Imperfectly Beautiful (Jordan Knight Fanfic, Liadan #3)

New Years and New Additions

-MARIA-

The irritating humming noise of the heat coming from the floor vents nagged at my already worn nerves as I chewed my bottom lip nervously and twirled my engagement ring around my finger. My eyes trailed from the circular white clock on the bathroom wall and over to the broad, muscular back of my fiancé.

His shoulders shook ever so slightly before he turned to gaze at me with the captivating blue eyes that always made it so hard for me to breathe. His strong jaw trembled and his nose turned a shade of red as he closed the small gap between us and knelt down on the floor. I sucked in a sharp breath and let my eyes wander over him as I silently wondered why for the life of me, I couldn't stop loving this man so much that it hurt.

"So it's positive?" I whispered whilst my already-woozy head spun a little faster and I clung to his shirt to brace myself.

As if he realized how unsteady I felt he grasped onto my shoulders and nodded while holding my stare, "Yeah, baby."

My heart rate quickened and I brought my hand up to trail the stubble along his jawline. For once, I wasn't quite sure what to say or think. The past few weeks had been such a period of upheaval that my emotions were everywhere and thinking made my head hurt.

My thoughts drifted back to the last time that we'd made love. We'd been up late, long after Grace had gone to sleep, trying to wrap up gifts from "Santa" and he'd had the hardest time with even figuring out how to curl a ribbon with scissors. I'd teased him that he was the world's worst gift wrapper and he'd replied that he knew how to wrap the most important gift. I'd asked him what that was and he'd grinned and said it was me. Blushing, I'd told him to prove it and he hadn't hesitated to wrap himself around me and give me a "gift" of great pleasure right underneath our Christmas tree.

In that moment, things had been so perfect between us that I couldn't picture it ever possibly ending. I loved him and he loved me and we were starting an incredible life together. My imagination had easily created a vision of all the many Christmases to come that we'd share with Grace and our other children until we were old and gray. I'd had no doubt in my mind that we'd follow all our plans and we'd get our happily ever after.

Yet, just as beautiful as that night had been, the very next one had been so ugly and painful that I had no clue how to reconcile the two. I didn't understand how just one little mistake could flip our world upside down and take all the happiness away, but somehow it had.

Despite everyone else around me who seemed to think that Tony and I breaking up was inevitable and a matter of time, in my head, we were forever. He was Gracie's daddy and the only man that I'd ever loved or wanted to love. He had half of my heart and I didn't know how to physically be without him anymore. He was embedded in me and everything that I was and yet, sometimes I wondered if I was the only one that felt that way. Nevertheless, as crazy as it may have been considering all the crap he'd put me through, I could never let myself settle on believing that.

When things were good between us, they were so good that I just knew we belonged together. On the rare occasions that I got to see his heart, I remembered all the reasons that I loved him so much and it almost made me forget about all the bad. It was times like the past week when he'd huddled over the toilet with me and held me and worried over me and catered to my every whim all while spoiling Grace to no end that made me believe that Tony loved me just as much as I loved him. It was the fact that even though it'd taken weeks of begging, he'd finally given in and fully participated in counseling that lifted my spirits to hope that maybe he truly did want to fix us as much as I did. That hope flickered in my soul and tried desperately to burn on in the face of the dark cloud that currently hung over our relationship.