Room Mates_The Series

by Kendall Ryan

  I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. “Mason just wants a baby so damn bad.”

  “Is that what he said when you told him?”

  “No.” I didn’t meet her eyes, because deep down, I knew I was just using my questionable fertility to wall myself off from something that terrified me. Love. A future. “I didn’t tell him. I didn’t want to see his expression. Don’t want his pity.”

  “What about the sympathy?” Mandy asked.

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Mandy said, then led Cocoa onto my lap and dusted herself off. “Look, I’ve got to get going. Make sure you lock up when you leave, all right?”

  I nodded, watching her go, but then she turned around again and said, “You can’t live your life in fear, kid.”

  “What if it’s the only thing distracting me from how my heart is breaking?” I asked, and her eyes turned soft.

  “Sometimes, you have to let it break. That’s the only way it’s going to heal. Like a hangnail. Rip it off and let the skin grow back.”

  I laughed, a hollow sound. “That’s a terrible metaphor.”

  “They don’t pay me to be a wordsmith.” She backed out of the enclosure, and I stared down at the cheetah in my lap for another long moment, stroking her fur as she mewled sadly.

  First I’d lost my father. Now I might have lost the chance to become a mother myself—the chance to ever have a family of my own that would be full and happy and complete.

  The impulse to languish and dissolve into my predicament, just like my mother had done, was strong, almost overwhelming. But then, my mother had allowed herself to dive into her grief, and what had it done for her? Even now, years later, she was letting life drift past her, unlived.

  Grieving was a process, not a life sentence and, no matter what the doctor said, I was going to have to face the facts of my father’s death and my own ability to be a mother.

  But I didn’t have to do it alone.

  Not for the first time, I thought of Mason that day in the sand, my hand in his as he asked me to be his wife. He’d booked a trip just for me. He’d gone out of his way over and over again for my sake.

  And what had I done for him? Nothing. I hadn’t even done him the courtesy of letting him know how I felt.

  That was something I could change, though.

  And for the first time in my life? I wanted to talk about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Mason

  This was it. The end of the line.

  After everything we’d been through—all the ways I’d thought fate had led her to me—Bren had walked away like I’d been nothing to her. Slowly, like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, I walked back into my office and asked my assistant to hold my calls until further notice.

  Then, when I was sure I was completely and totally alone, I slid open the top drawer of my desk and pulled out the ring box I’d gotten just this morning. Inside, the diamond solitaire sparkled up at me and I studied the intricate silver filigree of the band, all while trying my hardest not to toss the damn thing across the room. My stomach cramped and I let out a snarl.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  She’d given me every indication she wasn’t ready, throwing up flags in every shade of red on the color wheel. And I’d chosen to ignore them all. Gritting my teeth, I shoved the ring back in my desk and stalked toward the door. I couldn’t see patients today, not like this, and there was only one place I knew I could go to calm down.

  “Cancel my appointments. I’m not feeling well today,” I said to my assistant, then headed out the door and toward my car without looking a single person in the eye.

  Revving the engine, I pulled onto the interstate, following the familiar highway exits until I pulled up in front of the brick building I knew so well. The trees in front of the place swayed in the wind, and I glanced at them briefly. Then I made my way to the door and used the knocker.

  First once, then again, I raised the heavy gold handle and let it drop, waiting to hear footfalls on the other side of the door. On the third try, I finally heard the light pitter-patter of someone’s feet on the wood floor, so I took a step back and waited for my mother to open the door.

  When she did, there was no way I could hold back a moment longer.

  “I have to talk to you.”

  She led me inside, and before she’d even begun to pour the coffee I was admitting to the entire sordid tale. The way I’d looked for Bren after our one-night stand, the imagined pregnancy, the trip I’d planned. Even things most men might not admit to their mothers, I told her, if only so that she might unearth some small detail I’d overlooked so I could make things right.

  “Wow, this girl really seems like something,” my mother said when I was finally finished.

  “She’s not just something—she’s everything.”

  Mom smiled sadly. “That was a lot for one person to take in in one sitting. I didn’t know I was almost a grandma, after all.”

  I nodded. “I just don’t understand why she’d make an appointment with Marlene Thomas instead of me and then not tell me about it.”

  My mother raised her eyebrows. “That’s the part you can’t figure out?”

  “Well, yeah.” I shrugged. “Is there something else?”

  “Are you serious?” She took a long sip of her coffee, surveying me over the top of her mug. “Sometimes you really are your father’s son, you know that?”

  “I’m guessing that’s not a compliment given the impending divorce, huh?”

  My mother smiled. “Your father is kind and smart and funny in all the best ways. But when it comes to women…well, frankly, when he told me what he did for a living, I couldn’t believe it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, first of all, mister, isn’t it obvious why she didn’t come to you or tell you?” She pursed her lips, then began ticking off items on her fingers. “A thirty-year-old woman with irregular periods. What do you think she went to the doctor for?”

