by Kait Nolan
What was going to happen now? Was Mitch going to be okay accepting the status quo? She’d thought she handled the situation as well as she could. She didn’t want anything else to change. But what if she’d lost whatever chance she had with him by not being willing to meet him on his terms? The idea of it sent a flare of anger and frustration scorching through the hurt. How could he box her in like this? She’d had to face so much adjustment in such a short span of time. It wasn’t fair for him to throw this at her too and expect her to just jump at it. Didn’t he understand that?
Of course he didn’t. Because he hadn’t truly had time to know her. Not all the way.
“Okay everybody, dinner is ready,” Norah announced. “Head to the dining room.”
Tess automatically began moving down the hall. “What are we having?” She could talk about food. Food was normal. She desperately needed some normal.
“I found this recipe for pork chops with tomato curry I’ve been dying to try.”
“I ate tons of curry while I lived in London. It became a real favorite.”
“This one intrigued me.” Norah leaned over the table and lifted the lid on a large dish.
The pungent scent struck Tess like a blow. Her body jerked in defense as her gag reflex kicked in at Incredible Hulk strength. She barely managed to set down the wine before sprinting down the hall for the powder room. She couldn’t even get the door closed before she hit her knees and vomited up everything in her stomach.
Moments later familiar, gentle hands pulled back her hair. Mitch. Because of course. He efficiently wet a cloth at the sink with one hand as he continued to hold her hair through the second round—because her stomach was never satisfied with just one. It was a routine they’d perfected. But she just couldn’t take it right now. This man was the reason her life, her body had spun completely out of control. So as soon as she found the strength, she smacked his hand away. “For God’s sake, Mitch, I’m pregnant, not an invalid. Leave me be.”
The hand curled at her nape in a gesture of comfort froze and withdrew.
Guilt immediately washed over her. She was upset, confused, but he was only being kind and supportive. She dropped to her butt and turned, intending to apologize…and saw her father standing in the hallway behind him, his jaw slack with shock.
Tess dropped her head against her updrawn knees. “Shit.”
“Pregnant?” Trey’s shocked stutter from the hall had Mitch closing his eyes.
She was supposed to have said yes. They were supposed to announce their engagement and give everybody a little while to get used to the idea of the two of them as a couple before they sprang the news of the baby. But she’d said no, and now the secret was out with no preparation, no forethought, no means of damage control. Absolutely nothing was going the way it was supposed to. Could this day get any worse?
No. Mitch knew better than to ask that question. Everything could always get worse.
Knowing it probably would before this was over—especially for Tess—he backed out of the bathroom. No matter how frustrated he was right now, he’d do whatever he could to shield her from the backlash.
“Take however much time you need.” He shut the door and braced himself. He’d never dreaded facing his family before, but he dreaded this. What would they say? What would they do? Didn’t matter. Mitch turned to find all of them trailing down the hall in a line, staring with various degrees of shock and confusion.
Trey’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Did she say pregnant?”
Mitch kept his tone even, quiet. “Everybody go sit down.”
Nobody moved other than to split their stares between him and the door at his back. Beyond the door, the toilet flushed and the water turned on.
He crossed his arms and drew himself up to his full height. Bodyguard wasn’t his default role, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to allow them to make Tess feel any worse about this. “She’s been through enough without having the lot of you staring at her like she’s a circus freak. Sit the hell down.”
The steel in his tone earned him several sharp looks, especially from the older generations, but they started moving, filing into the living room. Nobody went into the dining room except Norah, probably to cover the food again.
The hallway was empty by the time the door opened and Tess emerged. She’d found some composure again, wrapping herself in a determined dignity, despite the fact she’d been puking her guts up just minutes ago. It was a helluva trick. She didn’t meet his eyes as she moved down the hall, toward the murmuring voices. Mitch was right behind. Everybody fell to silence as they came into the room.
Tess zeroed in on her dad, head held high, almost defiant. “Yes, I said I’m pregnant.”
“How far?”
“A little over eleven weeks.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, and Sandy reached over to lay a hand on his arm as he ground out, “Who?”
Some of Tess’s defiance wavered and she swallowed. Mitch wrapped his arm around her stiff shoulders, unsurprised when she didn’t tuck into him. God forbid she let him take care of her here, even now. But he held his ground as exclamations of shock rippled through the room. Trey’s hands had balled to fists, and Mitch couldn’t even look at his own parents.
“We met in Edinburgh. She’s why I extended my trip.”
It took the group approximately three seconds to do the math and conclude they’d fallen into bed almost as soon as they met. Which wasn’t inaccurate but was uncomfortable as hell as the realization settled in.
Trey scooped a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know what to say about this.”
Tess’s back went ramrod straight as she took a step toward him. “You don’t get to say a damned thing to me about this. You don’t get to judge. We both know I wouldn’t be here right now if not for this exact situation.”
