Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(88)
Author: Kristen Ashley

His hands at her wrists gave hers a gentle shake and he whispered, “Show me, baby.”

She closed her eyes and Fiona saw the tears drop silently down her cheeks.

Then she opened them and her fists and Fiona saw she held her breath.

Prentice stared at her hands.

Then his jaw got tight and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, he ran his thumbs gently along the white marks and muttered tenderly, “Baby.”

Bella’s head dropped forward in a sad expression of humiliation and defeat.

Prentice’s mouth went to her ear.

“You didn’t have these before,” he whispered but she didn’t reply. “Elle, answer me. You didn’t have these twenty years ago. Please, tell me I didn’t f**king miss this.”

“I didn’t have them,” she replied to the sink. “I started to…” she stopped. “Later. After you,” she drew in a breath and whispered, “it started when I lost you.”

Fiona didn’t know if that was what he wanted to hear or not and she couldn’t tell because he shoved his face in her neck and, taking her hands with his still at her wrists, he wrapped his arms tightly around her middle.

Bella’s head came up and Fiona could see she was still crying.

“They’re mine,” Prentice said to her neck.

Bella’s body twitched and her face went blank.

“What?” she breathed.

His mouth went back to her ear and his voice was tortured when he said, “They’re mine. My responsibility.”

Fiona felt a heavy weight hit her ghostly chest.

Bella felt the same. Fiona could see it with a look.

“What do you mean?” Bella whispered.

“You’d no’ have these marks, you’d no’ carry this pain if I’d no’ walked out of that f**king room.”

“Prentice, you can’t –”

She stopped speaking when he shook her with his hands at her wrists.

“You’d no’,” he growled fiercely.

“Pren,” she whispered softly.

“No.”

“I can’t have you thinking –”

“No.”

“Pren, please.”

“No. There would be no dreams, I’d have seen to that. Your father would no’ be in our lives. And you’d have had your f**king family, I would see to that too. I don’t give a f**k if we adopted or I had to buy you a family. I would have done it, whatever you wanted, to make you happy. Whatever you wanted, Elle. Anything. I’d have done whatever it took in order to give it to you. That’s how much I loved you.”

“Stop talking.”

“But I didn’t, I walked out of that room.”

“Prentice, stop talking.”

“I turned around and walked away. I didn’t even f**king call you.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, it wasn’t your fault.”

“No?”

“I’m weak,” she whispered.

Prentice was silent a moment before he laughed. It was an ugly noise and it hurt Fiona’s ghostly ears.

Bella felt the same.

Her pale face went ashen and, with a visible effort, she pulled free of his hands, turned off the tap, twisted in his arms and put her hands on his chest.

“It’s true, Prentice, I’m weak. I always have been,” she admitted this like it was a dirty little secret.

“He beat you to keep you from me,” Prentice countered. “What’s my excuse?”

Her head jerked and she asked, “Pardon?”

“You’re father hit you to control you. Your behavior wasn’t weak, it was survival. I had a good life, I’d never experienced that, no one ever treated me that way. What excuse do I have that I didn’t go after you? Wounded ego?”

Bella lifted her hands to either side of his neck and held on tight.

“Stop doing this. There’s no purpose.”

“No purpose?” he clipped. “If you stay, in a week, a month, ten years, it will eventually sink in that I left you to that. I didn’t protect you. I didn’t believe in you. What do I do when the bitterness creeps in, Elle, and you can’t bear to be with me anymore? What do I do?”

Her fingers curled into his neck but he didn’t give her the opportunity to reply.

“You needed me to protect you and I didn’t. I left you to that,” he continued, his hands came to hers at his neck and he pulled them away, his thumbs sliding along her palms, he went on, “And it was so bad, you harmed yourself because of it.”

She winced but recovered quickly and assured him, “I survived.”

He gave a short, unamused laugh. “Aye. You survived. But life isn’t survival, Elle, life is beautiful.”

She shook her head and said softly, “Not for everyone. Not for a lot of people, Pren, just for those fortunate few.”

Fiona watched as Prentice’s mouth got tight at her words but he replied, “True enough. But you deserve a beautiful life and I would have given it to you if I hadn’t given up, believed you’d played me, stopped believing in you, stopped believing in us.”

Fiona saw Bella was no longer listening.

Her eyes had grown unfocused.

Prentice saw it too.

He was losing her.

Do something! Fiona shouted.

“Elle,” he called but she didn’t reply. His hands curled into hers and gave them a gentle jerk as he repeated, “Elle.”

She shook her head as if clearing it and her eyes refocused.

“You said in ten years –” Bella whispered.

“Aye,” Prentice interrupted, his tone harsh. “Ten years, twenty years, fifty years. Who gives a f**k if, in the end, it might mean I lose you again.”

“Fifty years?” she breathed.

Fiona knew with a look that Prentice wanted to stick with the matter at hand and was losing patience at her shift. “Elle, we –”

Bella interrupted him, asking incredulously, “You want me here for fifty years?”

Now Fiona knew that Prentice was getting annoyed. “Aye, we established that last night.”

“Why?” Bella asked suddenly, her voice somehow both breathy and sharp.

Prentice’s brows drew together. “Why what?”

“Why do you want me here?”

“Elle…” Yes, definitely impatient, Fiona knew this because he released her but leaned into her, resting a hand on the edge of the sink, he tore the other through his hair.

“Tell me.” Her voice was getting sharper, colder. “Tell me why you want me here. I want to know.”