Begonia Blooms Only in Spring Chapter 1

The night I finished my month of recovery, Donald Inksworth brought up, without warning, the nightmare I least wanted to talk about.

"Actually, the man who kept you locked away and violated you five years ago was Levi."

Levi Sinclair was the husband of his foster sister, Jolene Trafford.

A roar filled my head, and my mind went blank. "What?"

Donald continued, his voice as calm as still water, "Back then, Jojo found out she couldn't have children, and her mother-in-law had never liked her to begin with... To help her secure her place as Mrs. Sinclair, I agreed to what Jojo asked of me. We used you to get pregnant in her place… Lev had always wanted you for himself. So..."

So the three of them had conspired together. They locked me away and violated me day and night until I became pregnant.

I forced down my nausea as my lips trembled. "Why are you telling me this now?"

Donald let out a breath, as if a great weight had finally lifted from his chest. "I kept this secret for five years. It wore me down. And I've given you back the child I owed you.

"They say a woman's heart softens once she becomes a mother. Looks like that's true... You're not falling apart like you used to. You've really become much better behaved."

I tugged at the corners of my mouth and forced something resembling a smile.

He didn't know that I hadn't become better behaved at all. I simply had a secret of my own that I had yet to confess to him.

* * *

The brutal truth had left me reeling, but something in his words still struck me as odd. "The child you owed me... What did you mean by that?"

Donald froze for a moment. He was clearly still hiding something from me.

He scratched his head, then gave up trying to conceal it and told me outright, "Before that happened, weren't you pregnant? So I smeared some shoe polish at the top of the stairs..."

The realization struck me like a lightning bolt. My fingers would not stop trembling.

The first child I had longed for with all my heart had been taken from me by his own father.

The baby had been seven months along, a fully formed baby boy. In just two more months, he would have entered the world. Yet his own biological father had destroyed him with his own hands.

It felt as though an invisible hand had closed around my heart and squeezed. The pain was so intense that I could barely breathe.

I opened my mouth without thinking as my breaths came faster and faster.

When Donald saw my reaction, he grabbed my hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it gently. "I know this is hard for you, but we have Harry now. It's the same."

I looked at the baby asleep in the crib as tears slipped silently down my cheeks. "It's not the same..."

Donald frowned and released my hand. His voice dropped. "How is it not the same? They're both our children. Just think of Harry as that child reincarnated and returned to your womb. Isn't that enough?

"Besides, after the miscarriage, I dropped everything and stayed by your side the entire time. I made every meal myself to help you recover...

"Begonia Hudson, I don't owe you anything."

Did he really think a new child and a little care could erase the agony of having my baby torn from my body?

Impossible. I refused to accept it.

Donald's raised voice startled Harold awake, and he burst into loud cries.

Donald immediately picked him up and murmured softly to soothe him.

When he first learned I was pregnant with Harold, Donald had been every bit as overjoyed as I was. He had prepared the nursery early, and tiny clothes had piled up until the closet could hold no more. He would gently touch my belly, tell the baby stories, and listen for the slightest movement.

This child had received the full measure of a father's love, the kind our first child had never known.

Donald truly loved Harold. But now, that only made things worse. The more he loved him, the more my heart ached.

Donald brought Harold over and tried to place him in my arms.

My eyes reddened, but I only stared at him coldly and refused to reach out.

A flicker of disgust crossed Donald's face. "I thought you'd finally learned to behave. Turns out you still have that temper. If you really can't get over it, we don't even need to hold tomorrow's one-month celebration. Let's just go to the courthouse and get divorced."

I stared hard at him, as though I could peel back his skin and see whether there was any warmth in his heart at all.

Five years ago, he had said the same thing about divorce, right after I discovered that he had slept with his foster sister.