  I blinked. “I don’t…”

  “Then they shouldn’t have let you graduate from medical school,” she said with a warm smile that took the edge off. “I’ve been married to a doctor long enough to tell you what that girl was doing and I don’t even have a degree.”

  “You think it was a fertility thing?” I asked, flipping through the conversation with Bren in my mind as a cold ball of dread formed in my stomach. For the first time since I’d ran into her at my office, logic trumped emotion.

  “Well, if you had a patient with her background, what kind of tests would you run?”

  The truth of her words sank into my skin and I sat back, thinking hard. “But, okay, even if she went for a fertility test, why wouldn’t she have come to me?”

  “The man whose baby she thought she was carrying not a week before? Hardly the natural choice, don’t you think? You told her you were disappointed about not having a baby. Do you think she wanted to make you the person who told her she might never have a baby?”

  My breath caught in my chest and, slowly, I shook my head. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”

  “That’s the way it is.” My mother set her coffee down on the table between us, then rested back against the sofa cushions. “So, sweetheart, it makes complete sense why she went to Dr. Thomas.”

  “But that’s not the part I should be wondering about?”

  She shook her head.

  “Care to enlighten me, oh wise one?” I asked.

  She folded her hands together. After letting out one long breath, she said, “Haven’t you wondered what’s going on in this girl’s head that every time you get close to her, she freaks out and runs away?”

  “Well, she told me she got weird about intimacy.”

  “Yes, but why? What do you know about her past? Any boyfriends who left her? If her parents’ relationship was bad?”

  “Shit.” Icy realization crept down
my spine. The most important relationship a woman had was with her father. Bren had lost hers at a young age, before she’d matured into a successful adult and long before she was ready. I couldn’t even imagine what it felt like to lose a parent, especially during those angsty teenage years.

  Mom continued on. “I imagine you told her about my cancer and the divorce, but she never reciprocated at all?”

  I blinked, trying to focus in on my mother’s words in a way that might force them to make sense. “She lost her father,” I finally uttered.

  Mom nodded. “She has a fear of abandonment. My suggestion is to go to her. The longer you let her stew in her thoughts, the more she’s going to convince herself she did the right thing by leaving you. Whatever is making her run isn’t going away anytime soon. In order to open her warm, loving center, you’re going to need to peel away her fear layer by layer. If she’s worth it, you have to try.”

  I nodded. “I will. Thanks, Mom.”

  She rose from the couch, giving my shoulder a soft pat. “Anytime. You actually caught me on my way out.”

  I hugged my mother goodbye and set off for my place, the desperate need to see Bren almost making me pull a U-turn and go straight to her place. But I needed a moment to think, to come up with a plan—figure out the right words to say. I wasn’t about to let us end like this. I’d spent my whole life searching for my one perfect mate, and I’d finally found her. I just had to make her see it.

  When I pulled to a stop in front of my place, Bren’s car was already parked outside. The sky outside was turning an ominous shade of gray and a rumble of thunder vibrated in the distance.

  “Bren,” I breathed. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  She shoved a strand of golden hair behind her ear. “Sorry, I had a lot on my mind and when I got in my car, I just drove. I ended up here.” She let out a massive sigh, her eyes just as dark and stormy as the sky overhead.

  “It’s fine. I was thinking we should talk too.”

  A crack of thunder made Bren flinch.

  “Come on.” I tugged her toward the house.

  Once inside we toed off our shoes and I lead her into the living room. “Something to drink?” I asked as we passed the kitchen. Bren shook her head, stopping in front of the windows.

  For a moment we just stared at each other, neither one wanting to break the charged silence.

  “You were right,” we said the words in unison, then met eyes, both of us afraid to laugh.

  I hesitated, waiting for Bren to speak, and then she offered me a small smile and began.

  “There are certain things about me that I don’t like to share with people. But now… with you . . . ” She shook her head.

  I smiled but didn’t speak. I wanted her to be open to telling me whatever she had on her mind.

  “I told you about my dad on the plane, but I guess I left out the parts about how it affected me.”

  My stomach dropped, but I stayed quiet as she rushed to continue.

  “He was diagnosed when I was twelve, and for three years I watched my mother at his bedside day and night.”

  She paused, but I still said nothing, waiting for her to give me some signal that it was all right for me to talk. For now, this was her time and it was long overdue, so I nodded encouragingly, despite the urge to drag her into my arms and comfort her.

  “So, for those three years, it was like I was losing both of my parents at once, you know? My mother’s attention was elsewhere, my father was slowly losing the ability to do the things we used to do together like go fishing or fix cars. Then, when he died…” Her voice broke, and I waited as she cleared her throat and started again.

  “When he died, it was like both my parents had gone. Even now, so many years later, my mom can barely function without him. And while I was in the cheetah enclosure, I was thinking about that sort of loss, you know? When cheetahs’ companions die, they languish and die, too. And ever since my father died, I’ve been afraid that that is sort of the fate of people who fall in love. You get left behind eventually and it’s not like I can ask you not to die, you know?”

