Free Reclaiming His Submissive by Eliza Gayle

words that tore at her heart. He stood quiet and
motionless in front of her with only the sound of his breathing
punctuating the silence stretched between them. She stared at his
feet and waited as the seconds turned to minutes and her knees began
to ache from the wooden deck digging into her flesh. She welcomed the
pain. It served as her reminder of how fucked up things had gotten.
The situation between them had spiraled out of control and she had no
idea what came next.
    “ Can you stand and talk to
me without running away?” His quiet question came out so
differently than she expected. It was as if the anger had disappeared
and all he had left was sadness. It shattered her heart to hear him
like that.
    Yet, she still had to suppress
the childish need to ignore him. Instead she nodded. “Yes,
Sir.”
    He gently grabbed her forearm and
helped her to a standing position. “Look at me.”
    Despite her trepidation to face
him, she obeyed only to discover the pain from his voice echoed
across his beautiful face.
    “ You’re pregnant and
didn’t tell me? What the hell, Harper? First a break-up and now
this? Fuck.”
    “ I thought you knew or
guessed. You went through my purse and I just assumed you’d
seen the test. And then I walk into this?” She gestured around
her. “I mean why else would you spring a wedding on me?” A wedding .
She was beginning to get her footing back and she didn’t like
these kinds of head games anymore than he did.
    “ Maybe because I love you
and want you in my life permanently? Does that not even enter your
mind a little?”
    She shook her head. No, it
couldn’t be that simple. She couldn’t be that wrong. Now
she had to tell him the truth. “It’s not true. It was all
a mistake.”
    “ You do not get to tell me
that what I feel is a mistake,” he started.
    “ No, that’s not what
I mean. The baby. The pregnancy. I was certain I was pregnant but I’m
not. The missed period, the weight gain, the lack of sleep, it meant
nothing. I made a mistake.” There she’d said it out loud.
All the pain and loss she’d felt the moment she’d looked
down at the negative test result came rushing out. “I’m
not pregnant.”
    She didn’t even realize
she’d started crying until Alex pulled her in his arms and
began wiping away the tears from her cheeks. She tried to contain the
torrent of emotions and failed as she deteriorated into
uncontrollable sobs. She hid her face in his shirt and lost it. The
shred of hope she’d clung to for the last several days had left
her and she didn’t know how to get it back. The idea of a child
had once been a blip on her radar and then one tiny mistake made it
feel like the loss of her entire world.
    Once the tears stopped, the ache
of loss intensified. For the first time in her life she couldn’t
run and hide from her problems. Alex had trapped her on a tiny island
with nowhere to run except to him.
    “ Dammit, Harper. Why didn’t
you let me in? I should have known the minute you suspected.”
    “ I was afraid to find out
for sure. After our last scene when you ignored my confession, I
thought that was it. Our time had come to an end and I couldn’t
hold a baby over your head. If you didn’t love me for me I had
to accept that.”
    He leaned back and gripped her
chin. “First of all, I will blister your ass for that later. I
hope you know that. Second, it was a setback and nothing more. You
know as well as I do how important communication is in a relationship
like ours. Although in this case I’m just as guilty as you in
not holding up my end of the conversation. My idea to fall back and
come up with the perfect strategy may serve me well in my business
but is apparently not the right approach with my woman.”
    “ You think?” She
couldn’t help it. After weeks of worrying it wasn’t easy
to shrug it all off as one big misunderstanding.
    “ Now you’re just
trying to get me hard again, you little minx.”
    He scooped her into his arms