Schooled in Love

by Emma Nichols

  Ian rested his elbows on his knees, interlacing his fingers together. “I want to do the right thing here.”

  “The right thing is not to try to hand me your wife and son on a platter and walk away like a martyr,” Paul said. “Look. Finding out I have a nine-year-old son was a surprise. Finding out the way I did from who I did, did not make it a pleasant surprise. Those bitches thrived on other people’s misery in high school and they’ve probably only gotten worse over the years.”

  He leaned forward, mirroring Ian’s position. “Do you love her?”

  “Yeah, I do. I’m pretty sure I love her more than she loves me.”

  “It’s not a competition, man. And the woman who tried to dislocate my jaw is not a woman who doesn’t love her husband.” He leaned back in his chair. “Did she ever tell you about how we started dating, if you could really call it that?”

  Ian shook his head. “We didn’t talk about you much. She just said your dad got transferred and she had no way to get a hold of you.”

  “My dad worked in coal until he got laid off and we moved to Alaska so he could work on the North Slope. I was a scholarship kid. Never had the cool clothes. Didn’t get the new car on my sixteenth birthday. All the rich kids treated me like shit because my dad was blue-collar.

  “Kate was the girl in high school that everyone liked. She wasn’t cliquey, she didn’t pick on people, and she was genuinely nice to everyone. She didn’t have a fake bone in her body. I had a crush on her all through high school but I never would have had the guts to ask her out. She asked me out our senior year for Sadie Hawkins and we dated until my family was forced to move. My dad got laid off right after Thanksgiving. I didn’t tell her—she was really looking forward to winter formal, and I didn’t want to spoil it for her.”

  He looked off to the side. “Hell of a way to spend the holidays though—worrying about whether we were going to get kicked out of our house.” He took a pull from his beer. “My dad got an offer for a job up in Alaska, but they wanted him to start the first of the year. So we packed up on the twenty-second, spent Christmas in some road-side hotel in South Dakota, and rolled into Fairbanks, Alaska on the thirtieth. Kate was off skiing in Vermont with her parents, and I had no way to get a hold of her. School was out for winter break, so it wasn’t like I could slip a note in her locker.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?” Ian asked. The past didn’t matter. He was more worried about the future and what it held for him, Kate, and Tommy.

  Paul met his gaze. “I don’t want you to think I abandoned her. I would have stood by her and done the right thing if I’d known. When the Bitches dropped that bombshell on me, I thought it was just one more bullshit thing like they used to do in high school, and I lost my shit when Kate told me it was true. I never would have expected her to keep something like that from me and I thought she’d done it on purpose because of who I was. I should have known better.”

  Ian considered telling him everything Kate had gone through with her parents, but now wasn’t the time. The guy seemed to be feeling pretty shitty about the whole thing and adding more guilt on top of it wasn’t going to do anyone any good.

  “Where do we go from here?”

  Paul ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not going to get a lawyer and I’ll understand if you don’t want me screwing up your life, but I’d like to meet him. Maybe down the road we can tell him the truth, but I’ll understand if that’s not what you and Kate want.”

  Ian ran his tongue over his teeth. He and Kate had a lot to talk about, even more than just this clusterfuck. He pulled his phone out of his coat pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to Paul. “I’ll talk to Kate. Give me your number, and we’ll try to set something up.”

  Eyes wide with surprise, Paul took the phone gently as if he was afraid it would bite him. “Really?”

  Nodding, he said, “Yeah. I’m not making any promises but I’d want to meet my kid. I can’t say it will be soon, but we’ll figure something out.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded again. “I’m going to go find Kate.”

  8

  The stairwell door on the floor below her clicked open.

  Perfect. Hopefully, it was a hotel employee and not someone from the reunion.

  “Katie.”

  Blinking through her tears, she raised her head to stare at Ian a few steps below her, putting him at eye level with her.

  “I never should have come to this stupid reunion.”

  His lips quirked up in a smile before he could stop them.

  It wouldn’t be so funny once he knew everything that’d happened. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to be with you.” He tilted his head side to side. “Dan and Pete may have called me an asshole and kicked some sense into me, but they were right. I should have been here with you the whole time.” He hooked a finger around a strand of hair and pulled it away from the side of her face.

  Fresh tears spilled over her eyes. “Neither of us should have come. It’s so screwed up.”

  Ian stood, then scooped her up into his arms and climbed the stairs. She tucked her head into his neck.

  “The guy who knocked me up found out. He’s going to get a lawyer, and I slapped him.”

  “You slapped him because he’s going to get a lawyer?” He shifted and opened the door to the hall.

  “No. I slapped him because he asked me to have sex with him to not get a lawyer.” She looked up. “How do you know what floor I’m on?”

