Because that was Natasha. The woman my husband had loved. The woman my husband had impregnated and hid from me. That was the woman and the daughter my in-laws loved. And they were going out for a family evening. And here I was, sitting in a car, wondering if I could even make a promise.
“Eliza. Talk to me. Do I need to take you to a hospital? What’s wrong?”
“Please, just take me home. I just need to go.”
He turned to look, his gaze narrowing.
“Is that…?”
“Please. I need to go home.”
“Okay. I’ve got you.” He started the car and reached out and gripped my knee. I held onto his wrist, using him as my lifeline. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
The little girl was real. I had seen the photos. And Marshall’s parents had told me. My brothers had confirmed. Everybody had told me that the little girl existed, and here she was. And she was so cute. She laughed, and she was old enough to talk and walk and do all those things that real-life human children did.
Marshall’s love child was real.
And she looked so much like him.
Marshall’s parents hadn’t even stopped to think about me. No, I was just the woman standing in the way of everything they had ever wanted. And, somehow, things were supposed to make sense? But they didn’t. Nothing would ever make sense. I would never make sense.
Somehow, in the quiet, we pulled into my driveway, and I staggered out. Beckett was there, holding my hand, and I hoped to God that Annabelle and Jacob weren’t looking outside right now to see me. Maybe they would think I was drunk, and Beckett was walking me inside.
But I was too numb to drink. To numb to do anything.
“Eliza. You’re scaring me. Do I need to get Annabelle?”
I shook my head, my keys falling out of my hand as I tried to unlock the door. He held me around the waist, bent down slightly to pick up the keys, and let us in. He closed the door behind him, the same one we’d just had sex against. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Was that Marshall’s…I don’t know what to call her?”
“Yes, that was Marshall’s lover and his child. And his parents. The people he loved but didn’t provide for in the will,” I growled out.
“Eliza.”
“There was nothing in the will, Beckett. Nothing. He was overseas in combat. They constantly redo their wills, and he did nothing for that. He didn’t acknowledge her, and yet maybe he did because he introduced her to his parents. So, what am I? Was he laughing at me every time he looked at me, knowing I would never bear his child? Knowing we would never have a biological child together? Did he laugh at me when we decided that we were going to adopt, all the while knowing he had a child of his own?”
As soon as I let the words fall from my mouth, I pressed my lips together and looked at Beckett. I hadn’t meant to say any of that. Not really. I had just confessed to the guy I was semi-dating, the guy I had just slept with that I most likely couldn’t have children.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything. “Please, go,” I whispered. “Just go.”
He looked at me then, but he didn’t leave.
Chapter 20
Beckett
* * *
My brain wanted to catch up, and I let out a deep breath before moving forward and cupping Eliza’s face.
“Eliza,” I whispered.
“No, don’t. Don’t try to make me feel better. I just…I need to breathe through it. I need to be by myself.”
“I could leave,” I said softly. “Or we can just breathe. Let’s breathe.”
She pressed her lips together, and I had a funny thought that she was holding her breath to spite me.
I slid my thumbs along her cheekbones and continued holding her. “Stop.”
“You’re telling me to breathe, and then you’re telling me to stop breathing?”
I closed my eyes. I knew she was in pain, but I needed to make sure that she would be okay. “Do you think you’re asking me to leave because you don’t want to think about what you just told me?”
“I can’t believe I just said all of that out loud.”
“You don’t have to go into details. I would never ask you to do that. But you don’t need to feel embarrassed or whatever, either. Only angry at that asshole for what he did to you. Maybe I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but he was a fucking asshole for doing this to you.”
“He really was,” she muttered.
“Talk to me,” I whispered.
“What is there to say? Marshall got his perfect baby. He got a child, a woman he loved—and it wasn’t me. I didn’t know anything about it. I was so secure in our marriage, even if we might’ve had problems. I just brushed them under the rug because we didn’t really have problems. All marriages have problems. Ours were the same.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It might not be my fault that he cheated on me, but it is my fault for not seeing it.”
“I didn’t know your husband well, but I wouldn’t have thought he could do something like this.”
“Apparently, I didn’t know him as well as I thought, either. But his parents did. They must have if they so readily believed that this Natasha had given them a grandchild.”
“That’s on them. That’s not on you, Eliza.”
“I know. Intellectually, I know. But that doesn’t make it any easier on my heart or my brain when I’m trying to sleep. It was always a thing for Marshall, though. Do you know what I mean?”
I shook my head but lowered my hands to grip hers. “Explain. If you can.”
“I’ve known for a while that I would have trouble having children. I’m still on birth control to help regulate my system, but I have endometriosis and a bunch of other lovely things that make it very difficult to conceive. I’ve known this since I was a teenager. My freshman year of college, they explained it to me over and over again. And I mourned. And then I realized that there are many ways to have children if that is something a person wants to do. I’ve had years to come to terms with this. And so did Marshall. For as long as he knew me, he knew I might not be able to give him a child. At least not one that we conceived together. In the end, he got his baby, didn’t he?”
