by CA Quigg
He took another step toward me and reached out to touch my face. I smacked his hand away.
"You have no right to touch me. Don't you ever lay a finger on me again. Get the fuck out. You can get your stuff some other time."
"I'm going to organize to have it shipped." He picked up his laptop bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Lizzie. I'm sorry.
"My name's Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth, I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't mean for you to fall in love with me."
I blinked and my face crumpled. "You whispered you loved me."
"I didn't mean it."
"What the fuck did Louise do to you to make you hate women so much. You at least owe me that."
He puffed out his cheeks then blew out a breath. "You know we met when we were kids. She got pregnant when we were nineteen." His eyes took on a distant look as if he were traveling back in time. "We got engaged and moved in together. I thought we were happy." He gave a sorrow-filled smile. "When Charlotte was born, I was there. Cut the cord. Held her. I didn't think the kind of love I felt for her was possible."
"What happened?" My heart clenched.
"Six months later, I found out she wasn't mine. Louise had been sleeping with her boss. She took Charlotte and left. She refused to let me see her. Refused to acknowledge I even existed." His voice cracked, but he cleared his throat as if clearing away the emotion.
"Caden… I'm so sorry. I'm not Louise. I love you. We can have a baby. I-"
"I don't want children." He walked out of the house and out of my life. I slammed the door and fell onto the floor and sat there shivering for God knows how long. How could I ever have been so stupid? He was right, we lived in a fantasy, but I hadn't expected it to end so fast or as harshly.
After some time had passed-minutes, hours, I didn't know-I got up from the floor and walked into the kitchen.
His half-full coffee cup still sat in the sink. I traced my fingers around the rim, then picked it up and threw it at the wall. The cup smashed to smithereens and coffee ran down the soft gray walls. I picked up a plate and threw it at the same spot, but no relief came.
He would have his stuff shipped, would he? I would ship it to him in small pieces. I grabbed the scissors from the knife block and ran up to his wardrobe. I flung the door open and grabbed one of his suit jackets, but when his cologne wafted over me, I couldn't do it and dropped the scissors.
Instead of shredding the jacket, I took it from the hanger and wrapped it around me. I lay on the bed and curled into a ball.
Damn him for doing this. Damn him for making me fall in love. Everything had been a lie, and now that he'd gotten what he'd wanted, he'd shown his true colors. Someone as successful as him couldn't make it in business without being cruel and cold.
The sound of my phone ringing from where I'd left it in the hallway echoed around the house. Maybe it was him. Maybe he was calling to ask if he could come home. I scrambled out of bed and ran downstairs two at a time. It was Darcy. I tapped the answer button and held the phone to my ear.
Sobs wracked my body, and I said, "It was all a lie."
Chapter 37
Caden
Through the entire drive back to Manhattan, I couldn't even look at myself in the rearview mirror.
I was a bastard.
A lowlife.
Scum.
If only I'd had the balls to explain to Lizzie the real reason I had to leave. Maybe if I'd told her the truth, she would have understood. Telling her about Louise and Charlotte was easier than taking the risk and telling her about her father's blackmail. When she said we could have a baby, I wanted to haul her into my arms and take her to bed. For the first time since losing Charlotte, the thought of having a baby didn't fill me with horror. But a baby wouldn't stop Beaufort.It would mean he had three lives to ruin and not two.
The tortured look on her face when I left would haunt me forever. I would never forgive myself, and she would never forgive me. Not now. Not ever.
In time she would find someone else, but me? I would never fall in love again. When she cried, I all but fell to my knees. Every cell in my body screamed in pain. And more than anything, I wanted to drive back to Sundown Sands and lose myself in her and beg for her forgiveness.
A car in front of me broke without warning. I smacked the steering wheel and then rolled down the window.
"Learn how to drive you fucking idiot."
The driver stuck his finger out of the window and blew me off. I hit the horn again. Anger boiled my insides. Getting out of my car and giving the driver a mouthful burned inside of me.
The traffic moved again, and the car in front went straight while I turned right. I glimpsed a kid's face peering wide-eyed from the back seat. I shook my head. What was I doing?
I'd driven the narrow streets of Manhattan enough to know how traffic worked. Every man for himself and be prepared for anything. I was angry at myself. Taking it out on other people wasn't the answer. Drinking my sorrows away was preferable than getting pissed off at people I didn't know.
