“You deserved everything you got.”
“I did. I accept that. But don’t keep punishing me.”
“You don’t even know what lies ahead,” Lola said and resisted touching her stomach again. If there was an ounce of love in him for her, she could tear his heart out every day once he found out she was pregnant. But she’d be tearing her own heart out too and now, she actually needed it to raise this baby.
“I don’t deserve this anymore,” he said.
“You deserve it,” she snapped. She breathed hard, curling her hands in and out of fists. She’d been holding the reins for weeks, and she didn’t know how to loosen her grip. “You deserve all of it. For being a monster.”
“I’ve learned my lesson. And I’m grateful for that, because now I know I can make you happy. You’re more than enough, Lola—the money doesn’t mean shit if you aren’t by my side. I want to try to be enough for you.”
“No. You had your chance, and you blew it. We’re finished, and there isn’t anything you can say to change my mind.”
Slowly, he inclined his head forward. “You’re serious about this?”
“I will not make the same mistakes again.”
They stared at each other, him looking on the verge of speaking until he closed his mouth. “I don’t know how else to get you to see—I thought…I thought—”
“You thought what? You’d never have to pay for treating people like this?”
He looked away from her, his eyes eventually drifting down to the ground. He blinked, his hand twitched. His eyebrows lowered. And she watched his every move, not knowing what she was hoping for, just that he wasn’t giving it to her. He turned around.
“Where are you going?” Lola asked.
He stopped, looked back. “I don’t know. I’m standing here, prepared to do whatever you ask, but you’re asking me to do nothing.”
“No,” she said sharply. She jabbed a finger in his direction. “You don’t get to walk away. I do.”
His eyebrows knit as he faced her again. “What?”
“Do you know how it feels to lay it all on the line only to have the person you love tear you apart?”
He nodded. “I do now.”
“No, you don’t. You said you loved me—but I was about to give you everything I had. You waited until I was at my most vulnerable to rip my heart out. I want to do the same to you, and then I get to walk away. Do you understand?”
“No. I—”
“I want to gut you of your dignity.”
His face went smooth, his body still. Dignity, pride, ego, his and hers—that was how they’d gotten here. Neither of them wanted to give up those things. “I don’t know what else to say.” Beau’s jaw clenched as he swallowed. “I love you. I want to make a life with you. That’s my everything.”
“Stand on the cliff,” she said. “You stand there for once.”
He glanced behind her. “What?”
She looked back at that enormous hole in the earth and pointed at the crag. “You need to know how it feels to be cornered for once. To have no control.”
He put his hands in his pockets and walked toward her without hesitating. She held her breath as they passed each other and only let it go once they’d switched spots. He walked over to the ledge and looked down, but only for a brief second. He turned his back to it. “I never thought I could love anyone the way I love you.”
“Did you hear that in a movie?” Lola asked.
He narrowed his eyes on her, rolling his lips inward. “It’s true, Lola.”
“It’s not good enough.”
“I don’t understand. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to give me what I gave you. Every last thing you have. And when you’re emptied out, and your heart is in the dirt? I’m going to walk away, Beau. I’m going to leave you standing here in your own mess. You will never see me again. So, come on. If you love me like you say, you’ll give me the closure I deserve.”
He stared at her, something miserable in his green eyes. It was almost enough to get her to call this off, but this was what she needed. Because nobody could hurt Beau’s pride worse than himself. If he could go to that place for her, knowing it wouldn’t win him anything in the end, then maybe Lola could trust in what he was trying to tell her.
She held her breath, waiting. He made no move to speak, just blinked a few times. For a minute, she thought he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t give himself up to save them.
He inhaled deeply through his nose. “I already told you I love you. How am I supposed to explain how deep it goes?”
“Try.” Lola turned sideways. “If you can’t, you can leave.”
He continued to look at her, finally shaking his head. “I thought I’d find you here after weeks of confusion, and finally all my questions would be answered. I knew we would fight. It’s part of who we are, what we did to each other. We’re both so angry. But I was going to take everything you had to give, and never once did I think that wouldn’t be enough. In my gut, I knew—we’d leave here together.”
“Both those nights, you let me live in a fantasy I thought was reality. Now it’s your turn. Tell me all the details of this life you thought we would have. Where would we have gone from here?”
His hands strained in his pockets. It was ridiculous to see a man in a suit at a place like this, but it was his armor. His tie was still off center. “Don’t make me do this,” he said quietly.
She had done it, over and over, and in her experience—he had to know what he was losing in order to feel the full impact of its void. “Your plan was to come here and drive me off into the sunset? That isn’t life,” she said sharply. “Do it or leave. Go back to L.A.”
