by Lindsey Hart
“You’ll be a rock star. This job will be a breeze after your last one.” Sam scraped peanut butter off the floor with the paper towel without looking up. Lexi loved that about Sam. That she wasn’t afraid to tiptoe around the past. It did hurt but that burn in her chest was never going to disappear. So, she could handle it.
At least she liked to tell herself she could.
Before she got halfway to the front door, the buzzer blared again. Sam straightened, smoothed her hair out of her eyes, and rushed like a pissed off locomotive over to the buzzer. She punched the speaker and yelled something about it being obscene to ring the wrong apartment twice first thing in the morning.
Lexi slipped into her shoes, shaking her head. “I think you told them off. They’ll definitely get the right number next time.” She stifled a grin, knowing full well they’d probably have another three drunk buzzes that weekend. It seemed like a common occurrence in Sam’s building. It was kind of weird because no one ever buzzed her old apartment by accident.
“I’ll be waiting for your report,” Sam grinned. Lexi gave her a small wave and slipped out the door.
She ignored the way her hands trembled and clutched her car keys a little more firmly in her fist, until the metal dug uncomfortably into her palm. It momentarily distracted her from her first day jitters, which was fine by her. Her flats scraped over the three flights of stairs as she made her way out the back door to the parking lot where she was parked.
She flung open the back door and stopped dead in her tracks. It was a beautiful sunny morning, even if it was a bit crisp. It would warm up soon enough. The crisp fall breeze wasn’t what stopped her dead in her tracks.
Curtis James did.
He leaned against her car, wearing one of his usual two thousand dollar suits. All black. He had his arms folded over his chest and looked every bit the six and some odd foot granite god of a mountain that he was. He wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t smirking. Even still, he was just as gorgeous as she remembered. No. That was wrong. He was far more beautiful because he was there, in real life, in all the real, technicolor detail. She had to blink a few times, sure her mind had conjured him up, she’d thought about him so often, but no. When she pressed the key into her palm, it hurt. It was real. He was truly there.
Lex swallowed hard. Turning and retreating back into the apartment wasn’t an option. At least not one she was willing to consider. Curtis was there and she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t just going to disappear. She had to face him head on.
She raised her head up high and rolled her shoulders back. She didn’t want him to see what his very presence did to her insides. If she thought the smell of Sam’s breakfast was bad, the anything of Curtis was insane. He didn’t just do things to her stomach though. As usual, he threw her entire being into a messy disarray.
Lexi stalked over to her car, as composed as she could be. He was leaning up against the driver’s door so that she couldn’t get in.
“I’m going to be late,” she said, tight-lipped. “Can we please do this some other time. Like when I don’t have to be at work?”
“Don’t worry about work,” Curtis ground out. She made a production of studying his expensive leather shoes so that she didn’t have to look at his face, but at that, her eyes whipped up. “I’ve already called and explained that you’ll be there at ten, not at eight. Your new boss was happy to oblige, considering, ironically enough, I happen to hire his agency for some of our accounting.”
Lexi managed to keep her jaw tethered to the bottom of her face. “You what?” She spluttered. “You- how do you know where I’m working? How do you know where I live?”
“I made a few calls. I’m sorry to say that with money, anything is possible.”
“Yeah.” She pressed down on her keys until they were painful in her palm again. Better to feel the pain than any of the other stuff she couldn’t control. Just because Curtis’ face was completely neutral, giving nothing away, didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling every single emotion on earth on a grand scale. “I know that. I called you entitled, remember? I meant that to encompass a lot of things.”
“You weren’t going to tell me?”
That did it. Her purse slid off her shoulder and hit the parking lot with a dull thud. Her stomach and her heart followed suit. “I- what?” Her mouth was suddenly bone dry and it was hard to get even those basic words out.
“You weren’t going to tell me. That you’re pregnant.”
“How the hell did you know that?” she seethed, half in awe, half in the early stages of rage. “Oh. Let me guess. You had some really creepy guy follow me around and find out every single detail about my life.”
“Several actually.” Curtis’ lips didn’t even twitch with amusement. His words were flat and toneless. “I know it’s true because you never would have left like that. You wouldn’t have moved, changed your number, and tried to vanish without a trace out of my life if it wasn’t true. As soon as I read it, I knew that’s what it was.”
There was no point in denying anything. Lexi wished she’d had a backup plan. An escape route and a bug out bag packed for when her cover was blown. “I- if- you- you hate kids!” She blurted. Might as well just get straight down to the point. “You hate children. You treated your own niece and nephew like they had the plague. You made it perfectly clear that you never wanted them. I was doing you a favor. It was a surprise. I swear it was. I never planned for this to happen. I knew if I told you that you’d be pissed off. I knew how you’d react. I knew you’d hate this baby and you’d hate me. You’d think I was just another woman in the long list of women who have tried to use you for money. You’d think that I planned it, saying I was on the pill when I wasn’t or that I botched it on purpose. I know you, Curtis James, and I know that you don’t want any part of this, so I was trying to do the right thing and not make you a part of it. I was trying to spare our baby from you. No child needs to know that its father hates it. Doesn’t want it. Doesn’t love it. This baby might have been a surprise, but it wasn’t an accident. I’m having it. I already love it. I’m going to be the best mother and now that you know, I’m not asking you for anything except that you leave now and leave me alone. This is hard enough as is without you… without you…”
“Without me what?”
