Chapter Twenty-One
The door key landed in the bowl on the console table in the hallway after Tricia had opened her front door. Dropping her designer purse at the foot of it, she kicked off her shoes. Studying her carefully, I noted how tense her shoulders were, and I could practically feel how wound up she was about something.
“Do you want some wine?” she asked, padding on down the hall without so much as a glance toward me. It was barely 1: 00 p.m.
Staring after her, I stuck my hands in my pockets and traced her steps without answering her question. My chest felt tight with concern, wondering why she was in the mood she was in, because what I was looking at wasn’t sexual frustration like I’d thought right after we had been interrupted in the shower.
Walking past her brightly decorated living room; I stared at the huge sunflower artwork she loved on her wall as I thought of something to say. By the time I entered the kitchen she’d already pulled a bottle of red from the rack and was uncorking it.
“Why sunflowers?” I asked, hoping to throw her off guard.
For a second, she stared back and she shrugged, her frustration temporarily placed on hold.
“They brighten my day. It may not be an obvious choice as a favorite flower, but they’re special in lots of ways. Each sunflower has thousands of tiny flowers within the head, and they’re self-pollinating so reproduce themselves. They don’t need a partner to shine. They’re also a food source, and an oil in cooking, plus in some parts of the world they’re thought to have healing properties. But mostly, the colors make me feel calm and I love how they reach up to the sky and find the sun… and like people, they need room to grow.”
“I didn’t know all that,” I replied quietly, not expecting as full of an answer as I got. I’d used the painting as a distraction from the dark mood I felt she’d lapsed into.
“Do you want wine or not?” she snapped her frustration immediately back. There was a bitterness in her voice I hadn’t heard from her before. Without giving me eye contact, she swiped one glass from an overhead cabinet and placed it on the counter.
I moved around the countertop and stood behind her. “Look at me,” I ordered, stepping into her space and alongside of her. She continued pouring herself a drink without responding again, so I placed my hand over hers on the bottle, stilling it and pulled it away. She made to lift the partly filled glass, but I caught her wrist before she could do it.
“Stop, Tricia,” I said, my tone gentler when I sensed turmoil in her mood. “Baby, look at me,” I coaxed, setting the wine bottle on the counter and turning her to face me. When her head remained down, I tipped her chin with my free hand, lifting her wounded gaze to meet mine.
“Want to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked, my tone soft, my eyes serious as I absorbed the hurt held in hers. Tears brimmed in her eyes, clouding their amazing light and her face looked steeped in anguish. “Come on, baby. This isn’t like you and I can’t fix something when I have no idea where to begin,” I whispered, stroking her hair.
Tears fell when she closed her eyes and I kissed each salty droplet before it stained her skin. “Look at me, please,” I begged, “talk to me. Whatever is going on inside of you can’t be that bad. There’s nothing we can’t face if we’re doing this together, baby.”
Sniffing she turned her head away, pulled her hand from mine, and grabbed some paper towels. “That should be you,” she explained, dabbing her eyes and tipping her chin in the air like she was gesturing toward something. Her move confused me.
“What should? What are you talking about?” My eyes ticked over her face, my heart clenching when I saw her desperately sad eyes. “You need to explain, baby, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied carefully, as wrapped my arms around her. Her palm landed on my chest, a frown creasing a deep line between her brows as she resisted me taking her closer to my chest.
“The wife, children, a happy homelife full of people who adore you. Can’t you see, you deserve all of that,” she mumbled, her eyes averting my gaze.
I freed a hand and grabbed her chin again. “Stop looking away from me, Tricia, and don’t try to tell me what I deserve. What’s is going on here?” Her eyes snapped to mine and held my gaze, and my heart almost burst with tension at how distraught she appeared.
“Look into my eyes. Tell me what you see there,” I told her. Her eyes narrowed as her tear-filled look ticked back and forth over my face. “Can’t you see I adore you?” She chewed the side of her mouth and a glazed look fell over her, like her mind had taken her somewhere else. She dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Why?” she whispered as a sob tore from her lips.
