“Hey Pey, I thought Rafe was going to pick you up from the clinic?” Booth called out from one of the picnic tables situated on the grassy area inside the quadrangle that ringed the main building.
“So did I,” I mumbled, wiping frantically at the tears falling onto my cheeks. My heart was shattering, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Rafe promised me forever, which lasted for four weeks. Worse than my shattering heart, he was yet to say the L-word, so I haven’t even though I ached to so badly I had to bite my tongue each time I went to say it. Thinking about it now, maybe my subconscious wouldn’t let me say it because deep down, I knew it wouldn’t last. That thought burnt through my brain, it felt so wrong and dishonest thinking of Rafe in such a negative way. In the light of this new development, what else was I to think? He was cheating on his wife with me. A wife in a coma who was about to have her life support shut off. Then, if that wasn’t enough to deal with, I had another problem. This morning I didn’t think it was a problem, but now? Now it was a clusterfuck in the making.
Joining my life with a cheater through our unborn child, yeah, I saw nothing but disaster after disaster in my future.
The main room of the compound was full of members, family and close friends. Keeping my head down, I walked past the throes of happy people, my head down so they couldn’t see my tears. The only person I wanted to talk to was Rafe.
Winding my way around the tables and scattered couches, I made my way to the hallway that led to the room where I knew I would find him. The team had been here every day for the last three weeks, training and keeping their bodies honed.
“Do not think about his gorgeous muscles and strong arms and his perfect chest Peyton. Forget about his incredibly handsome face and focus on the fact that your baby daddy is a cheater,” I ordered myself out loud, walking swiftly down the long hallway. The gym was located at the end, music blaring from the speakers already reaching my ears.
Grabbing hold of the huge sliding door with two hands, I yanked it open, and the first person I saw was the man I was deeply, completely, and unfortunately madly in love with, hauling his large frame up a rope that was hooked to the ceiling. His massive arms and thighs were wrapped around the thick rope, doing all the work to get him to the top.
The bastard isn’t even breaking a bloody sweat!
Mature Peyton, real mature.
Around the room, I felt eyes on me, but my focus was on one man and one man only.
“You’re married! You son of a bitch!” The words tumbled out of my mouth, shouted so loudly they could be heard over the dulcet tones of AC/DC, Bon Scott’s screeching voice once a soothing balm to me, now just an annoyance.
Rafe’s head dropped to look at me, his eyes shocked at first, then they were filled with regret. Even from this distance, I could see that Rafe knew he was caught in a lie.
“Fuck,” he muttered, then loosened his hold on the rope and expertly slid down, falling to the ground and gracefully landing on his feet.
“Bunny—”
“Don’t,” I yelled at him, holding up my hand to stop him from calling me that name. Never did I want him to speak so familiarly with me again. That pet name was for the man that I trusted, the one I thought I was building a life with, not this person in front of me that had done nothing but lie to me.
“Are you married, Rafe? That is all I want to know from you.”
“No. I am not married. But I was, we got divorced three years ago.”
A tiny bit of relief washed over me. At least I wasn’t the other woman. It didn’t change that he had lied, allowed me to believe that the person in the coma was a mate, though.
“Explain, Rafe. Tell me why you let me believe your friend was a man. Make me understand why you never told me about your ex-wife when you had the perfect opportunity that night I told you about Dean.”
“I let you in on the saddest and hardest time in my life, Rafe. For months it ate at me that I had not told you about my son, hated that I wasn’t honest with you. And then I find out this from a phone call from a doctor at the facility your wife is in! Why are they calling you if you are divorced? Jesus Rafe, what the hell!”
“Ex-wife, Angie is my ex. Her parents can’t accept that I am no longer part of her life, which is why I am still a contact for her. Our marriage was over long before I signed the papers three years ago. It’s not like I jumped into a relationship with you straight after, Peyton. I fought my attraction to you for six months. My guilt eating at me, just the same as yours did.” Rafe came closer to me, stopping when he saw that I was ready to run. I couldn’t do this if he put his hands on me, his touch would make me crumble, and he knew it.
