by Elise Faber
Her father. Him. The two men who’d been the closest to her had wounded her deeply. How could she possibly trust any man ever again? How could she trust him? Those thoughts had twisted around in his head for hours, and he knew, just fucking knew, that sooner or later his Becky was going to come to her senses and ask him to go.
Or kick his ass to the curb.
Both of which he deserved.
Fingers on his cheek startled him. He glanced down into the eyes of the woman he loved.
Fuck, he loved her so much.
“Morning,” she said softly.
“Morning,” he managed to croak back.
Blonde brows pulled together, gray eyes studied him intently. “I’ve been thinking.”
They were soft words. Pitying words.
Luke’s gut sank, twisting itself into knots, knowing that the moment he’d spent all night worrying about had come to fruition. He’d hoped for a few more days, maybe weeks, but perhaps this was for the best. A clean break.
Clean. Ha. He was about to be sliced to the core.
“I understand,” Luke told her before she could give him his brush-off. “I’ll go back to Texas, give you plenty of space when I’m in town—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He shook himself. “Me. Your father. We’re pieces of shit who don’t deserve any part of you. I should leave you to your life and—”
Two palms gripped his cheeks. “Shut. Up.” She tilted his face so their foreheads touched, her breath hot on his lips. “This is the first and last time I’m going to say this, okay? We both have our demons, and we’re both fucked up in our own special ways, but you don’t get to sacrifice yourself because you have a hero complex.” She shook him slightly. “What happened to you fighting for me?”
He brushed her hands off his face, pushed up from the mattress. “Since I spent the whole night reliving all the ways the men in your life have hurt you. And I’m one of them, Bec. You’re better off without any of us and—”
“It’s Becky,” she snapped. “And I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re really good at shouldering guilt and beating yourself up. I fell in love with you again because you’re sweet and protective and make me laugh. Also, your tongue is fucking brilliant, and that thing you do with your index finger should be illegal.” She stood and poked him in the chest. Hard. “So don’t shit on that love by reverting back to being the martyr. We’ve moved beyond that. Remember?”
Fuck.
She was right.
“Of course, I’m right.” She glared, and he realized he’d spoken aloud. “I need you in my life, Luke. You make it . . . better.” A roll of her eyes. “I know that’s pathetically unromantic, but the truth is that you make me better, you love me for who I am, and I—I’m not just going to let you go because you’ve developed a sudden streak of nobility.” Those eyes that had rolled a heartbeat before now glistened with tears. “You promised you’d fight for me, for us. How can I trust in that if you’re going to give up and walk away because you think I’m better off without you? Newsflash”—she smacked him—“I’m not. I want you in my life. But you’ve got to be all in. Because you doubting yourself and us, thinking it’s best to just leave at the first sign of adversity, that’s not good for either of us.”
Luke dropped his chin to his chest. “I’m sorry.”
“How do I know you’re not going to be sorry again the next time something bad happens, huh? How do I know you’re going to stay for—” She swallowed. “Forever. Because I want you. Forever. I want a future, regardless of this shit with my father and our past. I love you. I want you.”
His heart was pounding, his throat was tight, his eyes burned like hell.
Because he wanted that, too.
He wanted Becky forever.
“Damn,” he said. “I’m really fucking this up.”
“Yeah, you are.”
His lips twitched. “You should also know that despite this talk, I may still occasionally be a fucking idiot—”
“Occasionally?” she muttered.
“Frequently,” he amended. “But I do usually learn from my mistakes.” He met her gaze. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I wish I could say that my idiocy was from lack of sleep. But nope. It was my own mind that had convinced me I needed to leave you in peace. That and my exceedingly guilty conscience.”
“Well, stop it,” she said. “Stop feeling guilty for things that happened a decade ago. Let’s worry about now. And our future.”
Future.
Luke liked the sound of that a lot.
“You love me, sugar pie?” he asked, sliding his arms around Becky and pulling her close.
“Against my better judgment, I seem to have fallen for you again.”
“My subliminal programming worked then.”
She snorted. “Dork.”
“Your dork.”
“I’ll take that.”
“Should we go back to bed for a while?” A beat. “Or all day?”
“I like the sound”—she yawned—“of that. I’ll text my boss. I’ve never used a sick day in my life,” she said. “Today seems like a good day to start.”
“I like that plan,” he said, lifting her up into his arms. “I feel like I should apologize for being an idiot again.”
“Please don’t, Pearson,” she said snuggling close to him as he tucked them both back under the covers. “Remember that whole communication thing I mentioned before? Let’s chalk this up to that. You had a concern, you voiced it, and we moved on.”
“And you told me that you loved me.”
“Pft. As if that were ever in question. I’ve loved you since the night of prom.”
“What? Why?” he asked. “All I was thinking about was how desperate I was to feel you up in that red dress.”
“Because.” She pressed a kiss to the spot just above his heart. “Most boys would have been mad I decided to ditch them the night before the dance to go with my friends. But instead of getting huffy or angry, you spent the whole night dancing with my friends, making sure we all had a good time. I knew it then.”