I grabbed both sides of her face to bring her attention back to me. I stared determinedly into her eyes, and prayed she saw the truth in my words. “Listen, baby, I’m only going to say this one time.” I took a measured breath to ensure my words sounded calm. “I am exactly where I want to be. You’re what I’ve waited for all of my life. I just didn’t know that until I met you. How else can you explain why I couldn’t forget you? Now that I have you, I’m not letting you go without a fight. You’re the love of my life.”
My declaration looked like a slap in the face from the way her head whipped to the side to avoid looking at me. “I’m forty-seven years old, James. I can’t have children,” she replied. “I don’t do babies. I know I love you, but if you stay with me, you’d be giving up all hope of children of your own.”
Grabbing her by her jaw, I turned her head back to face me. “Kids? That’s what this is about?” Her eyes locked in on my incredulous stare. “Fuck.” I shook my head. “No relationship is ever perfect. Sometimes we need to make small sacrifices in our pursuit of happiness. Baby, I love you. More than I’ve loved any woman, and more than I love the idea of something that may or may not happen that may or may not bring me joy. This,” I wagged my finger between us, “is what I have… what we have. It’s not some imaginary future fantasy. This is a fabulous reality, and as far as kids go? I have Sawyer’s, Caitlin’s boy, and Tammy’s girls for that matter, all the fun stuff with none of the grief of bringing them up. I’m the cool uncle.”
“Don’t you want to be a father?” Her question made my heart ache, because I almost had been once.
“Honestly? I’d never considered it until Charlotte got pregnant. I’m not going to lie, I admit I got used to the idea of bringing up a child until she got rid of it. That devastated me, the loss of a child, whether I knew it or not… it weighed heavily on my mind. And yes, sometimes I have wondered what could have been had she allowed it to grow.” I swallowed down the swirl of emotion when I heard myself speak those words. “Am I angry she took that opportunity from me, of course, what man wouldn’t be? But it happened, it was out of my control and I’ve lived with it. Who knows what would have happened to us otherwise, given how manipulative she was?”
“But you could have another child. That’s a choice you won’t have if you stay with me. Being with me means never having that option.”
“Why? Is this an age thing? If it’s what you wanted we could explore—”
“There won’t be any babies. I can’t have babies, I’m never going to have your baby,” she snapped, suddenly furious at my suggestion.
“Then why are you twisting the knife in me about something you don’t even want?”
“Because I see how you look at Sawyer’s kids. You’re a natural and they all love and adore you. Being with me takes your right to be a father away from you. Who knows, in a few years you may resent me.”
“Fuck,” I said, my heart racing in frustration. Pulling her into my arms, I steered her into her living room and toward the couch.
“Sit,” I ordered, shoving her gently onto the seat and sitting down beside her. Turning to face her, I took her head between my hands again and stared intensely while I gathered my thoughts. “What you’re doing right now is a mindfuck, Tricia.” I sighed when she barely blinked and stared back. She looked numb. �
�Last night I went to bed deliriously happy, we were out to my family and your friend. We were making a statement to people we loved that we were together. This morning I woke up,” I shrugged, “I had the same feeling squeezing my heart because it felt so full… but then, in the shower, something happened in your head that I have no fucking clue about.” I took one hand from her head and ran it through my hair.
“I just think…” She shrugged, and a thought grew in my gut that I couldn’t ignore.
“Don’t you want me? Don’t you want this? Do you need more? Tell me, Tricia what do you want?” Frustration made it hard to breathe as I stared her down and waited for her to reply. Does she want out? Is that what this is? Panic crept in making my heart thump with dread.
“I don’t want me to be your biggest mistake in life,” she replied in a defeated tone.
“Did you bang your fucking head when I wasn’t looking or something? Have you not listened to a fucking word I’ve said?” I asked, my gut felt as if it were about to burst. “You don’t want kids—we won’t have them. Is that what you need to hear?” I said with absolute conviction.