“Back to L.A.,” he repeated fast and loud, visibly tensing as though steeling himself. “That’s where I would’ve taken you. Home, to the house—”
“I hated it there.” It’d never felt like she’d belonged amongst the white carpets and polished wood. “That wasn’t my home.”
“Okay. I didn’t know that,” he said cautiously, grimacing. “So, then, I’d ask if you wanted to move to a different neighborhood, or if you’d found somewhere on your trip you liked better than L.A.”
“You can’t leave L.A.”
He looked to the side, his eyebrows heavy, wrestling with something. “I could. It’s not home anymore,” he said distantly. “You are. Were.”
Lola shifted on her feet. Beau was dedicated to that city even more than she was. “What about Bolt Ventures?”
“I would’ve given it up. Or worked remotely. Or started something new. At the end of the day, it’s just a job.” He smiled a little as he said it, like he was sharing an inside joke. But he looked back at her quickly, serious again. “I would’ve come home at five. I don’t want to spend another evening without you. I hate it. I hate coming home to an empty house. Before, I didn’t know the difference, but I do now. It’s excruciating.”
Lola’s blood rushed loudly in her head. As angry as she was, she recognized his breakthrough for what it was. He was giving her the control by living out this dream he’d never get, by making himself vulnerable. While she’d been gone, getting her back had still been a possibility in his mind. But now, he knew no matter what he said, she was going to leave. He didn’t have to say anything. He could walk away.
“I love you,” he said. “So much that I went to see your mom. Once, to see if she knew where you were. Then again—yesterday morning, on my way to work. I stopped and spent an hour there, having coffee, talking to her whenever there was a lull between tables.”
Lola leaned in as if she’d misheard him. She hadn’t known about the second time, since it was after she’d spoken to Dina on the phone. “Did my mom tell you where to find me?”
“No. I didn’t even ask.”
“Then why’d you go?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I missed you so fucking much, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go to Hey Joe. My own home is hell, the stup
idest shit reminds me of you. She was the only real connection I had left to you.”
Lola tried to focus, but her mind had latched onto this one little thing—he hadn’t just gone to see her mom. He’d taken an hour out of his workday to do it. And it wasn’t to get anything or manipulate anyone. It was only to feel close to Lola. And she realized they were standing at the Grand Canyon at five-thirty on a Tuesday, when he should’ve been fifty stories above Los Angeles, ruling his empire.
Her heart squeezed. She’d needed that from him even more than she’d realized. And his words reverberated inside her—‘I missed you so fucking much. I missed you so fucking much.’
“Beau—”
“I canceled a meeting to be here,” he continued. “Not just any meeting—it was with VenTech.”
Lola tilted her head, the name vaguely familiar.
“The company that bought my first website and made me a millionaire. It’s struggling to stay afloat. Today, ten years after they destroyed all my hard work for my competitor’s benefit, Bolt Ventures was going to make an embarrassingly low offer to acquire VenTech. Just so I could say I told you so as I sold it off in parts.”
Lola touched her throat. So she wasn’t the only other one Beau thought deserving of his wrath. She had to know, for her own sake, if he could still be that vindictive. “Tell me you aren’t going through with it.”
“I was. This morning would’ve been my first time facing the founder since I’d signed the contract at twenty-seven. But because there was the smallest chance I’d find you here today, I called off the deal last night. It wasn’t worth it. None of this seems worth it anymore.”
He’d been where she had, trying to find her, when he’d needed to be elsewhere. When he could’ve sent someone in his place. She’d been running away, living her life, and she’d also been his priority. And, like she’d planned all along, he’d learned his lesson. Canceling the acquisition was proof.
“Beau—”
“Wait. Before you go. I’m not finished.” He doubled over, put his hands on his knees and took a deep breath as he stared at the ground. “I can’t look at you for this part. I fucked things up, I know. But I had no idea how much I was throwing away. The reason I built all this, why I missed your dinners, was to make sure my family, whenever they came along, would have everything. It scares the fuck out of me to say this, but I thought that family would be with you, and I thought I’d worked hard enough, done enough, to deserve that.” He squatted down, ran his hands over his face and looked up at her. “You’re going to be a great mother, Lola. I’ve seen it.”
She took two steps back, her hand on her stomach. There was only one way he could know about the baby. Dina’s loyalty was to Lola, though—she had no reason to tell him. But he was as certain as she’d ever seen him. “What?”
