The Truest Thing (Hart's Boardwalk 4)

“I just meant that you weren’t expecting this. So I don’t want to hold you to anything.”

“Oh yeah? Were you expecting it?”

“Of course not!”

“Were you the one who forgot to put on a condom?”

“Jack—”

“I was gone for you.” His voice grew hoarse as the memory of that night seven weeks ago filled his mind and his dick. “So lost in you, I didn’t even think. That’s on me.”

“It’s on us both.” She glared at him. “I’m a grown-up, Jack. It’s up to me to make sure I’m protected during sex too. I’m not on the Pill. I’ve never had to be. And then I didn’t … think.”

“Fine, we both forgot. Now we have a kid on the way.” He took a tentative step closer, not wanting to spook her. “I don’t know about you, but as much as I am scared shitless out of my mind”—he threw her a shaky smile—“I’m also excited about it.”

Her beautiful eyes grew round with surprise. “You are?”

“Aren’t you?”

She nodded slowly.

He wanted to touch her. He wanted to touch her so badly, but he quelled the urge. “I know we have things to work out, but I want to be with you. I want us to be a family.”

And just like that, a guard slammed down over Emery’s expression. Jack watched it happen with alarming trepidation. She retreated from him.

Shit.

“Jack … I’m sorry, but that will not happen.”

“Em—”

“I don’t trust you.”

Fuck!

“Em—”

“You can’t change my mind. And I-I can’t change that you’re the father of my baby—”

“You’d want to?” he cut in angrily. Hurt. So fucking hurt, it was like she’d plunged a knife through his chest and yanked it upward.

“I never imagined having a baby with someone I wasn’t in a relationship with.”

“That’s why I’m suggesting we get in a relationship.”

“Not for the sake of a baby.”

“Em, it’s not for the sake—”

“Jack.” She held up a hand to stop him. “No. I … I can’t take it anymore.”

He swallowed hard against the desire to yell, to be angry, to plead. “Explain.”

Emery shrugged wearily, and Jack hated it. He hated that she was not even thirty years old and she was weary. Because of him. “I feel like I’ve been left here to wait for you for nine years. And I know it’s not that simple,” she hurried to add. “I know you had your reasons and a part of me even understands them. But you’ve never prioritized me, Jack. And maybe you didn’t owe me that. But that’s what I’m looking for. I’m looking for a guy who hasn’t used other women to push me away, to remind me of what we’re not … so many women”—her eyes glistened with hurt that killed him—“that I had to ask Jessica to test me.”

Suddenly Jack felt sick.

And unclean.