Deceived

by Suzannah Daniels

  “Flanagan.” His voice was an odd combination of surprise, anger, and relief.

  He was cleanly shaven, but something about the lines of his face made him look tired. He was shirtless, and my eyes focused on his muscular shoulders before dropping to his well-defined chest and abs. He was beautiful, but even as my eyes fell to the edge of his low-rise jeans, my enjoyment of his naked form was overshadowed by the ugly truth that I needed to reveal.

  I moistened my lips, the tiny nag of nausea adding to my discomfort. “Can I come in?”

  He took a step back and motioned for me to enter the apartment. As I stepped into the living room, I heard him close the door softly behind me, and I pivoted to face him.

  Unsmiling, he shifted his view until our eyes locked.

  Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, wringing my hands. “I…um…I didn’t know how to tell you.” I hesitated, praying he would say something, anything. When he didn’t, I continued, “Please don’t be mad, Cade.”

  “You inexplicably leave in the middle of my proposal, and you don’t want me to be mad?”

  It sounded horrible when he put it so bluntly.

  He shifted his stance and tucked his thumbs in his pockets, which pulled his jeans even lower on his hips. “What is it, Flanagan? What are you not telling me?”

  I breathed out, willing myself to just spit it out.

  A hurt expression played on his handsome features. “Did you lie to me?”

  “Not exactly. I just withheld information."

  “If you have someone else, just tell me.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why do men always jump to the assumption there’s someone else?”

  “What else am I supposed to think?” he thundered. “You seemed pretty eager up until now, and the moment I mention marriage, you take off with your tail between your legs, whispering about secrets. So what’s your big secret, Flanagan? Have you been doing Pax?”

  I’d never been one to lose control, but when he carelessly tossed out his ridiculous accusation, my hand reached out and slapped him before I could stop it. Angry, I inched closer to him, emphasizing my fury by pointing at him. “How dare you, Cade Mayfield! How dare you stand there and accuse me of being with someone else, especially your own brother. Especially after everything we’ve been through over Jessica,” I ground out between clenched teeth.

  His hand reached up and snapped around my wrist, his touch sending jolts of awareness through my body. “Then why, Flanagan? Why would you make me fall in love with you and then take off, leaving me to wonder what the hell happened? Am I not good enough? Are you that repelled by the thought of being married to me?”

  His confession of love squeezed some of the fear from my heart, but I knew that what I had to tell him could change everything. “Do you want children, Cade?”

  “Yes, I told you I wanted children. Is that what you’re afraid of? That I don’t want children? That I won’t be a good father? Damn it, I wasn’t lying when I told you that I want a houseful of kids.”

  “No,” I whispered, anger draining from my body as uncertainty and panic replaced it. “I’m afraid that you’ll want children even more than you want me.”

  “What the hell does that even mean? You’re afraid I’ll love our children more than you?”

  “No!” I yelled in frustration. “What if I can’t give you children?”

  His lips parted as the realization dawned on him.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Cade,” I continued. “I’m terrified that I won’t be able to give you children.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Taking his face in my hands, I assured him, “I love you, and I most definitely want to have your children. But for me, wanting to have them may not be enough.”

  His eyes bore into me, and I could tell he was still trying to make sense of what I was trying to tell him.

  “Remember when I told you my mother had a hard time conceiving?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

  “Have you ever heard of endometriosis?” I asked as my eyes filled with hot tears. A crippling dread spread throughout my body as I desperately hoped that once he understood the reality of my situation he wouldn’t leave me.

  He gently wrapped his fingers around my wrist, angling his head downward until he pressed a kiss into my palm. “No.”

  “To put it simply, it’s a disorder that affects females, and I have it. Pain is a common side effect. Fortunately, my pain has never been as severe as what many women endure, and mine has easily been controlled with contraceptives and on occasion, an over-the-counter pain reliever.”

  Squeezing his hands, I tried to reign in my emotions. I bit my lower lip to stop its quivering. After taking a deep breath, I continued, “Other than pain, the main complication is infertility.” I said it, and I held my breath while I waited to see his reaction.

  His eyes searched mine. “So you’re infertile?”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I tilted my head back, the pain of what this could mean for us clawing at my heart. “Not necessarily, but it is a possibility. My mother has endometriosis, too. It took her years to get pregnant with me, and despite the fact that my parents tried to have other children, I was the only child they ever conceived.”

  “So what are the chances?”

  I tried to remember everything my doctor had told me, everything I had read. “It’s hard to say. It’s a little bit of a mystery exactly how it affects fertility, but my chances could be diminished by as much as fifty percent. Even techniques that are meant to help fertility aren’t typically as effective in women with endometriosis. And the older I get, my chances of becoming pregnant could start dwindling.

  “Women with endometriosis do get pregnant. Sometimes it happens quickly. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes expensive treatments. And sometimes….”

  “It never happens,” he finished.

  I nodded my head, the ugly truth weighting my chest and crushing the breath from my lungs as I tried to hold in a sob.

