I smiled a weak smile. “Do it. That would be the best revenge I could think of.”
There was silence in the room for a moment; then he looked at my belly.
“When did you know you were pregnant?” he asked.
“The second day I was sick and got better in the afternoon, I thought it might be possible, but I didn’t want to take a test to find out,” I admitted. “I didn’t know what I was going to do if it was positive.”
He put his other hand over mind, sandwiching my hand between his. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you or this baby, right?”
He spoke softly, but I still had tears form in my eyes. I shook my head and looked away. “I wasn’t sure what you were going to say when you found out. We were supposed to be fake, and now we’re going to have a baby together. How the hell was that going to work out?”
“Liz, I would do anything for you,” Nick said. “Anything. I know that we’ve been through an awful lot the past few weeks, and I know that you are dealing with a lot right now, too, but I want you to know I’m going to support anything you choose to do with this baby, and if you want me to be in his or her life, I’m going to be there for you through it all.”
“You have to be one hundred percent invested,” I told him. “You can’t get bored with this when you don’t want to have a real relationship anymore and abandon us.”
“I would never do such a thing to you or our baby,” he promised me again. “I am going to be here for you no matter what.”
He was about to continue when my brother came in. I could see by the look on his face that he was a mixture of relieved and pissed, and I knew I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Are you alright?” he asked when he saw me. “I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life.”
“I’m okay now,” I said with a nod. I waited, and sure enough, he brought up the news, too.
“I seem to remember telling you two that I didn’t care what you were doing as long as it didn’t turn into something real. And I’m guessing by the fact that you’re pregnant, it turned into something real,” he said, looking back and forth between Nick and me.
“It’s never really been fake,” I said softly.
“What?” David asked. He looked at me hard, and I took a deep breath. I knew I had to come clean to him now. I had said too much, and he knew the truth about Nick and me anyway. With a sigh, I told him.
“This wasn’t the first time we’ve been together David. It happened when I was a freshman in college too,” I nodded slightly to Nick, and he nodded, though I could see he was uncomfortable. This wasn’t something we were ever going to tell my brother, but we were too far in. He had to know now.
“What the hell!” he said again, looking at us as though he was looking at two complete strangers. For years, I hadn’t wanted him to find out, but telling him now was a big relief.
After all, if we were going to have a baby together, Nick and I had to stop lying about the fact that we were sleeping together. For all the rest of the world knew, he and I were planning a wedding, and, from what Nick had just told me, it seemed that we were going to be a real family after all.
“I can’t do this right now,” David said. “I’m glad you’re okay, but this is a lot for me to process. I’ve got to have some time.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer and instead headed out of the room. I looked at Nick with more tears in my eyes, but he just brushed it off.
“I’m sure he’s dealing with a lot right now. He’s going to come around, just give it time,” he assured me. “Don’t worry about it, really. You need to worry about you and the baby, and we’ll figure out the rest later.”
I nodded. I was still upset with the way David reacted, but I knew Nick was right. I had to focus on the baby and me and getting better. It had to be a shock to my brother, and I felt bad that we had both lied to him all these years. But David and I were close, and I knew he would come around eventually.
After all, I had his niece or nephew growing inside me, and I knew he’d love to be in their life. It was just a matter of him coming around to what had happened and accepting it.
Crazier things had happened in our lives so that we could get through this, too. As long as I had Nick with me, I knew I’d manage.
And, quite frankly, I didn’t want to have it any other way.
Chapter 32
Nick
It had been a few days since either of us had spoken to David, and I was beginning to worry. I wanted to give him the time and the space that he needed to cool down and think about things, but I also didn’t want to risk him walking out of our lives forever.
I knew he was close to Liz, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d felt betrayed by the knowledge of Liz and my relationship. There was no telling for sure if David was going to come back. He wasn’t even showing up to work.
Of course, Candice refused to tell me anything. When Liz told me that he wasn’t at their place, I knew that he had to be staying with her, but she wasn’t going to tell me one way or the other how things were going with him, or what he was thinking.
So, I did the one thing I knew how to do. I would show up, and I would talk to him to his face. Much like the way we would go to each other over the problems we were dealing with in life, we would often confront each other when one of us was acting unreasonably.
It was something that we’d done for years, and I didn’t want to stop doing it now. I knew it was a shock, but I wasn’t going to let him walk out on us without at least telling us to our faces he was doing so.
But Liz was still emotional from everything that had happened, and though she was free to stay at her apartment now, she still had to take it easy. I didn’t want her even to know I was going to try to talk to her brother, so I didn’t tell her that I got the address to Candice’s house from work.
Later that afternoon, I drove over there. I knew Candice wasn’t going to be thrilled, but I was her boss, and I had to talk to my best friend. I walked right up to her door and knocked and wasn’t at all surprised when she glared at me as she opened it up.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I need to talk to David,” I told her.
