“So, you know how I told you I had to take care of a few things?”
“Yep.”
“One of those things,” he says, “was my ex-fiancée.”
My head fills with an image of the text on his screen Saturday morning. I can still see it crystal clear. In fact, every time I close my eyes, it’s there. The human mind can be cruel and persistent.
“Ever since she found out I was in Illinois … with someone new … she started blowing up my phone, sending me texts about how much she loves and misses me, begging to get back together,” he says. “Calls me twenty times a day sometimes.”
To be fair, his phone is constantly going off.
But half the time it’s on silent. And a quarter of the time he places it in the next room altogether. Given his line of work and his celebrity status, I assumed it was par for the course, and I never questioned it—until Saturday.
“I’ve tried to have her father reason with her, but she won’t listen,” he says. “And I could block her number, but she’ll just call me from a new one. I figured since I was going to be in town for that shoot anyway, I might as well meet with her in person …”
My insides swirl with nausea, and my stomach fires a sour-hot warning shot up the back of my throat.
He’s calling to tell me he’s getting back with her. That has to be it. I’m already playing their reunion up in my mind, conversation and all. I bet she dressed to the nines in his favorite outfit, threw her arms around him, and told him she knew exactly where they went wrong. I bet she promised to change, convincing him it could still work, that they could still have their happily ever after.
If he loved her once, he could love her again.
That’s how these things happen.
People break up and get back together every day.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and all of that.
And maybe all the time he’s spent with a “normal” woman in a boring suburban house without a pool and a butler and a tennis court or any of life’s finest luxuries made him realize just how perfect he and Tatum truly were for each other.
“Rossi, did you hear what I said?” he asks. “You’re quiet. What are you thinking about?”
Shit.
I completely tuned him out while I was lost in my anxiety-ridden nightmare of a daydream.
“I think you cut out,” I lie, wincing. “Can you say it all again? I got the part where you said you wanted to meet with her in person, but not the rest.”
He blows a breath into his receiver, pausing. “I said Tatum is pregnant.”
My legs turn numb and I lean against the nearest wall before they give out completely.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asks.
“Y—yeah,” I stammer. “I heard.”
“Wow.” My lip trembles. Even with all the barriers I’d put up around my heart these last two days, the tiniest crack remained. When he left on Sunday, he told me I had him all wrong. He said he was going to prove that when he came back. A miniscule, feather-sized piece of me wanted to believe him.
Now it doesn’t matter what he said, if he was genuine or not. He’s having a baby with a woman he was once going to marry. He’s not going to walk away from that to woo someone he’s only known three weeks.
I have my naïve moments, but I’m not an idiot.
“Congratulations,” I force a smile into my tone despite the throbbing ache in my chest. “That’s great news, Fabian. You’re going to be an amazing father. And hey, you’ll get to experience all the firsts now.”
“This isn’t going to change anything between us,” he says. “And it doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
I swipe a thick tear from the corner of my eye. “Of course it does.”
“I want to be with you.”
“But you’re having a baby with someone else,” I say.
“It complicates things,” he says. “But it doesn’t make them impossible. We can figure this out.”
“You’re not being realistic. You have a life in California. You’re jet setting all over the world for tournaments and photo shoots and appearances and interviews. And then you want to date some random woman you barely know in Illinois while also being there for your ex as she carries your baby?” I scoff. “That’s a little ambitious, don’t you think? Even for you.”
“First of all, you’re not some random woman in Illinois. And secondly, it’s extremely ambitious. But I’ve never been someone to walk away from something because it seemed too hard,” he says. “So you can push me away if you want, Rossi, but it’s not going to change how I feel about you.”
Once again, he says all the perfect things.