“Eliza,” I whispered.
“He got his baby. I thought we were fine with the fact that even if I went off birth control and the pain came back full force, that my chances would be really small because my uterus is trying to kill me.”
I held back a wince at that. Not at her words, but at the pain in them. The rage.
I knew Paige had had similar issues when she was younger, but I didn’t know the full extent of it. She had my mother and Annabelle to speak to, and I had only been there to hold her hand when she was crying during certain times of the month. Maybe I needed to know more.
“He got his baby. And I was fine with the fact that we weren’t going to have children that way. Apparently, he was not. And now I’m in my head, and I don’t know anything, and you’re here, and I’m telling you all of this, and we’re at the start of our relationship, and I’m just making things worse. But I can’t figure things out.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about me.” My hands slid up her arms, and I cupped her face again. “It’s not about me,” I repeated, my voice soft.
“These are things that I should have told you when and if we became an actual couple with a label and everything. Not when we were canceling a date because of my drama.”
“I have drama, too. This isn’t just you.”
“You say that, and yet I feel like you’re breaking. Like nothing’s making sense.”
“Okay, what do you need to do to have it make sense?”
“I don’t know. Why did he have to cheat on me? Why couldn’t he just tell me it wasn’t working? That he loved her more. It would have hurt, but it wouldn’t have been lies. I hate the lies. Why wasn’t I good enough?” she asked, and my heart twisted for her. I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’
t bring Marshall back in order to fix things and make her not feel as if she’d been broken. I couldn’t fix anything about the situation. But I could hold her. I could try.
And so, I did. I pulled her into my arms, and I held her. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
“I almost wanted to get out of the car and scream at everybody for ruining so much. They’ve ruined the memory of him. I mean, Marshall and I didn’t always get along, but we had something. He was my husband. I grieved for him. The men in uniforms came to our house and told me he was gone, and I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t make it all go away. And yet somebody else was grieving for him. Another woman missed him. A little girl wouldn’t see her father again as she grew up.”
“That’s not on you.” “But it is on me. Because what should I do with all the money that I got?”
“You’re using it to buy a house so you can start this new life of yours.”
“Maybe that little girl needs it more. Gosh, I don’t know. It feels tainted now somehow. It’s not like I earned it. Sure, I was his wife, but he wasn’t faithful. I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
“That’s not on you,” I growled out.
“But it feels like it’s on me. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to fix it.”
“You don’t.”
“What?”
“You don’t fix it. Not yet. You breathe. You move on with your life. You make a decision whether you want to help that little girl with money or whatever. But you don’t have to be a part of any of that life anymore. You have a huge family. Not just your brothers but the Montgomerys, too. We’ll be that future for you.”
As soon as I said it, I thought maybe it was too much. She and I weren’t there yet. I couldn’t be her future. We were only figuring out our present.
“When I watched Brian die, I thought that was it. Figured I would be next, and that I wouldn’t have a chance to make another choice. That I wouldn’t be able to change my future or my path. That every moment and choice I’d made to get to the point before the shelving fell on me, and people were screaming, and Brian was bleeding out, was because of all of those choices before. And maybe they were the wrong ones.
“I couldn’t change any of it, but I had to try. Only I hid. I buried myself and my issues and pretended that I was fine, even though I wasn’t. And I got called out on it.”
She reached out this time and slowly brushed her knuckles across my chin. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“I’m sorry I had to, too. And I’m sorry you’re going through your own hell.”
“It’s not fair what happened to Brian. It’s not fair that all of this shit happened, either. But we can’t go back in time and change any of it. But maybe we can try to fix it. At least, find out where to go from here.”
“I thought I was ready for this new me, but my past keeps coming back.”
“You don’t need to make decisions right now.”
“Then why does it feel like I need to?” she whispered.
“You and me? We’re just starting in this weird place. It feels like we’ve been friends and more forever. So, what we are has nothing to do with those parts that are twisting us up inside. At all. We’re going to be okay. You and me? We’re going to figure things out.”
I hoped to hell that what I was saying was true, but I swallowed hard and looked down at her.
“It just threw me for a loop,” she said, and I ran my hands down her arms again and over her hair. I just needed to touch her.
“I understand. Well, I understand some of it. I don’t understand how everyone else could act as they were, but I can’t change any of that. I can tell you that we’ll be here. I promise.”
She looked at me then, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied my face. “I believe you. I just…things are so weird. I don’t even know how you and I got here. One minute, I was doing my best not to think about you in a certain way because you were my best friend’s brother. And then, suddenly, I was here, and you were in my house. One of my best friends is next door and could come over at any minute, but I don’t care. All I want to do is be with you, but it feels like things are going so fast I can barely keep up.”
