“I love you,” I whisper to him and before he can say another word, I Astral out of there and back home to England. I want my clearing in the woods.
I get halfway there and remember that Lincoln and I discovered it. We have made love there and talked and just been with each other. And then I remember seeing Devon with that whore there. I can’t go there. Not now. I turn and head back to the Underworld. I walk the unfamiliar garden, my sorrow weighing heavily on my shoulders. I find a secluded bench in a topiary garden and I sit down and let my tears flow. I pull my knees up to my chin and rest my head, my sobs wracking my body in my grief. It’s for the best. If being with me makes him less than his best, then that can only be wrong. I don’t want to harm him in any way. He has already mourned for me. It’s up to Chrissy now to get him to forget me.
“Hey,” Cole says softly and sits next to me. He takes my hand as I turn away from him. I don’t want to see him, or anyone, right now. “Liv, it’s okay. You don’t have to pretend it’s not. You lost a baby. That’s huge. You have every right to feel sad. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
He has his soothing counselor voice on him, and it makes me cry harder. In between sobs, I manage to say, “It’s not that. Lincoln and I broke up.”
He stays silent as I knew he would. What can he say? Yay? Boo? The former will hurt me, and the latter will be a lie, so he’s better off staying quiet.
“I’m sorry,” he says eventually, once my tears have stopped. I am all cried out now. Just as with the baby, I won’t cry over this again. “Do you want to talk about it?” he ventures after another moment.
I glare at him. Do I fucking look like I want to talk about it? “No,” I say defiantly, and he bobs his head and looks away. We sit in an awkward silence and I can’t bear it. I sigh and he pulls me onto his lap. I cuddle him and just having his arms around me makes me feel better.
“I know this is epically bad timing,” he starts as he feels me relax, “but there will be no right time. I have to tell you something.”
My ears perk up. Is this about the conversation I eavesdropped on? He’s ahead of schedule. He asked CK to give him two days and that was only yesterday. “Okay,” I say.
“Erm.” There is a long pause and I wait, giving him time. I know it’s bad when he looks away from me and pushes me off his lap. I stand up and glare down at him.
“Liv,” he says. “I have a child. A human child. A son.”
I wait for the punch line. This has to be a joke, right?
When I don’t say anything, he clears his throat and continues. “Before you turned me, I was with a woman. For a long time. We were in a pretty serious relationship, but then I started dreaming about you and then I met you on that red carpet and I knew you. I knew I had to be with you. After our first real date, when you said you felt the same, I broke it off with her as soon as I could. But, as it turns out, she was pregnant.” He stops speaking and I am listening to him. I hear words, formed into concise sentences, but in my heart, I don’t believe it. My ears have to be deceiving me. I shake my head, waiting for him to tell me he’s kidding, that this is a bad joke. He wouldn’t be so cruel as to kick me when I am down with something like this. He just wouldn’t.
“I didn’t find out until right before you were abducted. She had been trying to get hold of me, but I was ignoring her. Constantine asked Nico to arrange a DNA test and it proved that I am the father,” he says quietly.
Now I know he is lying. You can’t test Vampires’ DNA. “Liar,” I hiss at him. “Why are you doing this?”
I turn to leave, I need to get away from him and his lies, but he takes my hand to stop me.
“I am not lying, Liv. I wish I was. I wish that this wasn’t happening, but it is, and you have to know. You have to know that I love you, that I never meant for this to happen.” He looks so desperate that I know now he is telling the truth. My already broken heart shatters into another million pieces. Now I know why he was on Tiamat’s side over the baby thing when we thought he was the Chosen One. He thought having a baby with me would make it all better.
I pull my hand roughly away from him. “Don’t touch me,” I say to him as he reaches for me again. I remember after our first date, he took me to lunch. He got up to make a phone call and I feel sick when it occurs to me, he was probably dumping his girlfriend to be with me.
“Liv, please,” he whispers in fear as he drops to his knees. “Please just tell me you believe that I didn’t know. That I didn’t want this.”
“Didn’t want this,” I repeat flatly. “Didn’t. Didn’t. Didn’t.”
“Don’t!” he exclaims quickly. “I don’t want this.”
“Have you claimed the child?” I ask. I can’t say the word “son.”
“No,” he says and shakes his head. “I haven’t even spoken to Carolyn. I wanted to talk to you about it first.”
Carolyn. I wish he hadn’t said her name. It makes it all too real. “Why? What is it to do with me?” I ask harshly.
He looks so sad I want to hold him, but I can’t. “Everything,” he whispers. “You are my everything, I…”
“You want my blessing, is that it? You want me to smile and say, ‘Yes, Cole. This is just dandy. Go and be a father.’ Is that what you were expecting? How do even plan on doing that? You are a Vampire; in case you had forgotten.” My nasty tone makes him flinch, but I don’t feel bad. Not right now.
“No, I don’t, I don’t want that. It’s complicated and impossible and if you don’t want this then it’s over. Done,” he says, standing up again.
How can he put this on me and make it my decision, so he ends up resenting me in a hundred years when his child is dead of old age and he never knew the kid? I don’t fucking think so.
“Do what you want,” I say and Astral away from him. If I thought last week was bad, this one day alone is the worst one I have experienced in a really, really long time. I go to the only place I can think of that will make me feel better. I land in the Entrance Hall to Ponte and slowly make my way upstairs to my old room. I stop outside the door and the flood of bad memories comes back to me. The memory of me waiting in this room for hours upon hours for Constantine to come to me, only to have him turn up and leave after we’d had sex because he couldn’t bear to sleep with me. The bad memories of coming back here and suffering after he rescued me from Lance, of sitting in this room writing him tear-stained letters after he left me over the whole stupid Michelangelo thing. Memories of him bringing me back here after Fraser died and I couldn’t breathe without it hurting. I turn and walk to Constantine’s room, our room, and push the door open. Mostly good things happened in here. I shut the door and jump a mile. CK is sitting on the bed as if he has been expecting me. Maybe he was. Maybe he knew I would come here seeking comfort.