Complicated: A Tainted Love Novella by Ghiselle St. James

used to, silent communication became imperative.
    Rough day? he asks.
    Stressful , I answer with a tired smile. You?
    I’m used to it, he shrugs.
    We finish up and he towels me off, carrying me to the room and laying me down. He goes back to the bathroom and cleans up, taking the plates and wine glasses to the kitchen before joining me again in my bedroom. Pulling the covers back, he slides into bed with me and pulls me against his warm body. I am cocooned in him, feeling the comfort being in his arms triggers.
    A deep sigh escapes me and he tightens his hold on me.
    “Sleep, beautiful girl,” he whispers, dropping a kiss atop my head.
    And I do…in the arms of the sweetest, most caring man I know.
     

Chapter Eleven

    Marshall
     
    M y parents had called a few minutes ago, saying they were a few minutes away and that I should meet them at the hospital. It’s the day of reckoning. Already my mother sounded distraught. She wanted to know everything, but I just couldn’t bring myself to telling her over the phone. They both deserve to be told up front. We need to do this as a family.
    I wish I had Rachel here with me right now, but I know I need to do this alone. Having her sleep in my arms last night gave me the strength I needed to do what I had to do. Even after she’d fallen asleep, I hadn’t been able to. I wanted to keep her in my arms forever, but there were just too many walls between us, walls she’d constructed. So as she slept in my arms, I sent up a prayer that this would not be the last time I would have her next to me like this.
    Traveling silently and nervously in the taxi, I prepare myself mentally for what is about to happen. I fucked up big time by keeping our parents in the dark about Delilah and I’m going to have to answer for my actions. I hope they know that my heart was in the right place. Nothing is more important to me than my family’s safety and I proved that by going against my Hippocratic Oath to protect Delilah. If the bar found out what I’d done, obstructing the course of justice the way I did, I would be disbarred and put behind bars. Thankfully, that idiot Rick dropped his case against Delilah, so I wouldn’t face jail time if it were to ever get out. Is protecting my family enough when held against losing my job?
    Fuck. Yes.
    Truth be told, if it were even Rachel I had to make the decision to protect like that, I would have. I would have risked everything just for her safety, for her happiness. Back then and even now, her happiness is paramount to my own. I’m a selfish motherfucker, though, because I want her to be happy with me. I would give up everything for her to be happy with only me.
    A few years ago, while we were dating, she had missed her pill, and as mad as I was at her carelessness, the idea of having a child with her had warmed my heart. I know if she had wound up pregnant at the time, her parents would not have allowed me to continue on the career path I was on; would have probably forced me to marry her – though it wouldn’t have been force at all. I loved Rachel, still do, and if marrying her to make things right would have been the answer, I would have done it without argument. Maybe if I’d knocked her up back then, she and I would still be together now, raising our children together – because no way I’d want to stop at one.
    Shit, I can’t think about Rachel and a baby right now. I need to focus. That line of thinking is only feeding an insane need to find her, drag her to a bed and fuck her until she is pregnant with my kid. That way, she wouldn’t be able to run from me anymore and she’d have to face her feelings of love for me.
    As I step out of the taxi I had taken to the hospital, I spot my Mom and Dad a small distance away coming out of a town car. Dad has his hand on my mother’s elbow and he whispers something in her ear that she nods at, taking a deep breath. She touches his cheek and they both stare at each other lovingly. She says