“We married young, too young. At the time, I didn’t think so, then I went into the army and everything went to shit. We constantly fought; when I was home she picked fights, hated my desire to defend my country. Even when training, she called to argue, deployments, it didn’t worry her. She didn’t care where I was or that I had to be free of worry. I took it for four years, then one day, she demanded a divorce. She did it often, mostly just to piss me off, but this time was different. I agreed, then hung up on her.”
“Out of malice and anger she had the papers drawn up, she didn’t think I would agree you see. She even had them served on me at the FOB in a foreign country,” Rafe spat, his whole body was shaking with anger as he relayed what must have been a very hard time for him.
“I tried to be a good husband, I didn’t want to fail at our marriage, that is why I held on for so long, a lot longer than I should have. Angie was spoilt, an only child of very wealthy people. She wanted the good, easy lifestyle money afforded her, I wanted to make it on our own. As time went by, I realised she married me to get attention from her father. No matter how much money I send to her, it would never be enough. No matter how many times I told her that I loved her, it wasn’t good enough.”
“You haven’t told me that yet Rafe, are you waiting to see if I get sick of your service? Do you really think that I would ask to be put before your job and your team like she wanted? Am I just a fling?” The words tasted bitter on my tongue because they weren’t true. I knew that we were more, he told me every day that I was his forever, showed me not just with words, but with his lovemaking, the way he looked after me and his possessiveness. I believed his actions to be love, but now with this curveball thrown at me, how did I accept that he was telling me the truth?
Before I could blink, Rafe had me down on the ground and pinned under his heaving body. He didn’t have a shirt on, so all I felt was his wondrous chest pushing down on me, his deep, brown eyes narrowed and fixed on me.
“I don’t just love you, Peyton, I am fucking so in love with you I would not survive if I lost you. I would never put you in the same light as her, ever! You are different as night and day. Angie was mean and spoilt; you are beautiful and kind, and more than I deserve. But I am a selfish bastard, giving you up is not an option, Bunny. We’ll work this out, you get pissed at me, but at the end of the day, we go home together. We go home as us.”
“You can’t just say that and expect it to happen, Rafe. You lied to me, kept something from me. Something very important to our relationship,” I argued, fighting the natural instinct of my body to lift my hips into his. His scent was washing all over me, confusing me, making me weak. He loves me, and I knew it already by his actions. But lovemaking could not be confused with true love and honesty. The two went hand in hand.
“Yeah I lied, I fucked up big. I was scared you would see what I did. I might not have been with Angie when she hit that tree, I didn’t make her drink until she couldn’t stand up, but I didn’t help either. I signed the papers, sent them to my solicitor and ended our marriage without a phone call to her. I was sick of the shit and drama, tired of trying to hold together a marriage that was one-sided.”
“Then I got the news that she crashed, a bottle of tequila and our divorce papers on the passenger seat. Her parents refused to let the doctors turn off l
ife support. They blamed me for the accident, said if I’d left the army as she wanted, none of it would have happened.” His voice was harsher than I had ever heard from him, in his eyes, I could see the guilt that was swamping him.
“Then you happened Bunny, and I tried, I tried to fight my feelings for you. I thought, why would a beautiful, caring, astoundingly gorgeous creature want a lowlife like me? But you did, you stormed your way into my heart, and I fell so fucking hard and fast for you, Peyton Duncan. I got lost in my love for you, not telling you about Angie, being honest about what happened. I didn’t want you to take yourself away from me. I never want you to go away from me Peyton, I love you so much, baby.”
Tears blurred my vision, his heartfelt admission killing me.