Bursting into tears, she pulled away from me and covered her face with her hands. I immediately pulled them away, angry that she appeared to be goading me to say something … a slip of some kind that would perhaps allow her to walk away.
“This stops right now, today. I won’t have you sabotaging us like this. We’ve had seven weeks together and they have been the happiest of my life. All those years I’ve been looking for something, but I had no idea it was, and I’m telling you, baby, it was you. Whatever the fuck is holding you back, you have got to let it go. This… us, it’s so fucking real and I’m not scared of it or our future, not even a little.”
None of my fast talking appeared to be getting through as she lifted her head and looked expressionlessly toward me, tears streaming down her face before she covered it with her hands again.
“Tell me your fear, or whatever you’re hiding.” When she didn’t react and continued hiding her face, I lost my patience with her lack of response.
“Baby, I am not giving up on you. Not unless you tell me you don’t want this. If that’s what this is about, you need to tell me right now, but I’m going to want to know why. Come on, out with it.”
“I thought I could do this… have this… be happy…” She stopped and took her hands away from her eyes and looked directly into mine. “I don’t think it’s possible. It’s not fair… none of it’s fair.”
“Huh? What the fuck isn’t fair, Tricia? Spit it out because I’m fucking dying here.”
She shot off the couch. “Because I’m no better than Charlotte,” she blurted. She looked as shocked as I did by her confession, like the thought had slipped past her tongue without her permission.
“You’re what? Don’t even joke about her,” I ground out, as my temper grew with every second that passed.
“Explain,” I barked, but when I saw her body jump as she crumbled in front of me and started crying again, my anger drained in an instant. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout, but you have to know how much I love you. I’m fighting for us here, Tricia. You promised me you wouldn’t back out.”
“You think you know me? You have no fucking idea who I am or what kind of a person I am.” The self-depreciating tone in her voice scared me.
“Is that so? Then, enlighten me, baby. Tell me what the fuck it is that I’m missing. You keep talking to me about choices? All right, my gut tells me you’ve got some big fucking secret that makes you the way you are. You carry that fuck around with you like a huge boulder on your back. Something has held you back in life, and I’m not talking careers here, I’m talking about life. Whatever the hell it is, you’ve got to trust someone enough to let them in.” The longer she stalled the more impatient I grew.
“Trust? You talk to me about trust?” she screamed, like she found the concept ridiculous. “All right. Are you ready for this? Are you sure you want to know what kind of monster I am?”
“Indeed, tell me why I shouldn’t want you. Try to turn me the fuck off, because I’m telling you now there’s nothing you could say that’s going to make me leave you. That would be entirely on you, baby.”
“At sixteen I got drunk …” I’d already heard about this. It was the story Bradley had told me about and I’d challenged Tricia about it gently before. At the time, her response had been explosive, and she had shut the subject down.
“So you slept with a guy when your boyfriend was out of town? That’s what you want to tell me… that you cheated? You were a kid.” Does she think I think she’ll cheat? That I’ll cheat?
She began pacing the floor and pulling her fingers through her ponytail until she stopped and stared me down. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as her breathing and her anxiety grew. “Are you telling my story, or am I?”
Scrubbing my hand down my face I felt disappointed for interrupting her. I sighed heavily with a pleading look. “Sorry, please…” I coaxed, sitting forward on the edge of the couch and moved my hands behind my calves, so as not to reach out to her.
“This? Us? You…” she began and stopped, inhaling deeply several times. I waited, watching her distressed expressions as an internal struggle played out. She worriedly wrung her hands over and over as she tilted her head in thought.
“This… is me being selfish,” she said, gesturing an open palm toward me. “Despite what you think I do want this… God, I desperately want this with you, but I’m not being fair.”
