by Darcy Burke
She set the phone down and straightened in her chair. Behind her, he saw a wall with photos. He didn’t look too closely but saw kids. They must be hers.
“My sister’s an idiot.”
That wasn’t the word he would choose. “She’s something, all right.”
Rhonda winced. “Yes, about that. I’m going to break her confidence and tell you something I probably shouldn’t because I think it’s important. It might not matter in the great scheme of things, but if somebody doesn’t fight for what they really want here, it would be a tragedy.”
Cam stared at her for a moment, torn as to whether he wanted to hear whatever she had to say. He supposed it couldn’t be worse than anything Brooke had already said to him. “I want to be intrigued, but I don’t think I can muster that right now.”
She nodded. “I get it. Just listen. Brooke can’t have children.”
Of all the things he might have been expecting, that hadn’t been it. She didn’t say anything more, probably to let this sink in. But he was having trouble processing. “She told me she didn’t want children. If she doesn’t want them, what difference does it make?”
“Because she lied to you. She does want children. Desperately. She tried—for years—with her ex, and it just wasn’t possible—”
Cam cut her off. “She lied to me? Why would she lie to me?” He’d been lied to before, and it had hurt. This time was no different. His insides curled in on themselves, like someone was peeling him away layer by layer. He shouldn’t feel this strongly given the amount of time they’d known each other. But damn it, he did. He loved her. And she’d lied to him.
Rhonda had started talking again, but he didn’t hear a word of what she said. Well, he heard sound, but the meaning? Absolutely no idea. He couldn’t process past the anger and hurt thundering in his head.
“Thanks for calling.” He disconnected the call without noticing if she’d stopped talking and definitely without caring.
He turned and stalked out of his townhouse, slamming the door behind him. He barely looked before crossing the street. At the door to Brooke’s loft, he hesitated. He had to buzz up, and she wouldn’t let him in. Probably.
Clenching his fists, he swore violently. Maybe someone would come along. She’d asked him not to come in that way, but right now he didn’t give a shit what she wanted. She owed him the truth.
He paced in front of the building and froze a moment later at the sound of her voice.
“Cam?”
He turned and saw her standing just outside the door. Had she seen him out here? His gaze flicked up to her window as if he could assess her view. It didn’t matter. She was here. And he was livid.
“Your sister just called me. I think I deserve an explanation.”
The light from the lamp on the outside of the building splashed over her face. She was pale and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. Good.
“What did she say?” Her voice was low, and it trembled like a leaf on a blustery day.
“That you can’t have kids, but that you want them. Is that true?”
She squeezed her hands together. “Yes. I was just coming to tell you.”
“Because you were hoping to beat your sister to it? How big of you.”
“I didn’t know she was going to call you. I’m sorry she did—not because I’m mad she told you. It’s just… This is between us.”
“There is no us.”
She flinched. “Can I explain?”
“No. Maybe. But I’m talking first. You had a chance to tell me the truth, but you chose to lie instead.” He advanced on her. Her eyes darkened with trepidation, but she didn’t move. “Do you know what I hate more than anything? People who lie to me. My ex lied to me. All the time. All while I was so in love with her and planning to ask her to be my wife, she was fucking some other guy and getting engaged to him. So lying isn’t something I can tolerate. Ever.”
She paled even further, her eyes looking dark and huge in her face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“And would that have changed anything?” He took another step toward her until he could reach out and touch her. He caught her familiar scent—that damn vanilla and bergamot—and hated it. “If you’d known I’d been utterly betrayed, you would’ve told me the truth? I don’t think so. Tell me why you lied.”
“I just…” Her lip quivered, and she looked away, turning her head. “It hurts too much. I saw you with your niece, and then when Kyle’s baby was born… You should have children.” She turned her head back to look at him. “I can’t give you any.”
For the first time, his brain slowed and relinquished a bit of his anger. “Why? What’s…what’s the problem?”
“I don’t have viable eggs, and my uterus isn’t hospitable. I had a surgery to try to fix it, but it didn’t work, so I can’t even carry a donor egg.” She smiled then, and it was the saddest expression he’d ever seen. Nearly all his ire fled. “So you see, I’m pretty worthless when it comes to procreation.” A tear snaked down her cheek, and he stared at it, trying to understand what this meant for her.
“I’m sorry.”
She wiped at her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah, it sucks.” She tried another smile, this one a little better but still wobbly. “You’d think I’d have come to terms with it over the past few years, but I really, really wanted to be a mom.”
The ache in her voice sliced into his heart. And he learned something vital about himself right then: “I really want to be a dad.”
She nodded and another tear escaped. “I know. I can see that about you. I love that about you. I wish…I wish things were different. I’m so sorry about earlier. If I wasn’t in love with you, I could’ve just kept going as we were.”
In love with him. She was in love with him.
“I love you too. But—” That single word fell out of his mouth before he could censor it. He loved her, but she was standing here telling him she couldn’t give him children, something he realized he wanted. The future he’d denied himself out of the hurt and anger he’d nurtured the past eight years unfolded before him—a dream he hadn’t known he’d harbored. Until now.
