“I’d hoped I’d be the one to give you that. I didn’t even know I wanted it until…it doesn’t matter. Fuck. It haunts me that someday you’ll be the mother of someone else’s child. But I have to live with that. So don’t worry—I will get everything I deserve.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. He was almost on his knees, his chest opened, bleeding for her. All that, and he didn’t even know she was carrying his child yet. It was enough. She put one hand over her mouth and sobbed into it while reaching out to him with the other. “Come here,” she said. “Come home.”
19
Beau was sure he’d heard wrong. That his mind was playing tricks on him. It wouldn’t be a stretch—him, finally losing his sanity here on this ledge while Lola watched. He’d driven, literally, to the ends of the earth. He’d waited eight hours at the park’s entrance for that red sports car to pull up, doubting himself, watching, watching, watching.
But it was worth it if he’d heard her correctly. Lola was crying into one hand, her other one outstretched to him. “Come here. Come home.”
He couldn’t move. As if getting into that position, kneeling at her feet on the edge of a cliff, had broken all his joints. It wasn’t the abyss behind him that scared him but the idea of going on after seeing what could’ve been. Life had opened up to him, presenting him with all its beauty—he’d found her, and now he could make things right. Love her, marry her, give them both the child he’d dreamed about.
How could he miss it so much, something he’d never had?
He didn’t blame Lola for breaking him down to this. It was the first time in his life he’d surrendered to someone else. Eve
n the first two nights he’d spent with her, he’d given her just enough for them both to fall in love. But this wasn’t love. It was something closer to death. A part of him had to die for Lola to know he wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Beau eased from squatting to sanding, still unsure what she was offering him. Condolence? Pity? Something more? “But you said you were walking away.”
She shook her head, removing her dampened hand to wipe her eyes. “Maybe I should, but I can’t. I left to hurt you, hoping you’d regret what you’d given up, and I thought that would be it. I never planned to end up here.”
Beau waited. He wanted to ask her if that meant she wasn’t going to leave him there on the brink of his demise, but he was afraid one word from him might ruin it all.
“I’m happy in L.A., but I want to leave that house,” she said. “I don’t care where we go, it just has to have at least two bedrooms.”
He stared at her, his heart rate increasing, unsure he could trust his ears. It sounded like she was saying she’d come home with him, but he didn’t think he could take it if he was wrong yet again. He didn’t know exactly what she was asking for, but he didn’t care. “Consider the house gone. Whatever you want.”
“I resented you.” She paused. “For putting work first. I should’ve said it, but that would’ve meant I cared, and I didn’t want to care. But I do now, so I’m saying it.”
He nodded. Since she’d left, even he’d resented his work for what it’d cost him. “Work will always be a part of my life. I can’t walk away completely.”
“I don’t want you to. It’s your passion, but—”
“But it’s not my priority. Not anymore. I will make changes, not because I have to, but because I have a reason to.”
“That’s not all,” she said, eyeing him warily.
“I know it’s not, but put me out of my misery. Please. Does this mean you’re giving me a chance to earn you back?”
She reached out to him again, and this time, he went without hesitation. Those nights he’d had no idea where she was or if she was okay, he’d gone nearly mad, needing her back in his arms, the only place she was truly safe. Before he could put his hands on her, though, she took him by the wrist. Her long fingers wrapped around him, warming his chilled skin. She guided his hand to her waist, setting it there without letting him go. “You have nothing to earn,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I see on your face what you’ve been through. When we were together, I know you never lied to me, never faked how you felt. I can forgive what you did because now that I understand you, I understand what drove you there. That Beau never would’ve stood where you just stood and willingly ripped his own heart out. I trust you.”
Beau trusted her too, and he didn’t question it. Hurting him was her way of fighting back. And she always would, he expected that from her. He loved that about her. But from now on, they’d be on the same side. “It’s all I could’ve asked for from you. Forgive me. Love me.”
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “It’s not all.”
She readjusted her grip on his wrist—her palm was sweating. He glanced down. His hand wasn’t actually flattened on her waist but her lower abdomen.
“When you said—” She paused, and he looked back at her face. Her expression had changed, her lips rolled inward with a frown. Her furrowed eyebrows lined her forehead with wrinkles. “Sometimes things don’t really happen the way you plan—” She blew out a sigh and laughed in a strange, jittery way. “Obviously.”
Beau lengthened his spine. Her demeanor had suddenly flipped, and he didn’t need that. He didn’t need to have the rug pulled out from under him again. Just a minute ago, she’d shoved her hand in his chest, taken hold of his heart, forced him to say mercy. Now, she could barely look him in the eye.
“What’s wrong?” Beau asked. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. Nothing’s going to change my—”
“I’m pregnant.”
Beau jerked his head forward, his mouth and eyes wide open. They were both shaking—her body, his head side to side. They’d fucked a lot during the two nights of their arrangement, over and over. Him coming inside her, needing to own her in the quickest, most irrefutable way possible. He gulped some air, closed his mouth. “You’re what? With—with me?”
She bit her bottom lip. “Yes. We are pregnant. I know it’s not—what happened was, when my purse was stolen, my birth control was in there. When I moved in, we had those rules—I didn’t think we’d—”
Beau squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second. He could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. He was grateful he’d stepped away from the cliff. It came back to him all at once, his moment of weakness, taking her from behind against the bathroom counter. It’d nearly driven her away. He hadn’t understood why then. It’d never occurred to him to ask about birth control.
That little girl in his dream, clutching Lola’s leg, both of them otherworldly, divine. That was going to be his reality? After all the wrong he’d done, he was going to have that pureness in his life, that picture of perfection?
She was still talking. “And I know I signed that agreement—”
It was awkward handling her that way. He pulled his hand off her stomach and held it up. “Stop.”
She blinked, her blue eyes sparkling more than usual, red and shiny with tears. By her quivering chin, she was trying not to cry. “You’re not saying anything.”