  A slow tear trickled down her cheek and I took a step forward, then grasped her hand and squeezed it.

  She let me hold her hand, and continued. “I know it must have seemed crazy to you with things going so well and me just slipping away all the time. It’s just that I can feel myself falling for you and I can’t bear to lose you, you know? And as we get closer, it’s only going to get worse and when you leave…” Another tear slid down her cheek and she wiped it away hastily.

  “I just don’t want to lose myself the way she—my mom—did.”

  “You didn’t do that when your father died,” I offered.

  She met my gaze wearily. “I did, though. I was a mess for an entire year.”

  “But now?” I shook my head. “You’re not. You can’t live your life running from grief just like I can’t promise to never die. But if you avoid things that make you happy for fear of losing them, then you’ll never be truly happy to begin with.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “It’s just really hard for me. To be near you and know that anything could happen. And when we didn’t have the baby, I just thought, well, I thought I’d lost something all over again. Even though I never had anything to lose. It felt like—”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “But there will be other chances.”

  “Maybe not,” she said, and the silent tears became a gasping sob.

  “Bren…”

  “I’m thirty,” she choked, refusing to be consoled. “And with the unpredictable cycles—”

  I hushed her, then looped my arm around her shoulder and guided her toward the couch. When we were settled, she rested her head on my shoulder and I stroked her hair, silent and waiting for her to find her voice again.

  “What if I can’t have children?” she whispered.

  “You won’t know until the tests come in, but even if you can’t? There are options. Lots and lots of options. This isn’t the end.”

  “But I’d be letting you down,” she choked, and I tucked my hand under her chin, lifting her eyes to meet mine.

  “The only way you’d ever let me down is if you run away from everything we could share without even trying to explore how beautiful it could be. I don’t need to have a baby. I don’t need to have anything except for you. You know that?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

  “I want you in my life. I want to spend every day with you, and what I said when I proposed? I meant it. You’re the best, most incredible thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Then ask me again.”

  “What?”

  “Ask me again.” She sniffled.

  I laughed. “I don’t have your ring with me.” It was in my bedroom, tucked away in a box at the top of my closet.

  “I don’t care. Just ask me.”

  So I did. Bending onto one knee in the middle of the room, I took her left hand, stroking her naked ring finger. “Bren, I love every inch of you and I never want to leave your side for as long as I live. Become my wife, baby?”

  She nodded, still sniffling, then took my hand. “Yes, of course. I want nothing more than to marry you.”

  Grinning like an idiot, I swept my hand through Bren’s hair, pulling her toward me for a soft, heart-stopping kiss. Then, trailing kisses along her jaw, I paused near the shell of her ear and whispered, “From here on out, in sickness and in health, we live every day in the present. What may come, may come.”

  She nodded. “What may come, may come.”

  “Now come here. It’s been too long.” Taking her hand in mine, I dragged her down the hall, all too eager to make up for every lost moment we’d spent apart.

  I led her to my bedroom and paused in the center of the room, turning her to face the large mirror that hung on the wall beside my dresser. Taking my time, I stripped Bren of every article of clothing she wore—today it was a knee-length
skirt and cream silk blouse. I loved how sweet and feminine she was, yet tough at the same time. Once her clothes were on the floor at her feet, I dropped to my knees, worshipping her with soft kisses and teasing licks to all the spots that made her knees tremble.

  “Mason,” she groaned, pushing a hand into my hair.

  When I finally led her to bed, it was with the striking clarity that this was exactly where she belonged. I’d spent all those miserable weeks searching for her—and that was after just one night together. I didn’t want to tell her, but losing her scared me just as badly. Maybe even more. Because I’d already envisioned it all—our beautiful life, her by my side, maybe babies someday.

  We made love with fiery passion the first time, my cock was eager to show my new fiancé how much he missed her. The second time was slower, tender, and perfect. And when we were done I made her stay put while I jogged naked to the closet, Bren laughing at my bare behind and shouting at me to come back to bed.

  But when I returned moments later with her ring, Bren’s protests died on her lips, and with tears gathering in her eyes, I slid it onto her finger where it belonged.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bren

  “Shoes or no shoes?” I stared down at the glittery gold sandals that had seemed perfect at the department store, but now felt like overkill.

  “Whatever you’ll be most comfortable in,” Mandy said. “It is the beach after all.”

  “Barefoot it is.” I kicked the sandals to the side and grabbed my bouquet from the dresser.

  The white lace dress was fitted all the way down to my thighs, where it then jutted out just slightly. I’d known it was the one from the first moment I saw it in the store. Mandy’s bridesmaid dress was seafoam green and looked beautiful on her.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  I nodded, suddenly more eager than excited. “Let’s do this.”

  “You good if I go out for a minute and check if everything is ready?” Mandy asked.

  I nodded, glancing in the mirror one last time. “I’m good.”