  “You think so little of me that you thought I would abandon you if you told me?”

  “I saw you with Jessica’s baby. You were so gentle, so loving,” I whispered. “I think maybe that’s part of the reason I let myself be filled with doubt when Jessica showed up at your birthday dinner. I was jealous, not just of her, but of the fact that she already had a baby while I was afraid that I might have trouble conceiving like my mother. I don’t want to be the reason that you don’t get the one thing that’s most important to you. If you marry me, you may never have children of your own.”

  He exhaled softly. I could tell he was trying to process the information.

  I continued, “I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to find someone else. Maybe it would have been better if you had fallen in love with Jessica. She would have been able to give you children. Maybe it would’ve been better if I had fallen in love with Pax. For him, it wouldn’t be a problem if I were infertile.”

  “Damn, Flanagan, do you still not get it? I love you. I want you.”

  “I love you, too, but can you honestly tell me that it won’t make any difference to you whether I can have your children?”

  He opened his mouth and then closed it again and swallowed, as if he could take away the bad taste my words had left in his mouth.

  I kissed him on the cheek, the tears building in my eyes until they finally spilled over and rolled down my face. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Flanagan….”

  I shook my head and swiped at my tears. “You promised me honesty. I don’t want you to tell me something that you don’t mean.

  “It’s better to know now than for us to get married and have problems down the road.” I choked back a sob. “I couldn’t bear it if you grew to hate me because I couldn’t give you children.”

  “I could never hate you.”

  I pressed my lips into a sad smile. “You say that now, but you haven’t really even had
the chance to think about it, to realize how much pressure it would be for both of us. And yeah, maybe I would get pregnant. But I have to face the reality of my situation, and being infertile is a definite possibility.”

  He seemed shell-shocked, and I realized I had dropped an unexpected bomb. I wished I had known a better way to break the news, but news like that sucked, no matter when you told it. There was no way to gradually tell him. It was like jumping into a freezing cold lake. You couldn’t really dip your toe in it and slowly become acclimated. It assaulted your system all at once.

  I gently pressed a kiss to his lips. “I don’t want you to say anything now. I want you to think about it.”

  He reached for me, and I took a step back. “You need to really think about it, Cade. It’s a big decision, and I want you to take as much time as you need. And whatever you decide, just know that I’ll be okay.” I nodded my head and gave a weak attempt at a smile, hoping that he believed it and knowing that it was a lie.

  If Cade Mayfield rejected me, I would be devastated.

  Chapter 25

  Gobsmacked

  Cade

  I watched Flanagan walk out the door, and I had the strong urge to go after her. But shit, I’d been gobsmacked, completely blindsided. It seemed like every time I turned around, someone was pummeling me with some new information that impacted my life significantly, making everything I thought I knew seem like a smokescreen.

  She and I had talked about children. Hell, I had already envisioned us married with little mini versions of ourselves running through the house.

  She was right. I needed time to ponder the ramifications if she was infertile. There were other options: treatments, surrogate mothers, adoption, all of them costly, all of them presenting their own unique set of considerations.

  What if she couldn’t have children?

  That question repeated itself over and over in my mind until the wee hours of the morning when exhaustion finally won out.

  ***

  Despite staying up half the night, I woke at the crack of dawn, a time of day that was reserved for fishing and hunting and biscuit-making grannies.

  I threw on gym clothes and headed to Flex Appeal.

  When I arrived, Lizzie was at the front desk. “Good morning, Lizzie.”

  She looked up, surprised to see me so early. “Morning.”

  “Is Pax in his office?”

  She thumbed over her shoulder toward the hallway behind her. “He is.”

  I lightly slapped the counter as I walked by. “Thanks.”

  When I reached his office, the door was open, and he was bent over the computer, tapping away on the keyboard. I was a hunt-and-peck kind of guy, but Pax was maximum efficiency on a computer.

  “Got a minute?” I asked.

  He lifted his head. “You look like Cade. You sound like Cade. But Cade would never be here at....” He glanced at his watch and leaned back in his chair. “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”

  Ignoring his questions, I entered his office and closed the door behind me. “Cut the shit, Pax. I’m being serious here.”

  “I knew you were being serious when I looked at my watch. Why are you here so early?”

  “Have you ever thought about having kids?”

  His eyebrows rose. “Your burning desire to know whether I’ve ever thought about having kids drove you out of bed this morning?”

  I exhaled. “Never mind.” I got up and headed toward the door.

  “All right. Sit back down,” he instructed.

  I turned and stared at a face that was nearly identical to my own. We may have had different mothers, but it wasn’t evident from looking at us. He motioned toward the chair, and I sat back down.

  “Yes, I’ve thought about kids,” he answered. “And it’s no secret that I don’t want any.”

  “You have no desire to have children?”

  “None.” He rolled his chair closer to the desk and rested his elbows on the desk. “Why?”

  “Jessica’s still in love with you.”