And it was more than the kid thing—that he’d have to process. He just didn’t know how he felt at all. None of that changed the fact that she’d lied to him. She’d made a decision to end their relationship without giving him a fair shot. Just like Jennifer had done.
“But what?” she prodded, sounding small and uncertain.
Part of him wanted to reassure her, to hold her, to tell her everything would be all right. He didn’t hate her. He didn’t want her to hurt. Not when she’d clearly been through hell. The other part of him, however, was in defense mode. He’d worked so long and so hard to protect his heart from further damage and right now, it was hanging on by the tiniest of threads.
“But I need to go. I have to think about…everything. I honestly don’t know where we go from here. I’m sorry.”
He turned and hurried across the street because he didn’t want to see her cry.
Silent tears slithered down Brooke’s cheeks as she watched him go. This was what she’d expected, what she’d known would happen, what she’d tried to shield herself against. But it had been no use—she was as hurt and broken as she’d ever expected to be.
She turned and trudged back into her building but didn’t go upstairs. She sat on one of the chairs in the lobby and just stared through the glass doors toward his townhouse.
She could go over there and beg him to forgive her. But no, he’d said he needed to think. She owed him that much at least.
His hurt and anguish washed over her, and she realized she was going to completely lose her shit. She bolted up and pounded the Up button for the elevator. She just managed to keep herself together until she was back in her loft. As soon as the door was closed and the lock turned, the tears fell in earnest.
What had she been thinking? Certainly not of him. Shielding him from future heartache
had been a lie she’d told herself. She’d wanted to protect herself, and it had royally backfired.
They’d both tried to keep their hearts safe, but in the end, it hadn’t mattered. She remembered some stupid Internet meme she’d seen: the heart wants what it wants. And hers wanted Cam. His had wanted her too, but would that be enough?
She understood that he needed to process. It had been slightly different with Darren because he’d already been married to her. He couldn’t just walk away. He had eventually, but that had come over time. As she’d undergone procedure after procedure and received bad news and more bad news. How much of that had been her fault, just like this? Yes, Darren had cheated, but she’d pushed him away. She’d burrowed herself deep under the weight of her depression and shut him out. Was it any surprise that he’d found someone else?
Not any more surprising than it was for Cam, a young, healthy man who wanted a family, to walk away from her. She didn’t really deserve anything different.
She’d turned her phone off but imagined Rhonda was madly trying to reach her. She found it, turned it back on, saw a ton of missed calls and all-caps texts, but she didn’t read any of them. She typed in a simple message and sent it to her sister.
I’ll be fine. I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Yes, she’d be fine—the new definition of fine she’d created after starting the new no-kid chapter of her life. The kind of fine that left the edges of her soul feeling frayed and the weight of her heart too heavy to bear.
Chapter Twenty
Too much whiskey had made Cam’s head feel like an anvil. He walked into the winery Thursday morning and didn’t bother taking his sunglasses off. Maybe he’d just go up to his office and sleep on the couch.
“Yo, there you are.” Jamie leapt down past the last stair as he came down into the main room. “I have like a billion questions about Saturday.”
Cam held a finger to his lips. “Shhh. You don’t need to yell.”
Jamie cocked his head to the side and studied him. “Dude, I can’t see your eyes, but I’m guessing you’re hungover.”
“Maybe.” Abso-fucking-lutely.
“What are your billion questions? And can you please whisper them?” He walked past his little brother and started up the stairs to his office. Slowly. Climbing each one felt like scaling an entire rock wall. By the time he reached the top, his stomach was churning and his head was throbbing. Had he forgotten to take that Tylenol?
He made it into his office and collapsed onto the couch, instantly closing his eyes. Maybe coming to work had been a bad idea. But he had to be here. The biggest event of their fledgling winery was happening in just two days.
“Cam?”
“Mmm?” He’d forgotten about Jamie entirely.
“Are you all right? Well, aside from your ghastly pallor. Should I bring you a garbage can?”
“Probably not a terrible idea.” Cam didn’t think he was going to puke, but it was maybe better to be safe than sorry just now. “Lying down is an improvement, though.”
“Anything you want to talk about? I mean, why the hell are you so hung?”
Cam lifted his hand to wave at him but didn’t think he raised it very far. He kept his eyes closed. “It’s no big deal.”
The “no big deal” crept into his mind for the first time since he’d gone back to his townhouse and drunk half of that bottle of whiskey. He shoved her from his thoughts.
“Hey, what’s up?” That was Hayden’s voice. “Holy hell, you weren’t kidding. He looks like hammered shit.”
He and Jamie were apparently discussing him as if he couldn’t hear them. “I can actually hear you, despite my, uh, deteriorated state.”
“Did you actually drive here?” Hayden asked, his voice incredulous.
“Yep. I’m not drunk. But you know, that’s not a bad idea either. Little hair of the dog, maybe.” He opened his eyes and tried to sit up. The room tilted sideways, and he fell back against the couch with an “oof.”