  “Turns out we’re sharing a room,” he said.

  He stopped in front of her door and set her down. Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, he pulled out a card key and unlocked the door.

  She ran a hand down his blue tie, the one Tommy had picked out when he was six because he thought that’s what all dads got on Father’s Day. “You wore a suit.”

  “The invitation said dinner was formal.”

  Pressing her lips together to stop the sting in her nose didn’t work and tears fell once again.

  “Why are you crying?”

  There was no way to explain it so he’d understand. Hell, she didn’t really understand it. “You never wear a suit.”

  He kissed her forehead and steered her inside the room. “Come on.”

  She didn’t get farther than the end of the bed before she covered her face with her hands. “It’s so screwed up. I don’t even know how he found out, but he did and now he’s going to try to take Tommy.”

  “He’s not going to take Tommy,” Ian said calmly as he pulled her into a hug.

  “You weren’t there. You don’t know.” She sobbed into her hands and his shirt.

  “I was and I do.”

  “What?” She raised her head and dropped her hands. “How?”

  He kissed her temple. “Let’s lay down and I’ll explain.”

  What did he mean he was there and he knew? How could he possibly?

  He pulled off his jacket, then loosened his tie and pulled it over his head without untying it. Sitting on the huge king-sized bed, he kicked off his dress shoes and stacked some of the pillows.

  “Come on. Lie down. Let’s talk.”

  Her lip trembled. Let’s talk was never good. It was just another version of we need to talk. He probably wanted her to lie down with him so he wouldn’t have to look at her when he told her he wanted a divorce. Swallowing hard around the lump in her throat, she toed off her Chucks and curled into his side with her head in the crook of his shoulder.

  His fingers in her hair felt like heaven. Damn it, he’s literally trying to soften the blow.

  “I was waiting in the bar for dinner to start so I could find you. These two girls came in and started bitching about everything. I tuned them out until this guy started yelling at them and said something like what did you say about Kate? The girls didn’t recognize him, but as soon as he said his name, they informed him that he was a father and you were the mother.”

  “A too-tan blon
de with really fake boobs and a brunette who’d be cute if she wasn’t such a bitch?” she asked.

  “That would be them,” he said, working his fingers through a knot.

  “We called them The Bitches in high school. I think they may have gotten worse.”

  He made a noncommittal sound. “I realized what had happened. That Tommy’s biological father had just been told he had a kid. I followed him out into the lobby thinking I could talk to him, but he’d already found you. I saw you arguing and I followed him when he left.”

  A million thoughts and questions swirled through her mind. “Why did you follow him?” Why not come to her?

  Her head rose and fell with his deep breath. “I thought I could work out a way for me to exit gracefully and give him a chance to have his family.”

  The pain was blinding in its intensity. Sitting up, she moved to the edge of the bed. He was behind her instantly, wrapping his arms around her and burying his head in her neck.

  “Stop,” she whispered. “If you’re going to leave, just leave. Don’t be gentle and drag this out.”

  “I’m not leaving, Kate.”

  “You just said you wanted to exit gracefully. If that’s not leaving, what is it?”

  “Me being the dumbest shit possible.” His arms tightened around her. “I love you so much and I only want you to be happy. You haven’t been happy for a while. If letting you go so you could be with Tommy’s father would make you happy, then that’s what I was willing to do.”

  She threw off his arms and stood, spinning to face him. “For fuck’s sake, stop saying that! You are Tommy’s father. You are the only father he’s ever known and the only father he will ever know. If I’m not happy it’s because I’m reacting to you. You think I haven’t noticed how distant you’ve been since you got back from Afghanistan? You’re miserable. You won’t talk to me. You won’t go to counseling. What am I supposed to do, Ian? I can’t pretend everything is hunky-dory when it’s so obviously not.”

  “This isn’t the life you signed on for. You think I didn’t notice all those people down there with their designer clothes and shoes? That’s the life you should have, and I can’t give it to you.”

  “Jesus—” She looked up, trying to form the words to make him understand. “The life I signed on for is the one where my son has a father who loves him. Where I’m married to the man I fell in love with when he felt my baby kick and he smiled with more joy than I could ever remember feeling. The life I want is the one where my husband loves me as much as I love him, and I don’t feel guilty for wanting it. That’s what I want.”

  Squeezing her eyes closed forced the tears out instead of keeping them in. She turned away and covered her face with her hands. This had all been such a huge mistake.

  9

  Watching Kate turn away tore through him like shrapnel leaving a path of damage that may never heal. He was fucking this whole thing up. He’d been so sure of what to say and what to tell her but now… Standing behind her, he wrapped his arms tight around her, holding her close and promising himself he’d never let go again.

