Ch. Sorry Hayden, I’m Seven Months Pregnant with Another Man’s Baby 112 Sorry Hayden, I’m Seven Months Pregnant with Another Man’s Baby 112

Chapter 17 

Later, I heard that in The Keep, Ava had provoked Caleb one too many times He’d killed her in a fit of rage. 

The guards said her last words were a choked laugh and a promise, “Chloe… I’ll get you in the next life.” 

The sheer delusion of it was almost sad. 

The day our daughter was born, Mason covered my face in kisses. “Thank you, Chloe. If it weren’t 

for you, I’d never have known what love is.” 

I couldn’t meet his eyes when he said that. He thought his feelings were his own, but I knew it was 

the herbs. The guilt ate at me. It was selfish, tying him to me this way. 

So, I stopped brewing the tonic. I packed my bags and wrote him a long letter, confessing 

everything. 

Just as I was about to slip away, he blocked the doorway. 

I braced myself for his anger. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out, tears streaming. “It was wrong of me. I was just trying to survive here, to be safe. I used those herbs to… to make you care about me…” 

He didn’t let me finish. He pulled me into a crushing embrace, his voice thick with something that sounded like hurt. “So that’s it? You get me into bed, have my child, and then just walk away?” 

I was utterly confused. What did he mean? Why did he sound so… tender? 

He held me at arm’s length, his hands firm on my shoulders, his gaze deep and earnest. “Chloe, do you really think a potion can make someone fall in love?” 

He took a shaky breath. “I never stopped feeling, Chloe. I just… stopped trusting. Eleanor isn’t my real mother. She was my father’s housekeeper.” 

“When we were kids, she took Caleb and me up into the mountains. She was going to leave us there… to die. Because she saw us as a burden. My father almost didn’t make it in time.” 

His voice hardened. “If your own mother can do that… how can you trust anyone?” 

“So… you really love me?” I whispered, disbelief washing over me. All this time, I’d seen him as the 

Chapter 17 

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brute who’d abused Ava in another life. How could he love me willingly? 

“I really do,” he said, his thumb brushing my cheek. “It started that day you smoothed out my frown. You were… different. You weren’t just trying to get something from me. I had the tonic tested, Chloe. It was just herbs to calm the nerves. You were trying to help me, not trick me. I’m not a fool. I know what’s real.” 

A wave of emotion, relief, joy, and a spark of anger, hit me. “Mason! You knew all this time? And you just let me sit here terrified, thinking any day you’d wake up and realize you didn’t really want me?” 

He gathered me close again, his voice a soft murmur against my hair. “I’m sorry. I was scared that if I told you, you’d stop. You were trying so hard for me… I didn’t want to get in the way of that.” 

I let out a shaky laugh, half-crying, half-exasperated. “You’re impossible.” 

Just then, our daughter’s cry came from the nursery. I hurried to her, Mason right behind me. 

“Love isn’t something you can brew, Chloe,” he said softly, watching me lift our daughter. “It has to start here.” He placed a hand over his heart. “And mine started with you. I’m not letting either of you go.” 

Tears of pure happiness filled my eyes. I cradled our daughter and leaned up to kiss his lips. 

Our little family was going to be happy. So very happy. 

Mason and I had all the seasons of our lives ahead of us. 

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