Francesca just stood there, shock registering on her face. “A baby. I had all but forgotten the possibility of a baby.” There was no condemnation in her voice, only a soft musing as if she couldn’t comprehend such a thing.
“I am sorry, Francesca. There is no real way to make amends.” Gabriel rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “There is no excuse and there can be no forgiveness.”
She wasn’t listening to him; her mind was turned inward. She had longed for a baby, a family. More than anything she had wanted a child. Even if she had chosen to spend the last years of her life with Brice, she would never have brought a child to their union. Her pregnancy was a miracle, and she couldn’t quite come to grips with the idea. “A baby. I do not remember what it is like to dream of such a thing. It cannot be, Gabriel. How is this? How did I not know?”
“You are not listening to me, Francesca,” he said, his black eyes searching the sky overhead as if it might offer answers. He rubbed his temple. He needed a way out of the mess he had created with his arrogant decision, yet there was none. He had to be honest with her. He respected Francesca too much to give her anything less than the truth. In any case, she was his lifemate and eventually she would read his memories.
He should have waited, taken his time. He could have stopped her from choosing the dawn if there was such a need. But he had taken the attitude that she belonged to him and owed him complete surrender.
Francesca took a deep breath and laid her hand on his arm. She could easily read his inner turmoil, his anger at himself. In truth, she didn’t know how she felt, but she didn’t like the way his mind was so consumed with guilt. Gabriel, her legendary hunter. He had given so much to his people, had always done the right thing. Francesca didn’t have it in her to condemn him. “In your defense, Gabriel, it was not a conscious decision on your part.”
“Francesca!” Gabriel stepped away from her, unable to bear her touch when he had so wronged her. “You are touching me, yet you do not hear me. You are not seeing what is before your eyes. I do not want to start a relationship with dishonesty between us. Of course it was a conscious decision. I manipulated the outcome of our joining just as I aroused you with more than my body.” He shook his head in wonder. “You really are the opposite of me. You cannot conceive of such deception and I cannot conceive of such goodness. See me, Francesca, see me with all my faults. I do not want you to accept me even in friendship merely because I am Carpathian and you are lonely for your homeland. I thought that it would be enough for me just to have you, but I find it is not. You do not know just how wronged you really are. Lucian himself will be hunting you and I am not certain I can protect you from him.”
Her eyes moved over his brooding good looks. “Of course you can, Gabriel. He has no power over you, not unless you allow such a thing.” She tilted her head, her long flowing hair cascading down in a shiny raven’s wing. “And you are far too hard on yourself. It is true I do not merge willingly or fully with you, but when I touch you I can read you. You wanted me to stay with you but you did not really act out of selfishness. You simply could not allow a Carpathian woman, any Carpathian woman, to destroy herself. That precept was imprinted on you before you were born. Had I been another woman choosing to meet the dawn, you still would have found a way to stop me.”
He looked down at the hand curled over his forearm. Very gently he captured it, brought it to the warmth of his mouth, an intimate, tender gesture that made her heart contract. “You take my breath away, Francesca. If I live another thousand years, I could never find anyone with your natural compassion. I do not deserve you.”