  “Kate. Baby. I’ve always worried that you needed me more than you loved me. If you hadn’t been pregnant with Tommy, you never would have looked at a guy like me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It is, and I’m okay with it. I don’t understand why you stayed with me though. You could have the world at your fingertips, and all I have to give you is the Army and moving every three to four years.”

  “I have my world at my fingertips.” She spun in his arms, resting her hands on his chest. “Don’t you understand that? You and Tommy are my world. I stay with you because I’m in love with you and that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  He stared into her red-rimmed blue-green eyes. Her nose and lips were swollen from crying. She looked horrible and she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

  “You could have so much more,” he whispered.

  “I have everything I want,” she whispered back.

  She slipped a hand behind his neck and pulled him closer as she stood on her toes to reach him.

  He tasted her tears on her lips. Her other arm wrapped around his back while she deepened the kiss. Her tongue touched his and he groaned. It had been so long since they had kissed like this. Every time Kate had tried to initiate sex he’d pulled away, for no reason other than his own ideas of his shortcomings.

  Not this time. This time he would give her everything she needed. Everything thing she wanted, and he wouldn’t hold back. They needed to finish talking first.

  “Kate.” He brushed strands of hair away from her face and watched her eyes cloud with disappointment.

  Stopping her when she tried to pull away, he said, “We need to finish talking first.” He kissed her gently.

  He sat back on the bed and pulled her to sit beside him. Lacing his fingers with hers, he brought her hand up and kissed her knuckles.

  “I was in Paul’s room when you slapped him.” He tightened his fingers. “Don’t pull away. He asked you what he did because he knew you’d never agree to it and he needed to prove that to me.”

  “Why? Why did you need that proved to you?”

  “It’s this feeling that I’ve always had that I’m so lucky to have you and I know I’m not good enough for you. I’ve lived every day of the last ten years holding my breath, waiting for you to figure that out.”

  “Money does not make people good enough,” she said vehemently. “My own parents prove that. Your parents are not wealthy and they are the best people I know. They took me in when I had no one and nothing. I would have ended up in a homeless shelter if it hadn’t been for you and them. Yes, I’m grateful and I’ll always be grateful, but I didn’t marry you out of gratitude. I married you because I fell in love with you. All I’ve ever needed is for you to love me back.”

  He squeezed her fingers, fear and hope wreaking havoc on his heart. “I do. I love you so much, Kate. You are the strongest person I know and I’m sorry I’ve made it so hard for you to love me.”

  She wiped a tear and looked down at her lap. “What else did Paul say?”

  Her non-response almost killed him, but he was the one who said they needed to talk first. “He’s not going to get a lawyer but he would like to meet Tommy at some point.”

  “How do you feel about that?” she asked.

  “I’d feel the same way if our positions were reversed. He understands it’s not going to be an easy or quick decision, but I told him I would let him know one way or the other.”

  She nodded. “Now what?”

  Unable to take her not looking at him, he dropped to his knees in front of her and wrapped his arms around her hips. “Now I spend the next ten years apologizing for being an ass. It’s not going to be easy. I’m not perfect and I’m going to fuck up.”

  Her gaze flitted between his eyes. Cradling his face, she ran a thumb over his bottom lip. “I don’t need you to be perfect. I need you to be real and honest.”

  He hadn’t lied when he told her he was going to fuck up—it was inevitable, but he’d do his damnedest to try not to. He rested the top of his head against her belly as her fingers threaded through the short hairs on the back of his neck.

  “You know you’re going to have to look at the calendar, right?”

  Lifting his head, he caught her teasing smile. “I’ll look at the damn calendar.”

  “Good,” she said softly.

  “Good.” He pressed his lips to hers, a warm sense of peace spreading through him.

  She pulled away. “You know when I made the reservations I’d hoped to treat the weekend like a mini-honeymoon since we never got one.”

  He stood and scooped her up in his arms, crawling across the mattress on his knees. Depositing her in the center of the bed, he braced himself over her.

  “We can still do that. Then when we get home, we can plan a real honeymoon.”

  “I don’t need a real honeymo
on,” she said.

  Maybe she didn’t but she deserved one, and he was going to make sure he delivered on his promise. “Maybe I need a real honeymoon.”

  She grinned up at him. “Well, if it will make you happy, then by all means we should have one.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you so much to my wonderful editor, Jessica Snyder (Jessica Snyder Edits), and my beta readers, Toni and Allyson.

  As always, thank you to my family for your support and encouragement.

  To the readers, those who found me in the beginning and those who are finding me now, thank you for giving me a chance and for reading what the voices tell me to write.

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