Mitch absorbed that kick to his gut. He’d wanted her from the first, before the baby. Without the baby. Was she really saying she wouldn’t be with him at all if not for it?
Maybe he had it wrong. She was strung out and upset and embarrassed, no doubt feeling cornered by having things come out like this. He had to believe she meant something else.
A vein in Trey’s temple began to throb in time with the muscle tick in his jaw. “Will you be getting married?”
“Of course you would ask that,” she scoffed.
“It’s a relevant question.”
“A baby is a terrible reason to get married.”
At the end of his rope, needing answers, Mitch turned toward her. “Why? You’ve said no, but you haven’t explained why. It’s the right thing to do. You’re carrying my child.”
She flinched at the words, as if he’d lobbed some terrible insult. But before he could process the reaction, she squared off with him and lifted her eyes to his. “Because you don’t love me.”
His head kicked back as if she’d punched him. “Tess.” After everything they’d shared, how could she believe that? “Did you hear anything I said to you this afternoon?”
“Every word. You love this baby. I have absolutely no doubt about that. And you’ve tangled that up with what you feel for me. But the truth is, you don’t know me well enough to love me. How could you? That wasn’t what any of this was supposed to be about. God knows, that wasn’t what either of us was looking for when we started this.”
“Don’t,” he growled. “Don’t reduce this to a casual affair. We were more than we intended from the start, and you know it.”
“Maybe we could have been.”
The past tense and her expression of absolute resignation and regret had Mitch’s gut clenching in panicked desperation.
Tess laid a hand over her belly. “But this…this changed everything.”
“Why?” he demanded. For the life of him he couldn’t understand where this defeatist attitude was coming from. Maybe the baby upped the timetable. And sure, it added a layer of stress they otherwise wouldn’t have had. But it didn’t change how they
felt about each other.
The breath she sucked in was slow and measured, as if she was searching for patience—or maybe the words to explain the concept to a two year old. “You don’t understand. Of course you don’t. You come from this.” She gestured to the room at large. To his family, who still looked on in shock. “You can’t fathom any other way to be. I can’t even begin to tell you how envious I am that you can take that for granted. That the idea of a perfect, multi-generational family, with two point five kids and a sloppy dog is a foregone conclusion for you. But that’s not what would happen with us.”
“Why the hell not?”
“You’d marry me out of obligation and some twisted, old-fashioned sense of nobility. And for a while, it would be fine. But eventually the heat that brought us together in the first place will burn out. Until there’s nothing left but ash and a resentment that will block out everything but the dimmest memories of anything that was ever good between us. I won’t go through that with you. I can’t. I deserve more than that. And so do you. So I’m saving us both from the prison of your convictions.”
A prison of my convictions.
The words hit Mitch like bullets, one after another. He half expected to see blood soaking the front of his shirt, but he couldn’t look away from her because he understood that if he lost this connection with her now, he’d lose her.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine the harsh future she painted. Everything in him rejected it. Though her body language shouted hands off, he reached for her, curling his hands around her shoulders to keep her from pulling away any further. “That’s one possible outcome. Why are you so damned certain that’s how it would be?”
She trembled under his touch, her eyes full of unshed tears. For one second, Mitch thought she’d step into him. Instead she wrenched free, her hands balling to fists, her jaw firming. “Because I lived it. That is the foundation I come from. It’s no kind of environment to raise a child in, and I won’t do it to mine. Don’t ask me to.”
Stunned, Mitch could only stare as her tears erupted.
“Tess—” Trey’s voice was strained.
She stumbled back, raising both her hands as if to ward off a blow. “Don’t! Just—don’t.” She backpedaled, edging toward the door. “I have to go.” It only took her two steps to stop, apparently remembering she’d ridden with him. Panic flashed over her face.
Mitch stepped toward her, understanding only that she needed to get the hell out of here. “We’ll go.”
“No. I can’t—I just can’t.”
“Take my car.” Cecily pressed keys into Tess’s hand.
Tess’s broken whisper of thanks simply gutted him. He took another step toward her only to find his path blocked by Cam.
“Let her go, man.”
“She’s not in any shape to drive,” Mitch insisted, feeling the panic rise as she disappeared around the corner, into the hall.
Ethan broke away. “I’ll follow to make sure she gets home okay.”
But Mitch barely heard the promise over the sound of the front door closing, as the woman he loved ran away from him.
Again.
Chapter 15
“Is there anything else we can do for you, Miss Peyton?” There was such concern and sympathy in the receptionist’s eyes as Tess checked back into The Babylon.
For maybe the first time in her life, Tess knew she wasn’t dignified and she sure as hell wasn’t living up to the family name. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She’d been sobbing since she left family dinner, all through the drive back to the house to pack up her stuff. She’d swapped to her own car, sent a text to Cecily in thanks, and retreated before Mitch could get home. Given he didn’t interrupt her, someone had probably detained him. She’d owe them a thank you, too.
