Page 32 of Serpent & Saviors

He suddenly grew tense. His cheek twitched, and he took a deep breath. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like what he was going to say next, but nothing could have prepared me. Not really.

“This is probably as good a time as any. I need to apologize for last night. My behavior from the moment I touched your leg was wrong.”

“Please, Andrew, don’t,” I stammered, trying to pull my hands from his.

“No, let me finish, please.”

A lump lodged itself in my throat, thick and unmovable. Our eyes locked.

“The reason it was wrong was that I didn’t ask your permission. I treated you like an object, and one for my pleasure. You’re in a fragile place. I don’t care what words you say,” he said, putting his fingers to my lips as I went to speak. “I know better, and in the end, I took it out on you with my outburst.”

“It’s okay, really,” I breathed.

“No, Tori, it’s not.”

The nickname slipped from his lips, warm and soft. It lingered in the air. My breath hitched. No man had ever used it, and I longed to hear it again from him. It curled around something fragile inside me and held it still.

“The issues I have about becoming a father run deep,” he said, his voice quieter now. “And they’re not your responsibility to bear. That’s my baggage and mine alone.”

A subtle shift passed over his features. I blinked as I processed each one. Guilt, hesitation, and something heavier. I may not have known him long, but this was different. The intensity of it. He was carrying something that made the air feel thick.

Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around myself. Where was he going with this? He exhaled and went on.

“So not only were my initial actions wrong on every level,” he continued, “but my words…they were even more insensitive.”

A part of me wanted to stop him. To tell him it was fine. That I understood. But it wasn’t fine. And I didn’t fully understand. At least not yet. Still, the storm had already broken, and his words kept coming.

Instead of stopping him, I lowered my gaze and whispered another apology I didn’t owe. He didn’t let it land. Two fingers pressed gently under my chin, lifting my face until I met his eyes again.

“It’s not your fault,” he said softly, earnestly. “I lost my mind and broke my own rules when it comes to sleeping with women.”

A pause. Nothing could have prepared me for his next words.

“My mother was schizophrenic,” he said. “And I would never want to pass something like that on to my child.”

The words landed, wrapped around my heart, and squeezed. Hard. A tremor rippled through me, sharp and immediate. All the air left my lungs as realization thundered through me.

What had I done?

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” I said, struggling to keep the edge of panic from bleeding into my voice.

“Stop apologizing.” His tone was gentle but firm. “This isn’t something you caused, and it’s not your burden,” he murmured, pulling me into his arms.

This was wrong. He was the one comforting me—when it should’ve been the other way around. My thoughts were spinning too fast to land. But if what he said meant what I thought it did, I couldn’t let it pass.

I looked up, hesitant. “Is it a given then? That your child—if you had one—would develop the same condition?”

His breath left him slowly, with the smallest pause before he answered.

“Not necessarily,” he said.

Relief washed over me, leaving guilt in its wake.

What was wrong with me?

It wouldn’t have mattered. I loved Declan with everything in me. If he ever developed the same condition, I’d help him through it all. Nothing would ever change that. The despair on that beach all those years ago now made perfect sense. With his mother dying and him not forgiving her before then, it was just heartbreaking.

But it was his next words that would shatter me and draw me in closer than I could have predicted.