“Maybe we should let him sleep for a while,” Jamie said.
“Yeah, probably.” Hayden sounded concerned.
“Don’t worry about me.” Cam was already fading. “I’m goooo…”
Cam startled awake and knocked his sunglasses off his face. They fell to the floor as he rolled to his side. His office was dim and blessedly empty. His heart had sped up but now began to slow as he realized where he was.
He swallowed. Damn, his mouth was dry, and his teeth felt like they were wearing furry slippers. Gross.
He pushed himself up and was instantly rewarded with a sharp pain in his head. Awesome.
After a moment in which he gathered his equilibrium, he found his footing and stood. Right on his sunglasses, crushing them. Not awesome.
He stumbled to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. Opening it seemed harder than normal, but he blamed his fuzzy, still mildly hungover state. He downed half the bottle in one gulp and made his way to the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth practically out of his mouth.
The rest of the bottle of water went down nearly as fast, so he got another one. After taking a healthy swig of that, he sat behind his desk and started up his computer. Judging from the number of messages in his Inbox, Jamie wasn’t the only one with a billion questions.
This was good, though. Busy was good today. No, busy was great.
A couple of hours flew by before his stomach started to grumble with hunger. Finding a decent place to take a break, he went downstairs to grab some food.
As soon as he rounded the corner on the landing of the stairs, he saw his partners sitting in the main room. Like they were waiting for him. He took the rest of his descent slowly.
Luke stared at Cam’s feet. “I realize you’re the most fashion forward of us, so I guess mismatched shoes are the latest thing?”
Cam looked down at his feet and saw that he was indeed wearing two different shoes. Well, that was pretty fitting for this shit show of a day. “Yeah. It’s totally a thing. Saturday night, you better not wear a matched pair.”
Cam went into the kitchen, hoping that was going to be the end of the interrogation. He was dead wrong, of course. All three filed in behind him.
Opening the fridge, he kept his back to them. “You guys don’t have to babysit me.”
“Oh, we’re not babysitting. We’re being nosy assholes,” Hayden said. “Spill. I don’t remember the last time you came in looking like death. Probably because you never have.”
That was true. Cam loved wine, but he wasn’t a big liquor drinker. At least, not of the half-bottle-of-whiskey variety. “I opened a really great bottle of Scotch last night. Sue me.”
“Are you going to tell us your deal?” Luke asked. “Or are we going to have to call Brooke and ask what’s going on?”
Cam closed the fridge and turned to scowl at them. “Why do family think they have the right to butt in?”
He was simultaneously glad that Rhonda had called him last night but also annoyed that she’d stuck her nose in. Brooke had come around—if he believed that she’d really been coming to see him. Since she’d come outside and looked so…anguished, he decided he did. Even if she had lied to him before that. And maybe that made him an even bigger fool than he already was.
“Because they do,” Hayden said grimly, speaking from very specific experience. His family had meddled in a major way, enticing Bex into coming back to town with her dream job in the hope that she and Hayden would get back together. It had pissed Hayden off to the point that he’d left town, but in the end, it had worked.
Cam suddenly felt weary and defeated. “Brooke and I broke up. We just weren’t going to work out. Satisfied?”
Jamie leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms. “Hell no. Why?”
“The particulars don’t matter. Anyway, they’re her business, not mine.” He wasn’t sure it was his place to tell them all that she couldn’t have kids.
And just like that, what litt
le wind he had completely left his sails. His heart ached for her, just as it ached for his own loss. He loved her. More than he thought he’d ever love anyone again. She was a gift, but not the one he’d expected. He could only imagine how she felt. He could walk away from her, and he could have children of his own. She could not.
“Sounds like a cop-out,” Hayden said.
Cam bared his teeth at him. “Damn it, Hayden, it’s not. She’s infertile, okay? I finally fall in love with someone—someone I can think about spending my life with—and it’s not what I expected.”
All three of them wore identical expressions—pitched brows, wrinkled forehead, semi-frowns.
“What are you saying?” Luke asked.
“I know you all think I’m a committed bachelor, and I guess I was. No, I was a hurt bachelor. And it just took me a long time to find my footing. Contrary to all the shit you give me, I’ve practically been a monk since we started this winery.”
“We know,” Jamie said. “And I’m sorry we gave you shit.”
Luke nodded. “Me too. But dude, you’re in love with her. That’s gotta count for something, doesn’t it?”
With a sigh, Cam slouched back against the counter next to the fridge. “I don’t know. She lied to me about not being able to have kids. I had to hear it from her sister.”
Hayden crossed his arms over his chest too. “Ah, now your meddling-family rant makes sense.”
“That can’t have been easy for you,” Luke said softly. “After Jennifer.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Can you forgive her?” Hayden asked. “I know a lot about forgiveness—it’s not for her, it’s for you.” He did know a lot. He’d had to forgive his parents for interfering.
He wasn’t sure, but… “I want to. I just don’t know about the other.” He hated saying this out loud. He felt like such an asshole. “The kid thing. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to be a dad until she said she couldn’t have children.”
