Tried for Love (TSATD)

Chapter 53

Gabriel

  I rattled the handle to the door that had just been shut in my face for the third time, hoping it would give. Surely, Leah hadn't just locked herself away from me. I leaned my forehead against the cold wood of the door, listening. Yes. Yes, she had.

  One side of my face still faintly stung from her fierce little slap that surely should've knocked some sense into me. Unfortunately, my heart still pulsed rapidly right there at the side of my neck; her voice still echoing gently in my head.. The words clear.

  She was pregnant. With my child. 

  And moments after announcing something that should've bound us for the rest of our lives, she had declared she couldn't even wait out the next month to leave. Damn it. Damn it all all to hell. Where had it all gone wrong?

  "Leah?" I bumped my fist one more time, a bit weaker now that I could recall the words I'd shouted in her face.

  It was only then my legs gave out on me. Absurd really. Most vicious of enemies, bloodbath raids hadn't once brought me to my knees. And this woman effortlessly did.

  I turned my back to the door and slid down the wood to the tiled floor, leaning back against it so I could still listen. Or that she could, more likely. I bumped my head back against the door, closing my eyes.

  "Leah, open." Silence responded to me. Anger no longer ruled me for I knew that despite her words, despite what she told herself she had to do, she couldn't. I wouldn't allow it. She could not leave me. Not now. Not when we were to have a child together.

  I sighed. "Don't make me break the door down." I said more calmly, listening again. And when she didn't respond again, I added. "Please."

  "I want to be alone, Valentine." My stomach turned at her faint words. I frowned at the growl in my throat. No, I was wrong. I still was angry. I was angry at myself.. For allowing this to go this far. 

  Perhaps I was a selfish bastard. Obsessive or whatever Leah chose to call me. But something primal moved me when near her. I had made her mine. Before law and before God. I had come together with her more than once. And she was pregnant with my child. She had no choice now. She was mine.

  Determination gave me some strength again. I rose to my feet and immediately rattled the door knob. "Well, you can't be alone. I'm sorry, but not after all that just happened. Now open this damned door."

  "No! Leave me alone!" She called from the other side. Damn it, she was stubborn. But at least she was annoyed with me now. That was better than silence.

  I inhaled through my nostrils, holding onto the last shred of patience. "Leah. We must talk this through."

  "We did."

  I banged the door with my fist one more time. "I want to—" But my words cut off for I wanted so fucking much in that moment. That damnable contract we had made.. That I had made— I closed my eyes. Christ, it was ruining everything. "Damn it, Leah! Open!"

  When I rattled the knob with a little more force than previously, it almost gave and once it did, I knew I could easily break the lock. So when I heard her voice this time, as muted from the other side of the door as it was, it sounded a bit panicked this time.

  "Stop that!" And before the knob broke in my fist, the lock turned and the door swung opened. She stood there before me, the top of her head reaching my chin but, damn, so proudly that she seemed to hold my gaze effortlessly. "Go away."

  Her eyes were rimmed with pink.. A small trace of tears just on her lashes. And those full lips were a dark red against her skin. I scanned the high blush on her cheeks. So passionate, so damnably determined that something in my chest squeezed at the sight of her there before me.