“Let me up,” I whispered, pushing gently on his chest, “please Rafe, everyone is watching us.” Looking to my side, I could see Gabe and Bastian watching us with shocked expressions. Bastian looked confused, whereas Gabe looked pissed off and disappointed, making me believe Rafe had not told everyone in his team either.
Rafe nodded curtly, and for a second, I thought he was not going to comply.
“Will you listen to me?” he asked, his throat working up and down with effort.
Pushing more firmly on his pecs, I managed to roll him off me and scramble to my feet. My face was flushed, my heart was pounding, my mind overloaded with new information and we had an audience. This was not the time for me to be making a life-altering decision. Looking down at Rafe, who was still sitting on the exercise mat, a look of utter devastation was on his beautiful face, and it took every fibre of my being not to drop down and forgive him.
“I will but not now. I need some time to process, figure out where to go from here.”
“Where to go!” Rafe jumped to his feet with the ease of a trained soldier, his voice loud.
“We go home, Peyton, and talk this out. We aren’t over, not us.”
“But before I got here, I convinced myself we were over, Rafe. Now that I know, I am torn. I understand some of what you have told me, but I can’t get past that you had ample time to tell me yourself, without prompting or me demanding you. I fell in love with you long before I admitted it to myself. You not telling me about Angie tells me you don’t trust me or my love for you, Rafe.”
His hand reached out, pulling me roughly into his large form, my eyes connected with his perfectly shaped pec, the nipple that I loved to suck a breath away from my mouth, tempting me.
“I trust you with my life Peyton. I fucked up, I know I should have told you about Angie long before now, and I will carry that mistake with me forever. Making you cry because of something I did to you is like a knife to my chest. We are meant to be together, Bunny, you and me forever.” I found myself being lifted off the ground, my legs acting on instinct, wrapping around his perfect V-shaped waist. Then, he kissed me, not the wild passionate kiss I would expect from a moment like this. No, it was sweet and soft and full of promise. It was a kiss of love, a kiss begging for forgiveness. A kiss that could only come from Rafe. For long minutes I allowed myself to get lost in our passion, a passion that could only be experienced once in a lifetime.
Was it lost so soon after finding it? Would I ever be the same again if I choose to walk away? Was this hurting inside my chest ever going to stop?
Breaking our kiss, I cupped his face in my palms, love deeper than I could ever imagine in his eyes.
“That’s the problem, Rafe, it isn’t just you and me forever now,” I whispered brokenly, “there is another person I have to consider. I’m pregnant, Rafe, I took the test this morning, the stick turned pink.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath, witnessed the tears fill his eyes, and still, I untangled myself from his hold and slid to the floor. This was too much for me right now, I had to be alone and think. I had our baby to consider in this, his or her future depended on me being level headed and not go off half-cocked with an overload of emotion fuelling me.
“Peyton, baby, please don’t leave me,” Rafe pleaded, his tears falling unashamedly in front of the room of commandos. “I love you, and I love our baby.”
Sobs tore from my lips, hearing those three beautiful meaning words would have been a dream come true … an hour ago. Now, they were just a sharp tear to my heart.
His hands held mine tightly, and I loathed to break out connection, yet I did.
I watched my fingers unlaced from his, hoping that this was not the last time he ever touched me. I etched into my memory every scratch, the short nails at the end of his long fingers. Fingers that played my body so expertly.
“Give me some time Rafe, that is all you can do for me for now,” I begged through my tears.
“I will never give up on you, Peyton, you are the only one for me. Our baby was conceived from our love, and he is going to be raised with it too.” Something in his firm tone gave me hope that we weren’t over. Rafe was tenacious if nothing else. I knew he would not give me long before he came looking for me, convincing me to give him a second chance.
At least, I hoped that was the case, a small insecure part of me worried he would see this as a way out. Getting pregnant so soon, maybe that would be too much for him too fast. My past experience with Darren casting the doubtful cloud, that and the fact that Rafe might be mad with me for not getting my updated birth control shot. It had not been on purpose that I forgot, I have just been so busy it completely slipped my mind.