“No, thank you.” Half-blind with the fresh bout of tears gathering in her eyes, Tess took the key card and headed for the elevator. It stayed blessedly empty as she went up to the penthouse.
As soon as she shut the door to her room, she dropped her bags and sank to the floor, back against the entryway wall.
Everything was so damned wrong. Broken. What had been full of such promise had shattered, and there was no hope of putting it back together again. Or maybe that was her heart. Why couldn’t he have waited? Why did he have to force the issue? Why couldn’t they have had more time to figure all this out?
It hardly mattered now. For once, there was no amount of work, no amount of Peyton stubbornness or dedication that would get her what she wanted. She couldn’t make Mitch love her the way she needed. And she couldn’t take this baby out of the equation. Wouldn’t, even if she could. Would she ultimately find solace in being a parent, in loving this child with everything inside her, the way her mother had?
The knock on the door had her jolting. She didn’t want to see anybody, not even the freaking bellboy. But she dragged herself to her feet and peered through the peephole. Her father stood on the other side. Not a surprise. She didn’t really think she could run away after dropping the bomb of her pregnancy. He’d expect explanations. On a sigh she flattened her hands and pressed her brow against the door. At least it wasn’t Mitch. For a few moments, she considered ignoring him. But given he owned the hotel, if he wanted in, he’d find a way in.
She opened the door and caught the flash of relief before he took in the sight of her.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Tess stepped back, figuring the best defense was a good offense. “I know I’m a screwup, and this whole pregnancy will impact my ability to travel hither and yon to do my job, so if we could maybe skip over the interrogation or lecture on how you’re so disappointed, that would be great. Because I really can’t take any more today.”
He stepped through the door and wrapped her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for how I reacted. It was just such a shock. You are not a screw up. I’m not disappointed in you, and the job’s not going anywhere.”
Her throat strained against the knot of tears even as relief had her burrowing in, hanging on tight. At least she hadn’t screwed up her entire life.
Trey pressed his cheek to her hair. “You can keep doing whatever you want, whether that’s continuing to oversee the development of the small business incubator here or going back to Denver.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“You don’t have to decide right now. Come on. Let’s go sit down.”
He settled her on the sofa and tucked a throw around her. Absurd that she was freezing in May in Mississippi. But she tugged the blanket tighter, as if it would somehow protect her from the consequences of the mess she was in.
A minute later, Trey came back with a glass of water. “Here, drink this now.”
Obedient, she swallowed it down, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to dent the dehydration headache that was barreling toward a migraine.
Her dad sank down on the other end of the couch and tucked her feet into his lap. “So you and Mitch.”
Just hearing their names linked had a fresh wave of tears streaming down her face. “I don’t think there is any more me and Mitch after this.” She’d done a helluva job making sure of that, hadn’t she?
“Do you love him?”
Miserable, she clutched a pillow to her chest. “Does it matter?”
“Well, you’re going to be in each other’s lives on a permanent basis either way, so I’d say it does.”
Tess swallowed. “Yeah, yeah I do. So much. He’s a good man. That’s not in question or I’d never have been with him to begin with. I just…for once I wanted to be enough. Just me.”
Trey frowned. “Why wouldn’t you think you are?”
“He doesn’t see anything but this baby. No one should ever use a child as the glue for a marriage.”
Pain flashed over his features. “Is that really what you think your mom and I did?”
“I know it’s what you did. And it didn’t work. I literally watched you fall apart over the course of years. Because I
wasn’t enough.”
“Oh, honey.” He reached out to skim a hand over her cheek. “The reason our marriage fell apart had nothing to do with you.”
“You were going to break up before Mom turned up pregnant.”
“We’d talked about it. Because I was still in love with Sandy.”
Tess lowered the pillow. “Like, your current wife, Sandy?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t understand.”
He settled back against the cushions, obviously bracing himself for this story. “You know your mother and I met at the University of Washington. What I never told you was that I didn’t start there. I was at Ole Miss for my first two years of college. That’s where Sandy and I met.”
“You knew her in college?”
“Yeah. We were friends. Couldn’t be more than that because she was already married to her high school sweetheart. But that didn’t stop me from falling in love with her or her with me.”
“Did you have an affair?”
“No. We never crossed that line. Her husband was an ass. Immature, selfish. She decided to leave him. We had this whole big plan to get her away, start divorce proceedings. When she didn’t show at our meeting place, I went to find her. I thought maybe Waylan had come home to find her packing and stopped her from leaving. I saw her with him through the window, and it looked like they were reconciling, like she’d chosen him. So I left, without a word. Without getting closure. And damn if that didn’t stick with me. For years. If I’d known what was really going on…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter. What I need you to know, to really understand, is that your mother and I didn’t break up because you weren’t a strong enough glue.”
“You were in love with someone else.”
“Yeah. Always have been, even if it took me years to admit it. When I married Maura, I was truly trying to move on. We had passion and affection and respect. Plenty of marriages turn into more from less than that.”