After parking in the garage beneath my building, I jumped in the elevator to my thirtieth-floor apartment. The place wasn't what I remembered. The cold, almost sterile rooms didn't feel like home.
None of Lizzie's perfumes or oils scented the air. We'd lived in Cliffside Cottage for less than two weeks, and the place felt more like home than five years of living in my apartment. Nothing here held any value or laughter-filled memories.
My phone rang. I slid it out of my pocket hoping it was Lizzie. I wanted to know if she was okay.
Beaufort's name showed up on the screen. I didn't want to talk to the fucker, so I let it go to voicemail. The poisonous snake of a man had gotten his way. I was out of Lizzie's life. In the morning, I would email to my lawyer instructing him to sign everything over to Beaufort. I would pay the investors back from my own money. The money didn't matter but losing face with my investors was a kick in the balls. Since I'd started renovating old hotels and country clubs, I'd never let them down.
I would chalk this up to experience. Soon enough, I would have the property in North Carolina to keep me busy. Things happened in business-that's what I'd tell everyone. No one needed to know the real story.
I grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and climbed out of the kitchen window onto the fire escape. The sounds of the city that never sleeps assaulted my ears. The first time I came to New York, those very same sounds were like an orchestra. The most beautiful sounds in the world. The sounds that once energized me. But not tonight. Tonight, they left me feeling tired and deflated.
I didn't want to be one person in a sea of millions. I wanted to be one person in a beach town where the locals went to the bar for game show nights. Where real estate agents told your business to everyone who would listen. I wanted to be where she was. But I could never go back.
I wouldn't blame her if she reported me to immigration and said I'd fooled her. But she wasn't that vindictive even if her father was. I took a slug of beer, but there was no taste to it. I slid down the wall until I sat. I rested my forearms on my knees. The beer bottle dangled from between my fingers.
I glanced up at the cloud-covered night and inhaled. There was no scent of brine or sounds of nature anywhere. The only thing I smelled were millions of bodies crammed into small spaces.
Maybe after the North Carolina deal went through, I would look for a place by the shore. Somewhere I could go to when I had a few days.
I huffed out a laugh. Who was I kidding? I would never give myself a few days off again. I didn't want any space in my brain for anything other than work. I didn't want to think about what I'd lost and what I could have had.
My mother would rip me a new one. My sisters, too. I'd broken Lizzie's, heart. Not just broken it, I'd stomped on it and left it a bloody mess. I couldn't tell her I'd meant it when I said I loved he
r. That would have been worse. She didn't need to know my true feelings.
I wanted to jump in my car and go back and tell her but I couldn't. Beaufort was a dangerous man. Behind the booze haze was a calculating manipulator. I'd been in business long enough to know not to trust someone like him, but I'd been blinded by Lizzie.
Maybe she was in on it the entire time. I shook my head at that stupid thought. There was no way she was scheming with her father. The way her eyes and face reflected her pain told me that.
I climbed back into my apartment and threw the remainder of my beer down the sink. I needed sleep before any more ridiculous thoughts reared up in my mind. Lizzie loved me, and nothing would make me think any different.
After getting undressed and throwing my clothes in the hamper, I glanced down at my finger and frowned. I still wore my wedding band. Funny, it wasn't the noose it once was. I slid it off, put it into the nightstand drawer, and locked it away forever.
Chapter 38
Elizabeth
I lowered the toilet seat lid and sat. This test had to be negative. The last six had said pregnant, but this one would say not pregnant.
The nausea was down to the stress of work beginning on the club and my dad's continued disappearances.
I couldn't be pregnant. There was only one time when we hadn't used a condom, and I'd been on the pill. I hadn't missed a day. I couldn't be that fertile, could I?
The test blinked ready. Closing my eyes, I sucked in a breath. Please say not pregnant. Please say not pregnant.
I opened one eye.
Pregnant.
My life couldn't implode anymore. I threw the test into the trash and stared at the floor. My apartment wasn't big enough for a baby. In the month since Caden walked out, I hadn't been back to Cliffside Cottage.
Darcy and my other sisters had packed up my belongings. They had even dealt with the shipping company Caden had organized.
Ever after would never be mine. The fairytale I'd been living in my head would never give me the love I so desperately craved. And now the Grimm's fairytale that was my life had resulted in a baby. More fuel for the gossip machine.