“Knew what?”
“That you were special.”
“Fuck, Becky.”
She pushed up to see his face. “What?”
“You undo me.”
Returning to snuggling, she said, “I know.”
“And modest, too,” he teased, running his fingers lightly up and down her spine. “So, are you going to tell me now?”
“Tell you what?”
He wound a strand of her hair around one finger. “What I interrupted earlier, what you’ve been thinking.”
“Oh.”
A tug of that blonde lock of hair. “Oh? That’s it?”
“I shouldn’t tell you, just out of principle.”
“Principle?” he asked.
“For making me get all ramped up and preachy at six in the morning.” She sniffed. “I should make you suffer.”
Luke shifted his hips. As usual, just holding her had made him hard and aching.
“I am suffering.”
Snorting, she said, “I was thinking about the dates. We have five left, by my calculations.”
“Should I make some quip about lawyers being bad at math?” She glared and he lifted his palms in surrender. “Never mind. Five dates left is right.”
“Well, I was thinking about just skipping to date ten.” Her fingers drew nonsensical shapes over his chest. “Or to the part that came after date ten.” She pressed another kiss to the place above his heart. “To the part where I say I don’t want you to leave.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” she teased, throwing his words back at him. “That’s it?”
He laughed, stealing her lips in a kiss that he hoped conveyed how much he loved this woman. “That’s it,” he told her when they broke for air, chests heaving. “I don’t care about the numbers. I just know I want forever with you.”
“Is that so?”
&
nbsp; “I think I’ve made that more than clear.”
She wove her hands into his hair, tugged his mouth down to hers again. “Well, make it clear again.”
Done.
He pressed his lips to hers, nipping the corner of her mouth, sliding his tongue along hers in the rhythm they both liked best. Her body was flush against his, soft to his hard, lean curves fitting perfectly into his boxier shape. He loved the feel of her in his arms, of her mouth tangling with his, the slight tug of his hair when he was kissing her exactly right.
“I don’t . . . care when,” he said, gasping in air and trying pathetically to make the words semi-coherent. “When . . . we do it, but I”—he sucked in a breath—“I need to give you Date Ten.”
She frowned.
“Promise me.”
“To do what?”
“To go on Date Ten with me.”
A shrug, her brows draw together. “Okaay. I promise to go on Date Ten with you?”
“More question than affirmation, but I’ll take it,” he said.
Becky rested her head on his chest and, as was their habit, they lay quietly in bed, each lost in their own thoughts. Luke liked that they were creating new habits, and he didn’t hate the fact that she was close to him.
Eventually, however, she pulled away, reached for her cell, and sent off a quick text.
Then she sighed and pushed off him.
“I think it’s time I see my dad.”
Luke wanted to tell her, “Fuck no.” He wanted to protect her from whatever the bastard might say or do.
But this was his Becky.
She didn’t need him to fight her battles for her.
She needed him by her side, to help her if she stumbled, and to be ready with a hug—and maybe a bottle of wine and a box of It’s-Its—if things went to shit.
She needed a partner, not a savior.
And Luke finally thought he could be that for her.
So, instead of telling her she shouldn’t go, he held her hand on the drive over to the hospital. Instead of demanding to accompany her, he asked if she wanted him there, and when she did want him by her side, Luke quietly slipped his arm around her waist as they entered her father's room and saw the frail man in front of them.
Too thin, cheekbones in sharp relief, but the man’s gray eyes showed him to be undoubtedly related to Becky.
A woman, thin and blonde, who would have been beautiful if not for the pale skin and reddened eyes adorned by huge dark circles, sat at his bedside. She stood when they entered, but Becky hardly noticed.
“Dad?” Becky asked, horror in the greeting.
Twenty-Two
Bec
It was terrible.
So much worse than she’d imagined.
He couldn’t look like this, couldn’t be this sick. Not when he’d always seemed larger than life, boisterous, domineering. She remembered him being able to captivate a room just by uttering a few choice words.
Now he looked as though he couldn’t even squish an ant.
“Rebecca?” he asked.
“Hi, Dad,” she murmured.
“Why are you here?”
Blunt words, sharpened to wound. The woman next to him, a slender blonde with a pretty face and kind eyes and who was, presumably, Helen, her father’s new wife, gasped. “Ronald.”
Luke squeezed Becky's hand.
“Good to see you too, Dad,” she said, lifting her chin and crossing over to the bed. “Thanks for returning my phone calls.”
Helen frowned, searching through her purse for a moment before extracting a cell phone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“I wasn’t referring to today,” Bec told her, “so much as over the last twenty years.”
“O-oh.” Helen’s gaze dropped to her hands. “I meddled.” A sigh. “I shouldn’t have.”
Bec touched her arm. “I’m glad you did. This is a conversation we need to have, as much as Ronald has tried to avoid it.”
“You shouldn’t be here, Rebecca.”
“Because you can’t stand the sight of me? Or because you didn’t want your new wife to know just how much of an asshole you are?”
Another gasp from Helen.
