Alpha Aidan's Rejection Chapter 68

TARA

　　This had to be a nightmare. I needed someone to wake me up from this dream. It had to be one!

　　Why was Aidan looking like he was in more pain than I was? Both physically and otherwise?

　　His hunched over frame, downcast eyes, weak gestures, and low pitched voice told me that something was seriously misinterpreted between us.

　　Did Kayla lie?

　　Of course, she would lie about something. What was it?

　　"You really had no idea?" My voice was shaky, and I nearly lost my balance more than once.

　　Aidan closed the space between us and moved to take my hands in his, and in all honesty, I wanted him to.

　　Goddess, I didn't know how much I wanted to be wrong until now.

　　Why hadn't I thought of that all these while?

　　Aidan held himself from touching me, and he ran a hand through his messed up hair in frustration instead.

　　"You have every right to be scared of me, Tara, and even more so to hate me. Heck, I despise myself right now, but I swear it to you…I swear on my mother's grave, I had no hand in this, baby. I swear it."

　　I just stared at Aidan as his words settled over my mind. He truly meant what he was saying.

　　I shook my head once, even more confused than I was before.

　　"You wished me all the evil in the world, and you said I was dead to you."

　　Aidan inhaled a sharp but labored breath before he spoke.

　　"I was mad, hurt, heartbroken, and most of all, gullible. I would have said anything to make myself feel better, Tara. I didn't mean that I wanted you to die."

　　The way Aidan said the words made it feel like the idea of me dying repulsed him. Still, I objected. It was better to think that he hated me. That he was disgusted by my scars, just as Collin had been.

　　"You pushed me away. You slept with her, Aidan. I don't know if we can come back from that," I admitted.

　　"Then it's a good thing that I didn't."

　　I froze.

　　"What?"

　　"I never touched Kayla. Not once, ever."

　　No. That wasn't true. "She had…you were both…"

　　Aidan stopped me. "She came to the hotel telling me she heard about what happened, took off her clothes, and made a move on me. She took my shirt off, and I almost let her, but I told her off and went to shower. When I came back, she was wearing my shirt, and I didn't think anything of it. I couldn't fight her because I was numb. When you came, I took that as an opportunity to make you feel hurt, so that I could feel better. I'm sorry, Tara. I was a fool, but I never touched Kayla."

　　I took a step back till the back of my knees hit the bed, and I fell on it. Everything I thought I knew was wrong.

　　"And all this while when I said you betrayed me?" I looked up to Aidan.

　　"I did. By pushing you away, Tara. By not standing up for you when we made her together and you needed the both of us to go through it. I betrayed you by believing gossip over your words. My mate. I thought that was what you meant."

　　I shook my head, but a searing pain zapped across. My head was starting to ache from all this.

　　"I thought our bond was broken. I was in so much pain."

　　Aidan spoke softly. "I was too. It's what heartbreak does."

　　"This changes a lot of things, Aidan, but sadly, it can't change everything. You still rejected me and Nadia, knowing fully well that she might have been yours."

　　Aidan chuckled humorlessly, running a hand through his hair for the umpteenth time today.

　　"But that's it. It is… it was supposed to be impossible."

　　"Why? Because we were only intimate once? It only takes once, you know?"

　　Aidan didn't say anything back.

　　He was holding back something from me.

　　I searched his face for answers, but I got nothing.

　　"Aidan. We have no choice but to come clean to each other if we are going to move past this. You have to tell me everything before I can know for certain that this is worth fighting for. I have to know that you've got my back and won't try to deceive me if I'm going to burst the bubble around my daughter's world, and tell her that the man she's in love with is her father."

　　Aidan sighed. Long and hard. "I don't know how to say this, Tara." He spoke slowly, like the process hurt.

　　My heart pounded furiously in my chest, but I forced myself to speak.

　　"Whatever it is, you can tell me."

　　"And it won't change the way you see me?" Aidan chuckled, but the sound was strained. Almost painful.

　　"It won't," I whispered, hoping that I was right. "Talk to me."

　　After a moment of silence between us, Aidan came to sit beside me, and he spoke.

　　"When I was much younger, years before we met, this happened. This same thing. I knew this girl, and we had only been intimate once, but she said she was pregnant for me."

　　I listened closely as Aidan spoke, willing my heart to stop racing.

　　"I was scared. I told my father, and he told me to go home. He took her to the hospital and came back with results saying she wasn't pregnant, that she just tried to extort money from our family. The next day, the girl and her entire family went missing. Without a trace. He killed them. She was barely an adult, Tara."

　　Aidan looked disgusted at the memory, but I wasn't even judging him. His father was the monster here.

　　"How did you know that he did? They could have run away like I did."

　　Aidan laughed. "He told me. He said he'd do it again if I embarrassed him one more time."

　　Goddess.

　　"I understand Aidan, and I'm sorry that you had to grow up around such cruel memory."

　　I realized that there were so many layers to this, and one was that Aidan tried to protect me from his father by pushing me away.

　　Aidan's eyes met mine for the first time since he started speaking, and I saw that there was more. Truly, there was.

　　"He took me to the hospital that same day, and the doctors confirmed that…they confirmed that I was impotent, Tara. I was never supposed to be capable of fathering a child."

　　My mouth fell open in a gasp.