When I started to show, they would have enough shit on me to last a lifetime. There was no question I would keep my baby-our baby. I would have to tell Caden. After everything that had happened in his past with his ex and her baby, I would include him in everything. I would never deprive our baby of her father. I just didn't know when I would tell him, or how I would tell him. He said he didn't want children.
What would his reaction be? Disgust and accusations of how could I be so stupid. Or would he do the chivalrous thing and offer to stand by my side?
I supposed now would be a good time to cry, but I couldn't cry because I had no tears left to shed.
A baby.
I was going to have a baby. I wasn't ready to be a mom. I was too emotionally weak to raise another person. To be responsible for nurturing a new life. Waves of nausea churned in my stomach.
I quickly slid off the toilet seat and lifted the lid. I wretched until there was nothing left in my stomach. Sweat beaded my forehead and lip, and I was so ravenous I wanted to eat everything.
After wiping my mouth and brushing my teeth, I glimpsed my reflection. With my bloodshot eyes and hollowed cheeks, I looked like an extra from a vampire movie. The day after he left, I'd bought some dye but hadn't been able to bring myself to go brunette again. I liked being strawberry blonde, even if my dad hated it. In a way, I felt lighter.
The doorbell chimed.
I left the bathroom and answered the intercom. "Hello."
"I've got warm bagels," Darcy said.
"If they'd been cold, I would have told you to get lost," I replied, buzzing her in.
Over the past few weeks, Darcy had clucked over me. Making sure when I wasn't working, I had something to do or had someone to keep me company.
The day after Caden left, she moved in for a week and forced me to do things like shower and eat something other than chocolate and cupcakes.
She breezed in, carrying the scent of a frosty day and fresh bagels with her. When she saw me, she pressed the back of her hand to my forehead.
"Are you okay? You look pale. Did you eat the soup I made you yesterday? You need to take care of yourself. No sister of mine will fall apart because of a man."
"You don't have to keep babysitting me. I'm all right."
"If you say so." She busied herself making coffee and popping the bagels into the toaster. "How about I make us some breakfast, and we can talk."
"You're already making breakfast, and I don't think I can talk about it anymore. He didn't love me. End of story." Saying the words still cut me like a serrated knife.
Only Darcy knew the extent of my feelings and the real story. When I told her the truth about my marriage, she was pissed and wanted to kill, but she said she would yell at me another time.
Without my family, Darcy especially, I would have thrown myself off the cliff. She carried me through the first week. She made me go back to work.
And now here I was keeping another secret from her. I didn't even want to admit I was pregnant never mind admit I was stupid enough not to use a condom with my fake husband.
"You still here?" Darcy asked, slathering a plain bagel with butter. "You fogged out for a second."
"Sorry. Thinking about everything I have to do this week."
"Everyone is so excited about how it's going to look when it's done and how much business it'll bring each summer."
She set a cup of coffee and bagel in front of me and licked a slick of butter from her finger. I stood abruptly and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. I gulped down half of it hoping it would settle the nausea. It didn't. Without being able to stop it, I projectile vomited over the kitchen floor.
"Jesus. Are you possessed?" Darcy asked jumping out of the way. "Has a poltergeist taken control of your body?"
"Not quite." Shaking, I slumped onto the chair.
Darcy grabbed a dishtowel and began mopping. "Did the soup give you food poisoning?"
"I'm pregnant."
Darcy stopped cleaning. "Pregnant? How? When?"
I laughed bitterly. "The usual way. If my calculations are correct, our wedding night."
Darcy sat down beside me. "Jesus. Jesus. God."
I laid my head on her shoulder. He was gone, and I was alone. The time for putting on a brave face had passed. "What am I going to do?"
"You're going to have to tell him."
"I know. I'll wait until I know for sure. When I've had my first doctor visit."
"You know I'll do everything I can. I'll be the best aunt in the world. I'll be like a mommy-aunt."
I sniffed and smiled. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Sisters before misters, sister."
"Always."
The next few days passed in a blur of working with the project manager at the club and filling orders for my Etsy store.
My doctor confirmed what I already knew. I was pregnant. Almost five weeks. She did a sonogram, and I cried when I saw my baby's beating heart. There wasn't much more to see than a few cells, but a little person was growing inside of me. She-because I was convinced I was having a girl-would know every day how much she was loved.