“Sorry,” Bec told her. “I should have warned you, my father and I don’t get along. Though that mostly stems from the fact that he abandoned me and then wouldn’t return my calls for twenty years.”
Helen glanced from Bec to Ronald, eyes searching both of them for long moments.
“Is that true?” she finally asked.
Bec’s father looked away, and suddenly that anger inside her, that rage twisting and wounding and hurting so fucking badly was just . . . gone. In that empty cavern, resignation took its place.
She was never going to get what she wanted.
“Unfortunately, it is true,” Bec said. “I’ll spare you the sordid details, but know that for the last twenty-odd years I wanted nothing more than to have a relationship with my father. Ask him how many times I called or emailed, how I went to his office once a month for fucking years trying to see him, but he was always too busy. Ask him how he never wished me a happy birthday or merry Christmas—”
“We’re Jewish,” her father interjected.
Bec lifted one brow. “Happy Hanukah, then?”
“You haven’t changed,” her dad snapped. “You still want too much.”
Bec’s eyes dropped to the floor, hurt washing over her and making her wish for the empty feeling from a few heartbeats before.
But then Luke was there, slipping a reassuring hand around her waist, tugging her close. “No,” he said. “She’s never wanted enough for herself. She deserves so much more—”
“It’s okay,” she said, love taking the place of hurt. Love for this man that somehow made even the shittiest version of a family reunion better.
His emerald eyes darkened. “No, it’s fucking not.”
She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, giving her the strength to face her stepmom. “The truth is that after my mother died, not once did my father reach out to me. I was the horrible painful secret, locked away and disapproved of. I wasn’t worthy of Ronald’s fucking attention because I wasn’t my mother, was I?”
Gray eyes so much like her own drifted to the window, stared out. “No. No, you weren’t her. Could never be her.”
Her all-encompassing anger might have left her, alongside the emptiness and most of her hurt, but a lot of her spiked armor had flown the coop along with those emotions, and so, Bec wasn’t going to lie—hearing those words stung.
“Well,” she said, lifting her chin, shorting herself up. “Good to know nothing’s changed. I’ll leave you to your—”
Movement at the door caught Bec’s gaze. Luke shifted to let someone pass by him and Bec turned fully, watching a pretty brunette walk into the room. The woman was much younger than her, maybe a college student or recent grad, but she moved with a confident grace, as though she’d been striding across hospital rooms for a long time.
And, after seeing the state of her father, Bec thought, maybe she had.
The shift in the room at her entrance was palpable.
Tension twisted the air. Helen jumped to her feet, moving to place herself between Bec and the girl.
“Mom?” she asked. “Dad? Is everything okay?”
Punch.
To Bec’s heart. Her gut. Her brain.
Somehow, she’d known it was coming, and yet the blow was almost physical.
But Luke had her, his warm hand on her spine centering her, understanding in an instant that she could have withstood almost anything aside from this.
Bec’s father had moved on without her.
Replacement wife. Replacement daughter.
Helen laced her arm through her daughter’s and led her back to the door. “Why don’t you go find your brother? Get us some coffee from the cafeteria?” She glanced at Bec. “Just some coffee and some food, okay?”
Bec had been doing okay until—
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Okay, fuck it all, she’d been barely hanging on. She felt as though she’d been treading water in the open ocean for hours, and now a shark had decided to swim on up and chomp on her leg.
Brother.
Yeah, that fit.
Somehow, it all fit.
She ignored her half-sister leaving and instead turned back to her father. He had to feel something—shame, sadness, disappointment. But as she stared at him, Bec discovered that she couldn’t find any trace of those emotions.
Instead, there was . . . nothing.
Aside from the same unique color of their eyes, they might have been perfect strangers.
And, if she were facing facts, they were strangers.
Bec glanced up at Luke. “I’m ready to go now.”
Fury had tinged the tops of his cheeks with pink, but to his credit, he only nodded and took her hand.
“I’m sorry,” Helen murmured. “I didn’t know . . .”
Bec managed a half-smile. “It’s—I—” She shook her head, wanting to find some absolution. This wasn’t Helen’s fault. She seemed like a nice woman who’d been trying to do the right thing.
But in the end, the words wouldn’t come, so Bec just averted her eyes and let Luke lead her to the door.
She paused on the threshold, glanced back one last time at her dad. “I hope you found what you were looking for.”
Her father’s voice was still the same, even if his body wasn’t.
It trailed after her into the hallway.
“I didn’t,” he said. “But I’ll be with her soon enough.”
Bec squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and walked with Luke to the elevators, but at the last minute, she tugged him into the stairwell and sank down onto the top step, resting her head on his shoulder.
She wanted to cry, but couldn’t. Instead, she just sat there and sighed, despondent and aching and . . . just so fucking disappointed
“The people who have the most power over you also hold the greatest ability to disappoint,” Luke said, and when she glanced up at him in surprise, he shrugged. “Something my therapist once told me.”
“Yeah,” Bec agreed. “I think he got it right on that one.”
The barest hint of a smile on his lips. “You okay?”
“No.” Another sigh. “But I will be. I just wanted—” She broke off.
