The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 417

Mia's POV

Why was he going back down? He'd just given away all his air.

Twenty seconds passed. Then twenty-five.

"Kyle!" I tried again, louder this time, destroying my throat even more. I didn't care.

Someone appeared beside me—Nate, I realized. His hands were professional and efficient as he tried to check me over, taking my pulse and looking at my eyes.

But I pushed him away.

Thirty seconds. Thirty-five.

It was too long. Way too long. He didn't have enough air for this. His lungs couldn't handle it.

Forty seconds stretched by.

The water stayed still and empty, just colored lights and ripples reflecting across the surface.

Please come up.

Then his head broke the surface.

He gasped, and it was a horrible sound—wet and ragged, like his lungs were full of water, like he was drowning from the inside.

He coughed hard, water coming out of his mouth and nose, his whole body convulsing with the effort.

But his hand came up out of the water, reaching toward the edge, reaching toward me.

In his palm, clutched in his fingers so tight his knuckles were white, were two rings.

They were small and gold, catching the light.

Wedding rings.

Simple gold bands. Identical. Perfect circles.

I knew these rings.

"They fell," he said.

His voice was barely there, more breath than sound, like talking hurt, like everything hurt.

"When you fell, they fell."

He swam to the edge, and someone helped pull him out with strong hands under his arms, lifting him up onto the deck.

He collapsed beside me, water streaming from his hair and clothes, creating another pool on the marble floor.

His breathing was all wrong. That wheeze had turned into something wet, something that sounded like drowning, like his lungs were full of something they shouldn't be.

But his hand was still extended toward me, still holding the rings, still offering them.

"Kyle," I said, staring at them, at the rings catching the colored lights and creating small rainbows. "Why—"

"Our rings," he finished.

His voice was getting weaker and fainter, each word taking visible effort.

"I know."

He was still holding them out, water dripping from his fingers and from the metal, creating small puddles on the marble below.

"But I thought—"

He stopped and coughed hard, his whole body shaking as more water came up with that horrible wet sound.

"I saw them falling—"

He didn't finish.

The rings we'd exchanged four years ago at city hall, in a ceremony that took fifteen minutes, with a judge who'd done three other weddings that day.

The rings we'd stopped wearing when we signed divorce papers, when we agreed it was over, when we both pretended we could walk away.

"You're an idiot," I said.

My hand closed over his, over the rings, over his cold fingers that shook from exhaustion and oxygen deprivation, from pushing a failing body past every limit.

"I know," he said quietly.

People were crowding around us now, asking questions and offering help.

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