“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” she replied tartly.
“I’m sure if that’s the case, then he will tell me himself he doesn’t want to talk,” I told her with a smirk. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be flirting with me at work any longer, and there was a part of me that was glad for it. I was still wondering what David saw in her, but I wasn’t going to judge him for liking her anymore.
He was free to be in love with whoever he wanted, and if it happened to be Candice, then I would do what I could to support him in his happiness.
Just as I hoped he would do the same for his sister and me.
“Babe, who is it?” David’s voice filled the room.
“The boss,” she said. “Do you want to talk to him?”
“Is he alone?” David asked.
She looked at me, and I made a gesture with my arms, making a point of her not having to ask. She rolled her eyes. “Yes, he’s alone.”
There was another moment of hesitation; then he reluctantly agreed to talk to me. “Alright, but make it quick. We have plans.”
“I’m not going to take a lot of your time,” I told him as I walked into the room. “But I do want to be able to talk to you alone for a moment.”
I gave Candice a look as I spoke, and she sighed. She looked at David, who nodded. She threw plenty of attitude into her walk as she headed to the bedroom and closed the door, but I didn’t care. This was my best friend Liz’s brother. I didn’t give a flying fuck if Candice’s feelings were hurt.
I had to make sure things were okay, and more than that, there was something I wanted to ask him. The only way to get to the bottom of this would be to talk it out.
Though we both hated it when things were tense between us, I knew that he was willing to talk. At the ver
y least, we had agreed that it was the one thing we would do.
David sat down on the couch and looked at me with expectation in his eyes, and I sighed. “I wanted to talk to you about everything. Not just how things were going for the past few months, but how things have always been, really. I feel like you deserve to know the truth.”
“I’m not sure how much I do know,” he said with a shake of his head. “I feel like the two of you have been lying to me for years.”
“We didn’t want to upset you,” I told him. “I didn’t want to risk losing your friendship, and I had a feeling if you found out I was sleeping with your sister, especially living in the same house, that you would be pissed.”
“Damn straight I would’ve been,” he said with a shake of his head. “That was fucked up.”
“I’m not going to expect you to understand, but it was something that we both agreed on, and we really enjoyed spending time together, even back then. Even years after the fact, I thought about your sister in ways that I never thought about any other woman. She wasn’t just a fling for me. She wasn’t someone I was just passing the time with. She meant so much more,” I told him. “She always has, and she still does.”
It was hard to talk about the past. We had kept it hidden for so long, and I didn’t want his parents to find out the truth. But he was my best friend, and if that was the risk that we had to take, then I was going to risk it.
He was the person I had to talk to about this. Not anyone else. This was too important for anyone else.
“So what now?” he asked at last. “Now that she’s pregnant, what’s your next move? We both know how you have felt about relationships and commitment in the past; what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to be there for your sister and the baby both,” I told him. “I’m not going to let either one of them have to do this on their own. I know what it was like to have a dad who wasn’t in the picture, and I would never do the same thing to my child.”
“Co-parenting then?” he asked. “Are you going to work out a custody agreement with Liz get the kid every other weekend?”
I knew he was trying to bait me into an argument, but I wasn’t going to bite. “I was thinking I was going to marry your sister, actually,” I said. I didn’t know how to put it delicately, so I just said it. I had thought about how to ask him for her hand in marriage, but I had to find out how he felt about us first. I knew that I should really be asking her father, but I felt that I needed to clear things with David before I could even get that far. If he wasn’t going to approve, I didn’t know how I could go through with it.
But that was also my baby in her belly, and I strongly felt that I wanted to be married to the mother of my child, regardless of anything else. I didn’t want to risk losing a friend over it, but I had to do the right thing for my own family.
“Do you love her?” David asked. He was speaking in a slow, low tone. I knew he was feeling a lot of emotion through what I was saying, and he was trying to pick his words carefully. He didn’t want there to be any more tension, either. I knew that about him.
Growing up, he had been the one to reach out and make things right. He didn’t want to fight with his sister or me, and I knew that hadn’t changed about him now. He just wanted there to be peace for all of us, and he was willing to look past his own hurt if we could make that happen.
“Dude, I’ve loved your sister for years. Much longer than I even realized. I know when we were younger, I had these feelings for her, too, but I was too wrapped up in my own shit to admit it to anyone. I was pissed off with my parents, and I had just lost my mother. I didn’t think I could be there for your sister in the way she deserved,” I admitted.
“And you think that that’s changed now?” he asked. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to approve of this if you can’t promise me that you love her with all your heart. I know a kid isn’t going to make this relationship work, even if the two of you have managed to get along for the past few months.”
