable again. If I’ll ever stop looking over my shoulder or checking the house for devices.
I know Javi won’t either. I see him doing the same. And now that we are about to be parents, it weighs heavy on both of our minds.
That is not the only thing weighing heavy on Javi’s mind, and it is obvious in the way he carries himself today.
When he places my tea on the counter, I reach for his hand.
“Javi.”
“Hmm, my love?”
He seems scattered, his thoughts elsewhere.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“What is?” he asks.
“You’re going to do just fine.”
I tell him so every day, but he doesn’t believe me. I know he worries that he will not be a good father. He never had a father, he said. Or at least, he did not know him. And the closest he had to one was my father. The man who deceived him.
“You will be nothing like him,” I say. “You will be here. You will be present. And you will teach your son to be a man of honor.”