It was ridiculous that she was on the verge of tears and Curtis stood there, calm and cool as a fucking cucumber. Or maybe a really hunky, beefy squash. Whatever. He was unflappable and that pissed her off even more.
“Without you… showing up here,” Lexi finally finished. She waved her hand down the length of him. “Looking like this. I- I didn’t leave because I don’t feel anything for you. I left because I knew this would never work. I left to protect this child. I left because I had to. I didn’t plan for it to happen and I- this has been really hard, even if you can’t imagine it.”
“Oh, I can imagine it.”
That took her by surprise, and she spoke before she could think better of it. “Excuse me?”
Curtis uncrossed his arms and his suit ruffled with the movement. His eyes burned into her like he freaking had superpower x-ray vision. “You think it wasn’t hard for me? To be left like that? I’m not sure why you’ve always wanted to believe that I’m this thing that doesn’t have feelings. I do have a heart. A heart that you just left off really wounded. I was worried sick. I thought something had happened to you. I was confused as hell. It hurt, Lexi. You wouldn’t tell me what was going on. It hurt to think I meant nothing to you. That I was easy to leave. We both agreed, after that weekend, at least it was an unspoken thing, that it meant something. That we meant something to each other. I thought maybe you did just toy with me and when you got sick of me you threw me away with zero remorse. I felt stupid. So fucking stupid. Cheated, even if it was irrational to think that. I hated that you had the ability to get to me and hurt me the way you did. I thought I knew you. And then I found out. I found out about this and I knew why you’d done it. I knew it wasn’t
anything I’d done at all. It had nothing to do with me.”
“It had everything to do with you!” Lexi cried. She bent and snatched her purse off the ground and tucked it back on her shoulder, just to have something to do with her hands other than flapping them about like a crazy squawking chicken. “It had everything to do with you and the fact you said you never wanted kids! I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to be standing here having this fight because I knew how it would go. There was no scenario where this worked out. There really never was. We were on borrowed time, Curtis, no matter how much we might have enjoyed it.”
“You enjoyed it?”
Lexi rolled her eyes in exasperation. She couldn’t believe Curtis was going to do this. Now. Freaking now, on top of everything else. “Of course I did,” she snapped. “That should have been obvious.”
“I thought it was. Which was why I was even more confused when you just disappeared.”
“I’m sorry,” she snapped. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t want to hurt you, but there was more to consider than just us. I had to do what I did. Now that you know- I- I don’t want anything from you. You can go on with your life and pretend like this never happened. I don’t want your money. I don’t want your time. I don’t want to lock you into trying to do the right thing, because there is no cut and dry right thing here. I just want the baby to be happy and know that he or she is loved. I don’t want a father who isn’t a father at all, popping in and out of its life. That’s no way to live at all, so just go ahead and walk away. You’re free, Curtis. I don’t need your help and I don’t want it either.”
“No?” One dark brow rose, but that was all the expression he would allow. “What about my love?”
“Your- what?” Lexi choked. “Your love?” She chuckled low under her breath. “Uh- we both know that’s not possible.”
“Why?” Curtis frowned. His deep blues sparked with emotion and genuine confusion. “You don’t think it’s possible for me to love or you don’t think it was possible given that we weren’t together for very long and not in any official capacity?”
“All of the above,” Lexi sighed. She just wanted to get into her car and drive down the block where she could pull over and lose her shit in private. It was exhausting trying to hold the tears back. Her throat felt scorched and her eyes were on fire with the pinpricks of impending tears. “I don’t care how long we knew each other. I don’t care how good we might have been together. I don’t care what we did or where it was going. That’s over now. You don’t want to be a father and I’m pregnant. That’s all that matters now. It’s a giant hurdle we’d never get over, so please, just go and save us both a lot of heartache and headache.”
“So that’s it? You think I would just abandon my own child? You think I would abandon you?”
Lexi’s eyes flew back down to her feet. There was so much pain in Curtis’ voice, it turned her heart to ice. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I debated with myself for days about what to do. I- I didn’t want to think so, but I also knew what you said. You were honest and adamant about it. And I knew your past. I knew that you’d been hurt by women who wanted to use you. I chose to leave because I couldn’t risk you thinking those things about me. It would have destroyed me to know that you did.”
“You never gave me the benefit of the doubt, you know that, Lexi,” Curtis snorted-sighed. She couldn’t look at him, but her hands balled into fists at her sides. “I’ve always had to prove to you that I was something I wasn’t. This time is the only time I think you’re right.”
“What?” Her eyes flew back to his face and her stomach cramped at the pain she saw etched all over it.
“I can see how you thought that disappearing was best. I’ve never given you any hope that I’d welcome the news or that I’d want a child. I did say that I’d been used in the past and you knew me well enough to consider that. I can see why you left, but I wish you would have had a little more faith in me. That I’d know you were different. That you would have known that I never would have thought you were capable of doing any of those things. I wish you would have come to me and at least talked it out. You didn’t though, and I had to come find you. I’m here. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Uh- what?” Lexi nearly dropped her purse a second time. ‘You mean you’re just going to stand out here for days?”