My chest tightened to the point where I couldn’t expand my lungs to breathe deeply enough, when another dump of adrenaline surged through my body. Even my neck felt tight when I swallowed. “Tell me,” I said, softly, staring intently. I tried to appear calm when inside my heart thumped against my breastbone, petrified she’d disclose something I couldn’t live with. “Whatever it is, just say it.”
Tricia drew in the deepest breath she could inhale and shuddered. Exhaling as if to regulate her body, she bit her lip and tried to soothe herself with a hug. “How can I be with you … deny you a life where you could have it all, when I fucked up so badly with mine? You don’t deserve to be punished for my sins.”
“What exactly is this terrible sin? Why don’t you let me decide for myself if I can live with it?”
Flashing me a glare she hugged herself tighter. “I told you before I’m not the person you think I am.”
“Stop, just fucking stop with the stalling and give it to me.”
“Donovan Clark…” she murmured, her breathing suddenly labored as she fought her own rush of adrenaline and panic. I said nothing but held her gaze, unblinking. I held my breath and nodded slowly for her to continue.
“Bradley was right, I did cheat on him… that was all on me. I was sixteen and drunk, so fucking drunk,” she scoffed, “it’s a wonder I didn’t die from alcohol poisoning. Donovan was a little older, and very cool with the ladies. Looking back at that night, with all I know now, he targeted me. You could say I was easy prey.”
“That’s not all of it, right? Did he force you to do things you didn’t want… or like? Could it be he drugged you—” My hands moved to my lap and curled into fists. I immediately wanted to hug her but I knew I had to stay seated and not break her disclosure.
“No, like I said, I went willingly with him, enjoyed it even…what I remember of it anyway. For my first experience.” She fell quiet for a few moments and I saw a range of emotions flit over her face, narrowed eyes, pursed lips, taking her top lip between her teeth, all showing me she felt disgusted with herself and hated what she’d had to say next.
“Rumors flew around… so many fucking rumors,” she scoffed again. “I was ashamed and humiliated, but I tried in the beginning to work through it. That was until karma bit my ass for cheating. I was pregnant.” My heart squeezed when I saw how saying those words almost killed her.
Fresh tears streamed down her face and dripped from her chin, but I still stayed where I was.
It was painful to watch her, but I had to know all of it and I felt she wasn’t done. She grabbed some tissues from a box, wiped her nose, and scrunched them up her hand. She looked at me again and shrugged.
“I hit the fertility jackpot. Instead of the rumors subsiding like I’d expected, they intensified, except the rumors were true. I’d protected Donovan to my parents and refused to name the father, unlike him, who boasted about sleeping with me. The rumors had begun before I had told Donnie I was pregnant and I had no idea how he’d found out.”
I felt incensed she went through that. “What a fucking lowlife,” I cussed.
“Yeah. Did Bradley tell you Donnie told people he wasn’t the only one to fuck me that night?” I shook my head, horrified that at the tender age of sixteen she went through such an ordeal. “I guess after the initial euphoria of breaking Brad and me up was over, he’d realized what being a father would do to his chances of a future scholarship.”
“What a bastard, and you’d coached him to get the scholarship?”
“Not after I knew I was pregnant. That’s when he began talking shit that other guys were involved and turned a one-eighty, claiming any baby I had may possibly not be his. It was months later that I found out where the information had come from. It turned out it was Donnie’s aunt, who had worked at the Walgreen pharmacy I went to. She was the one who sold me a test and supported me to take it. I had trusted that lady, but she shared I was pregnant with Donnie’s mom. The irony was that his mom used my case to warn Donovan about using protection when the time came for him to have sex, according to what he told me.”
“Fuck, you must have been so scared,” I replied, suddenly thinking of all the girls I’d fooled around with at that age. Thankfully, I had never made disparaging remarks, nor had I shared my sexual experiences in the locker room either. A gentleman never disclosed his conquests according to my dad. “Come here.” I held out my hand and she looked at it for a long minute before ignoring my request and turned her back on me.
Resist You (Unchained Attraction Book 3) Page 18