  He shook his head. “No. I’m not getting back with Jessica. I’m not raising her son. I’m not going to call her. I’m done with her, and if that’s all you wanted to know, then you can leave now.”

  Hell, it was pretty obvious that where Pax was concerned, Jessica was a lost cause. “No, that’s not why I’m here.” He cocked his head, waiting somewhat impatiently for me to explain the reason for my intrusion. “I want children, Pax.”

  “So marry Seren. Or Jessica. Or both of them. Have as many kids as you want.”

  “Shitfire,” I yelled as I stood and raked my hands through my hair. “Maybe I deserve that, but I’m telling you, yet again, that I have never been with Jessica. I’m glad things worked out the way they did because marrying Jessica would have been a disservice to both of us. She loves you, and I get it. You’re through with her. But I really want to talk to you about me and Flanagan.” I turned my back on him and paced the length of his office before pivoting back toward him. “I miss how close we were before, Pax.”

  “Maybe you should’ve thought about that before.”

  “I can’t change it, Pax. I wish I could, but I can’t. Are you ever going to let it go?”

  He lolled his head back as if the tension between us was making his neck ache.

  I continued, “At one time, you weren’t just my brother, you were my best friend. I want that back. I have a lot of shit going through my head that I want to talk to someone about. And yeah, I could talk to Hawk or Mason, but hell, Pax, you’ve been teaching me shit since before I could walk and giving me advice since we could talk.” I exhaled and lowered my voice. “And I really need your advice right now.”

  Neither of us moved. I stared at him as I waited to see if he would be an asshole and tell me to get the hell out of his office. Finally, he gave me a slight nod and sat back down in his chair, his broad shoulders stretching across its width.

  I sat, too.

  “Flanagan told me that she may not be able to have children. It’s nothing definite, but it’s a real possibility, maybe even as much as a fifty percent chance.”

  “When you’re talking about kids, that’s a pretty high percentage,” Pax said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, it is. If she is able to have children, it may take her longer to get pregnant or she may not be able to have many children.”

  “I think you have to take the worst-case scenario,” Pax said. “Let’s just say she can’t have children. What then? Is adoption an option?”

  “That’s what scares the hell out of me,” I replied. “Before, I would have said that it absolutely didn’t matter. But then I think about Mom. She treated you and Evan a hell of a lot better than she ever treated me.”

  Pax shook his head. “That’s a different scenario entirely. Dad cheated on her, and I know that you were just an innocent victim, but Mom has obviously had issues dealing with it. She hasn’t done right by you.”

  “And that’s what scares me,” I blurted. “I know what it’s like to feel like I don’t measure up. What if we adopted a child and then she got pregnant? What if I treated the adopted child differently from a biological child? Or what if we adopted a child, and I didn’t form the same kind of bonds that people form with biological children? I don’t want to make a child feel the way Mom and Dad made me feel.”

  “I wish I could help you,” Pax said. “I wish I could say that it would never happen. Maybe the fact that you’ve been around Jessica’s baby will help. I mean, he wasn’t yours. How did you feel about him? I guess it’s hard to compare since you don’t have any biological children, but I think that would be a good place to start to see how you would feel about an adopted child. The truth is you’re the only one who can answer those questions.”

  I nodded, knowing he was right. I probably knew it all along, but it seemed to help to say it out loud, to talk it through with my brother.

  “And while you’re thinking about that,” Pax continued
, “think about Seren. Can you see yourself living without her?”

  Before I could respond, he pointed toward the door. “Take the day off.”

  “But I’m scheduled to work, and I’ve already been off too much the last few months already.”

  Pax’s jaw stiffened while he eyed me. “Can’t I do my own brother a favor? Get the hell out of here.”

  A smile crept across my face. It felt good to have him back in my corner. “Thanks,” I said sincerely, the smile falling away in favor of a more serious expression. “I owe you one.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “We can text each other smiley faces and paint each other’s toenails later. Now go.”

  I headed toward the door.

  “And Cade?”

  With my hand on the knob, I turned and looked at him. “Yeah?”

  “Go talk to Dad. He’s home today, and he said you’ve been ignoring his calls.”

  I gave him a slight nod and left.

  I drove to the same spot that I had taken Flanagan fishing. It wasn’t really a conscious decision. I just preferred to be outdoors, and as the sun burned off the morning mist, I thought about what was really important. What did I want out of life? What was best for Flanagan?

  Staring at a jumbled wad of discarded fishing line, I walked over and picked it up, afraid that wildlife would become ensnared. Hell, it was the perfect representation of my life, a snarled mess filled with so many knots that I didn’t know whether I’d ever be able to disentangle myself.

  By the time I left, I had more questions instead of answers. I thought about my parents and Pax’s suggestion to talk to my dad. I didn’t know whether a conversation with him would do much good, but if it could untangle even one knot….

  When I pulled in the driveway, I had difficulty blocking out all the shit that had blown up the last time I was here. Reluctantly, I got out of the car and went in the house.