“No.” The smallest glint of humor glistened in his eyes. “No. I’m not going to stand out here. That’s not what here means. I’m here, Lexi. I’m not leaving you. I know what you thought and why you thought it, but I’m here telling you that it’s not going down like that. We’re not going down like that. I’m in love with you. Take that how you will. The seeds of it or a flawed emotion or the start of something great. I don’t know myself because I’ve never felt it before. You’re the first. It’s you, Lexi Wellington. When we finally started, we had something good. I’m not letting that go and I’m not going to let you throw it away. I might be a shit father, but I would never abandon you or our child. I might never have seen myself as wanting kids, but maybe that was just something I said because I don’t generally like them and because I thought I’d be a shitty father. I have some pretty big shoes to fill. It’s intimidating as hell.”
Lexi just stared at him. At Curtis. At Curtis James, Trust Fund Baby. She stared at him so long, unblinking, that her eyes dried out and she no longer had to worry about the tsunami of tears.
“I might be an idiot. I might be spoiled. I might be this guy who has no idea what it means to love someone. I might be entitled. I might be a thousand things, none of them good, but I’m yours, Lexi. I’m yours if you want me. I might be a shitty father too, but I’ll be there for that kid through thick and thin. No matter what happens. I’ll practice up on my apologies so that I can spend day and night telling him or her I’m sorry that I’m not the best father. I’ll take parenting classes. I’ll- I’ll even babysit my niece and nephew ever single weekend to get ready for this if that’s what it takes. A lot of the things I said and did in the past were to try and protect myself, but I don’t want to protect myself from you. I know you didn’t leave me to hurt me. You did it out of love. The greatest love in existence. I know you feel something for me, even if you never wanted to. And I know that you are going to be the best mother on the planet, so maybe it will make up for the fact that I’m probably going to be pretty clueless about all of it.”
“You won’t be a terrible father,” Lexi blurted. She couldn’t keep silent anymore. It was like a dam burst inside of her mouth and the words were spilling out before she could fully think about them, process them, or stop them. “I know you won’t be. No one can prepare for being a parent. Not like we think we can. I wanted to believe that you weren’t a good guy. I tried to tell myself that so I could stop myself from falling for you, but it didn’t work. It didn’t work and I’m not going to stand here and tell you that you’re a bad person or that you’ll be a bad father, because I know that’s not the truth. You had great examples in your life. They might be big shoes to fill, but they were also the best shoes, and they taught you how to love and when you choose to give it, I know you’ll be amazing. I left because I thought you didn’t want this, but if you’re telling me you do…”
“I’m telling you that I love you, Lexi. It might be small, but doesn’t everything have to start somewhere? I know that I’ll fight for you if that’s what it takes. I’ll do everything and anything to earn your trust. I’m not going anywhere. You can’t get rid of me if you want to. I’m sticking around and that baby is going to have a mother and a father.”
“Even- even if it doesn’t work out? With us?” Her voice was small and threaded with fear and worry.
Curtis nodded solemnly. “Even if it doesn’t work out, we both will still love that child. We’ll both want what’s best for him or her. I know that. I know it because you’re the best person I know. That’s why I fell in love with you. I might not be the best guy you
know, but I’ll work on that. I promise you that. I don’t want to talk about failing though. I want to talk about succeeding.”
Lexi chewed her lip so hard that copper bloomed in her mouth. She never honestly thought that she’d be here with Curtis. That she’d see him again. She’d spent a month playing the what if’s over and over in her head. He’d haunted her every thought, waking moment, and even her dreams. She knew that if he ever found her and told her that he wanted her or wanted to be a part of their child’s life, there was no way she could deny him. Even if she was afraid. Even if the future was uncertain. That was just life. She knew there was no way she could deny Curtis his child if he wanted a relationship with them. There was no way she could deny him her heart, even though she’d spent three years trying to do just that.
“Tell me again, then. Tell me that you love me. That you love this baby. That you want to succeed. Keep telling me it. Keep telling me over and over and over.”
“I’ll tell you every day, all day if that’s what it takes.”
Lexi dipped her head. “Fine. Good. Yeah…” The silence lingered between them until she took a wavering breath. “I’m going to seriously be late.”
“You’re still taking that job?” Curtis sounded beyond disappointed. “Even after I showed up here and declared my love for you like some modern day knight?”
“Yeah.” She grinned down at the pavement. “I was going to go in and tell them that I can’t take the job after all. I was going to rehearse this huge apology on the drive over. I was going to tell them that I’m very sorry and thank them for the opportunity but tell them that I’ve had a change of heart. Or actually, that I haven’t. My heart never changed. It was always yours and I still really, really want to take that position in marketing if it’s still open.”
“It’s open,” Curtis assured her. “Does this never changing heart also include me?”
Lexi had to look up. She couldn’t smother her smile. “Yes. Unfortunately, it does. It always has.”