I nodded. “I’m glad that you care so much that you can tell me this, and I can tell you from the bottom of my heart that I know your sister is the woman for me. I think she is part of the reason I haven’t gotten close to any other woman in my life. I didn’t want to do that knowing how I felt about her.”
There was silence in the room for a few moments, and I wondered if I should continue. I wanted to convince David of the truth. I wanted him to see how much I really did need Liz in my life. This was about so much more than my company. I didn’t even care if the whole damn thing imploded around me.
Right then, all I cared about was the fact that I wanted to marry the woman I was in love with, and I wanted her brother to give me his blessing to do it. At last, the suspense was more than I could take, and I drew in a deep breath before coming right out and asking it.
“Can you give me your blessing to ask Liz to marry me?” I asked.
He sat silently for a few more moments, and I knew he was trying to figure out a way to answer. There was a part of me that worried he was going to say no, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond if he did.
But then, he started to nod. Slowly at first, but then a little faster. He turned and finally looked me in the eye. “If you can take care of her, love her, and make sure she’s happy and safe, then I will give you my blessing.”
A grin slowly spread over my own face, and I held out my hand. “Then with your blessing, I’m going to do it.”
He smiled. “I guess we’ve been brothers our whole life anyway; it’s time to make it official. You’ve always been part of the family. Now you’re going to be part of the family on paper, too.”
I grinned. He was right. We were brothers at heart from the beginning, so why not put it on paper now? I would get the love of my life, and I would cherish her from this day onward.
I had a feeling she would say yes but now came the hard part.
All I had to do was ask.
Chapter 33
Liz
I put on my earrings and looked in the mirror with a smile. I was feeling a bit better after everything, though I was still pretty shaken over what had happened. I was happy today. For the first time since I was in the hospital, David had texted me.
We didn’t talk for long, but he did let me know he wanted to be there for me, and he was going to be in the baby’s life if I let him. I texted him back right away and let him know that I wanted him in the baby’s life more than anything, as well as mine.
We could be one big happy family, and he could accept it because we were very sorry for what we had done to him, and we both wanted to move on with our lives.
He forgave me for not telling him the truth sooner, and I put an end to the conversation. I was sure it was going to take a while for him to come around to the idea that I was going to have Nick’s baby or even the idea that Nick and I were likely going to be a couple.
I still wasn’t sure whether Nick could see himself ever fully settling down, but I didn’t need a ring on my finger to be with him. I knew that I loved him, and if he felt comfortable being with me despite the fact we weren’t married, I was okay with that.
This entire situation was going to take some time for us to figure out, and I knew it was going to take some trial and error before we finally did. But I was determined to make it happen, and I knew Nick was there for me through the process. He had told me more than once he was going to be there for me and the baby both, and there wasn’t anything I would have to worry about.
Of course, I was more than relieved, though I didn’t know what that was going to really mean in the future. I knew I wasn’t going to have to worry about putting a roof over our heads or food on the table. Nick had enough money in the bank that he could support both of us without us ever having to lift a finger to work.
But I would still want to earn some of my own money as well. That was just the kind of person I was, and if I were having a daughter, I would raise her to be the same way. We could take
care of ourselves, even if we didn’t have to. I wanted my baby to be strong, and I wanted them to know that they were capable of being anything.
They’d already survived something incredibly traumatic, and while I didn’t know if I would ever tell them what happened to me that night, I was going to let them know that they were always much stronger than they even realized.
And, with any luck, they might want to grow up and work with their father. Perhaps the company would be thriving even more by then, and they would be able to take it for their own one day. Though I was only a couple months along, I found it remarkable how much I was thinking about the baby’s future.
I wanted them to have everything in the world. I wanted to do as good a job raising them as my mother did raising us. And I wanted them to know without a doubt they were loved.
If it meant that I was going to have to make up for some of the love they missed out on with other relatives, I would make sure that I did that for them no matter what. This baby was going to know what it meant to be taken care of, and they weren’t ever going to lack for anything in their life.
Not a single thing.
I smiled at myself in the mirror before putting on my lipstick. I was looking forward to the evening, even more so now that I had heard from my brother.
Nick had texted me earlier in the day, asking me if I felt well enough to go out with him that night. He didn’t want me to overdo or push myself too far, but he did want to take me to dinner to celebrate the baby and the fact that I had come home.
Of course, I was more than happy to accept the invitation, and I was really excited by the fact that he wanted to celebrate the baby. It was going so different than I had feared, and I was eager to discuss how we were going to both parent our child with our situation.
And, I would be sure to include the fact that I had spoken to David that afternoon, and I thought he was going to come around to the idea eventually. I wasn’t sure if Nick had any contact with my brother, but I wanted to give him hope that it was going to be okay if he did that.
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