Rushing out of the room, past the gaping soldiers, my past and all my insecurities threatened to overtake me. The horrible way my parents treated me didn’t hurt half as much as what the man I was in love with just did to me.
I trusted Rafe once, but the big question was, could I do it again?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RAFE
I was back sitting on my arse as I watched my heart run out the door away from me. For the life of me, I couldn’t find the will to get to my feet and chase after her, even though every cell in my body screamed at me to get up and stop Peyton from leaving.
“Fuck!” I shouted, my face dropping to my hands, the tears I wasn’t conscious of shedding, wetting my skin.
The sound of soft footfalls alerted me to the fact that my mates were still in the room, that they not only heard my greatest shame about Angie but also that I was going to be a father.
A dad. I am going to be a dad.
“LC? You okay?” Gabe asked, getting down on his haunches, along with the rest of my team, creating a circle around me.
“No. I fucked up Cap, fucked up in the worst possible way.” I wanted to roll to my side and weep, all I could see was Peyton’s shattered expression when I admitted to being married once before.
“You fucked up royally, Rafe,” Cole agreed in his typical shoot from the hip style. If you wanted kid gloves and sympathy … don’t go to Cole Stephens. “Now, how are you going to fix it?”
“I have no fucking idea, Ghost. Fuck! What if I have lost her? What is going to happen if she doesn’t forgive me? I can’t fucking handle the thought of a life without her.” Looking up, the faces of the best men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing looked back at me.
“Wanna tell us why you didn’t tell us about what happened to Angie?” Deke prompted, asking the question I knew all of them wanted to ask.
How did I explain that I wanted so badly to be out of the hell that was my marriage? Those words were practically the last ones I said to her, only days before her tragic accident.
“She changed her mind about the divorce, called me begging me to ring my solicitor and tell him I changed my mind,” I began, resolutely. It was time I told my side of things, first to my team then to Peyton. She was going to forgive me, she just had to.
“But, by that stage, I was well and truly done. The day I signed the papers and sent them back to Australia, a weight lifted off my shoulders for the first time in years. The arguing and fighting over money and my job, done. No more reluctance to go home to see my wife, no more pre
tending that she was still the woman I fell in love with.”
“I was nasty to her boys,” I admitted, looking at each one, “ a real fucking cunt. I laughed at her promises to change her ways, called them bullshit. Told her she didn’t know how to change, that she’d vowed to love her daddy’s money and not me.”
That phone call had not been my finest moment, shame and regret followed me but only because of the way I said them with so much hate and bitterness. I did want out, I did believe she had no chance of turning a new leaf, that much I stood strong on then and still do now.
“Divorces get nasty brother, shit gets said in the heat of the moment,” Deke said, adding his piece. “We saw how much shit she put you through, and there was nothing left of your marriage, ending it was the next step. You can’t feel responsible for more than being a bit of a prick in a phone call.”
“Yeah, but then she got in her car drunk when I refused to take her last call to me. That day we spoke twice, bickering back and forth, then her crying and begging me and shit. Finally, I sent word to the head of the FOB to refuse her calls. Maybe if I had taken it—”
“What? You a clairvoyant?” Gabe asked, “She would have kept going and going, mate, and you know it.”
“You didn’t make her get in the car drunk Rafe, you did however, spend years supporting her, going home to her crap after hellish deployments. It was her that let you down,” Kodah insisted, his hand on my shoulder.
“Going to see her all these years? Fuck LC; that is some cruel and unusual self-punishment. And fucking idiotic,” Tank added with a humourless laugh.
“I don’t know what to do, boys. I literally can’t get up off this floor or get my brain to kick in.” I needed to get to Peyton but she said she needed time to think. How much time do I give her, or should I not give her any and demand she takes me back. Fuck was she breaking up with me? What about our kid? There was no way in hell, I was going to be a fortnight father.
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