“We’ve both had traumas, so I guess we know that we need to take life by the reins and maybe move a little faster than we would’ve thought.”
She blinked up at me. Even I was surprised by that. “That was very insightful.”
“I have no idea where it came from,” I said with a laugh and then leaned down and kissed her. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Maybe. Or perhaps we’ll just flounder our way through it and somehow find the answers in the end.”
I snorted and shook my head. “Well, maybe that is something we could do. I’m here if you need me. Always.”
She rose on her tiptoes and kissed me. I moaned; I couldn’t stop myself.
I felt her smile against my lips and leaned back. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”
“No, that’s something we’re good at. Make love to me?” she whispered. “I just want to feel you. For the night. Is that okay? We can make scrambled eggs and toast later. That can be our date. I just want to stay in. I want to feel you. I feel like me when I’m with you. It doesn’t make any sense, but here we are.”
I smiled softly at her, and I kissed her again before reaching down and picking her up. She moaned, wrapping her legs around my waist. “I love that we’ve already done this tonight.”
“Just kiss me.” Her voice was low, seductive, so I pressed my lips to hers. “Just let me be,” she whispered and kissed me again.
I carried her to her bedroom and laid her on the bed. I slowly stripped her out of her dress, her shoes. Her gaze went dark as I worked on my shirt’s buttons and then tugged it off my shoulders. “You’re so beautiful,” I said to her while looking down at her in her lacy underwear.
“You’re the one stripping in front of me. I think we both know who the beautiful one is here.”
I shook my head, leaned over her, and kissed her again.
I tore off my shoes, undid my pants, and then I was over her, wearing only my boxer briefs. She wore only her bra and panties, and I was kissing her.
I couldn’t fix everything. I couldn’t change our paths or do anything but wonder where we could go in the future. I didn’t know if this would work out or if we’d both end up broken in the end, but I could be here. I could make her forget. I could let her be. And that would have to be enough.
I kept kissing her then, trailing my lips down her neck, her chest. I tugged her bra away from her nipples and bent to lap at each one, nibbling, kissing, taking my sweet time. This was for us, to remember that there was something more than where we came from—and even who we would be once we walked away.
She had been in such pain, had been through so much, and I couldn’t change any of that. I couldn’t make it go away. I could show her that there was something more. Maybe that’s what I needed, as well. To know that there could be something more for both of us. Because Brian was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Marshall was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. They weren’t here in bed with us now. It was only the two of us.
And even if with every kiss came another complication, another twist in our connections and who we were as a group, it didn’t matter. I wanted her. Eliza pulled at my boxer briefs, and I grinned before rolling to my side and pulling them off all the way. She gripped my base, then wiggled down. My eyes widened. “Well, then.”
She looked up at me and licked the tip of my dick. I groaned, sliding my hands through her hair as she swallowed me. She licked up my shaft, cupping my balls as she continued licking and sucking, bringing me to the edge. And then she hollowed her cheeks and hummed along the slit at the tip of my cock.
She couldn’t fit all of me into her mouth. So, she used her hands to squeeze the rest, to tug and pull. I nearly came right then. I pulled her hair slightly to move her away from my dick, and then I was between her legs, her
panties on the floor, me lapping at her. She groaned, her body shaking as I ate her out, taking my fill, needing her. Her legs draped over my shoulders, her thighs pressed against my head. I hummed along her clit, fingering her, finding that tight bundle of nerves as she came on my hand and face. And then I was over her, our gazes meeting as I slowly slid inside, both of us shaking with need. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I thrust in and out of her. This wasn’t hard and fast like the other times. It was slow. Gentle. Something had changed.
She had seen every inch of me, every part that I tried to hide, and she was bearing herself to me, as well. Not only her body but also everything she had hidden away. The parts that I hadn’t been able to see because we had done our best to only be friends.
We were more than that, and it had taken us breaking in front of each other to see that. We took our time, and when we came, I held her close and kissed away her tears.
Because those tears weren’t for me. They were for everything else. And I knew that I might not be able to fix everything. We may walk away from this far more broken than we began, but she was who I needed in this moment—and maybe for longer. And I hoped to hell I could be who she needed, even if I wasn’t sure I could.
Chapter 21
Eliza
* * *
I shook my hips to the music, and Brenna laughed.
“You have so much more rhythm than I do,” she said as she grinned at me. I winked and continued shaking my booty as I pressed the roller to my wall and added another coat of paint.
“I can’t help it. These hips don’t lie.” I paused. “Does that make me sound old? How old is that song?”
“We don’t ask things like that,” Brenna said, her eyes dancing with laughter. “I love the color you chose for your office.”
I looked around, grinning. Annabelle and Jacob had allowed me to paint, and though it had been a couple of months since they had first given me permission, I had taken some time to think about it. Beckett would be over soon to help with the ceiling because, even though I had the stick for the roller, I didn’t like looking up and hurting my neck. Beckett was taller and better at it anyway.
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