You Were Meant For Me (Wishful 10)

His head kicked back as if she’d punched him. “Tess.” After everything they’d shared, how could she believe that? “Did you hear anything I said to you this afternoon?”

“Every word. You love this baby. I have absolutely no doubt about that. And you’ve tangled that up with what you feel for me. But the truth is, you don’t know me well enough to love me. How could you? That wasn’t what any of this was supposed to be about. God knows, that wasn’t what either of us was looking for when we started this.”

“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t reduce this to a casual affair. We were more than we intended from the start, and you know it.”

“Maybe we could have been.”

The past tense and her expression of absolute resignation and regret had Mitch’s gut clenching in panicked desperation.

Tess laid a hand over her belly. “But this…this changed everything.”

“Why?” he demanded. For the life of him he couldn’t understand where this defeatist attitude was coming from. Maybe the baby upped the timetable. And sure, it added a layer of stress they otherwise wouldn’t have had. But it didn’t change how they

felt about each other.

The breath she sucked in was slow and measured, as if she was searching for patience—or maybe the words to explain the concept to a two year old. “You don’t understand. Of course you don’t. You come from this.” She gestured to the room at large. To his family, who still looked on in shock. “You can’t fathom any other way to be. I can’t even begin to tell you how envious I am that you can take that for granted. That the idea of a perfect, multi-generational family, with two point five kids and a sloppy dog is a foregone conclusion for you. But that’s not what would happen with us.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You’d marry me out of obligation and some twisted, old-fashioned sense of nobility. And for a while, it would be fine. But eventually the heat that brought us together in the first place will burn out. Until there’s nothing left but ash and a resentment that will block out everything but the dimmest memories of anything that was ever good between us. I won’t go through that with you. I can’t. I deserve more than that. And so do you. So I’m saving us both from the prison of your convictions.”

A prison of my convictions.

The words hit Mitch like bullets, one after another. He half expected to see blood soaking the front of his shirt, but he couldn’t look away from her because he understood that if he lost this connection with her now, he’d lose her.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine the harsh future she painted. Everything in him rejected it. Though her body language shouted hands off, he reached for her, curling his hands around her shoulders to keep her from pulling away any further. “That’s one possible outcome. Why are you so damned certain that’s how it would be?”

She trembled under his touch, her eyes full of unshed tears. For one second, Mitch thought she’d step into him. Instead she wrenched free, her hands balling to fists, her jaw firming. “Because I lived it. That is the foundation I come from. It’s no kind of environment to raise a child in, and I won’t do it to mine. Don’t ask me to.”

Stunned, Mitch could only stare as her tears erupted.

“Tess—” Trey’s voice was strained.

She stumbled back, raising both her hands as if to ward off a blow. “Don’t! Just—don’t.” She backpedaled, edging toward the door. “I have to go.” It only took her two steps to stop, apparently remembering she’d ridden with him. Panic flashed over her face.

Mitch stepped toward her, understanding only that she needed to get the hell out of here. “We’ll go.”

“No. I can’t—I just can’t.”

“Take my car.” Cecily pressed keys into Tess’s hand.

Tess’s broken whisper of thanks simply gutted him. He took another step toward her only to find his path blocked by Cam.

“Let her go, man.”

“She’s not in any shape to drive,” Mitch insisted, feeling the panic rise as she disappeared around the corner, into the hall.

Ethan broke away. “I’ll follow to make sure she gets home okay.”

But Mitch barely heard the promise over the sound of the front door closing, as the woman he loved ran away from him.

Again.

Chapter 15

“Is there anything else we can do for you, Miss Peyton?” There was such concern and sympathy in the receptionist’s eyes as Tess checked back into The Babylon.

For maybe the first time in her life, Tess knew she wasn’t dignified and she sure as hell wasn’t living up to the family name. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She’d been sobbing since she left family dinner, all through the drive back to the house to pack up her stuff. She’d swapped to her own car, sent a text to Cecily in thanks, and retreated before Mitch could get home. Given he didn’t interrupt her, someone had probably detained him. She’d owe them a thank you, too.