“I’d hoped I’d be the one to give you that. I didn’t even know I wanted it until…it doesn’t matter. Fuck. It haunts me that someday you’ll be the mother of someone else’s child. But I have to live with that. So don’t worry—I will get everything I deserve.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. He was almost on his knees, his chest opened, bleeding for her. All that, and he didn’t even know she was carrying his child yet. It was enough. She put one hand over her mouth and sobbed into it while reaching out to him with the other. “Come here,” she said. “Come home.”
Chapter 67
Beau was sure he’d heard wrong. That his mind was playing tricks on him. It wouldn’t be a stretch—him, finally losing his sanity here on this ledge while Lola watched. He’d driven, literally, to the ends of the earth. He’d waited eight hours at the park’s entrance for that red sports car to pull up, doubting himself, watching, watching, watching.
But it was worth it if he’d heard her correctly. Lola was crying into one hand, her other one outstretched to him. “Come here. Come home.”
He couldn’t move. As if getting into that position, kneeling at her feet on the edge of a cliff, had broken all his joints. It wasn’t the abyss behind him that scared him but the idea of going on after seeing what could’ve been. Life had opened up to him, presenting him with all its beauty—he’d found her, and now he could make things right. Love her, marry her, give them both the child he’d dreamed about.
How could he miss it so much, something he’d never had?
He didn’t blame Lola for breaking him down to this. It was the first time in his life he’d surrendered to someone else. Even the first two nights he’d spent with her, he’d given her just enough for them both to fall in love. But this wasn’t love. It was something closer to death. A part of him had to die for Lola to know he wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Beau eased from squatting to sanding, still unsure what she was offering him. Condolence? Pity? Something more? “But you said you were walking away.”
She shook her head, removing her dampened hand to wipe her eyes. “Maybe I should, but I can’t. I left to hurt you, hoping you’d regret what you’d given up, and I thought that would be it. I never planned to end up here.”
Beau waited. He wanted to ask her if that meant she wasn’t going to leave him there on the brink of his demise, but he was afraid one word from him might ruin it all.
“I’m happy in L.A., but I want to leave that house,” she said. “I don’t care where we go, it just has to have at least two bedrooms.”
He stared at her, his heart rate increasing, unsure he could trust his ears. It sounded like she was saying she’d come home with him, but he didn’t think he could take it if he was wrong yet again. He didn’t know exactly what she was asking for, but he didn’t care. “Consider the house gone. Whatever you want.”
“I resented you.” She paused. “For putting work first. I should’ve said it, but that would’ve meant I cared, and I didn’t want to care. But I do now, so I’m saying it.”
He nodded. Since she’d left, even he’d resented his work for what it’d cost him. “Work will always be a part of my life. I can’t walk away completely.”
“I don’t want you to. It’s your passion, but—”
“But it’s not my priority. Not anymore. I will make changes, not because I have to, but because I have a reason to.”
“That’s not all,” she said, eyeing him warily.
“I know it’s not, but put me out of my misery. Please. Does this mean you’re giving me a chance to earn you back?”
She reached out to him again, and this time, he went without hesitation. Those nights he’d had no idea where she was or if she was okay, he’d gone nearly mad, needing her back in his arms, the only place she was truly safe. Before he could put his hands on her, though, she took him by the wrist. Her long fingers wrapped around him, warming his chilled skin. She guided his hand to her waist, setting it there without letting him go. “You have nothing to earn,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I see on your face what you’ve been through. When we were together, I know you never lied to me, never faked how you felt. I can forgive what you did because now that I understand you, I understand what drove you there. That Beau never would’ve stood where you just stood and willingly ripped his own heart out. I trust you.”
Beau trusted her too, and he didn’t question it. Hurting him was her way of fighting back. And she always would, he expected that from her. He loved that about her. But from now on, they’d be on the same side. “It’s all I could’ve asked for from you. Forgive me. Love me.”
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “It’s not all.”
She readjusted her grip on his wrist—her palm was sweating. He glanced down. His hand wasn’t actually flattened on her waist but her lower abdomen.
“When you said—” She paused, and he looked back at her face. Her expression had changed, her lips rolled inward with a frown. Her furrowed eyebrows lined her forehead with wrinkles. “Sometimes things don’t really happen the way you plan—” She blew out a sigh and laughed in a strange, jittery way. “Obviously.”
&nbs
p; Beau lengthened his spine. Her demeanor had suddenly flipped, and he didn’t need that. He didn’t need to have the rug pulled out from under him again. Just a minute ago, she’d shoved her hand in his chest, taken hold of his heart, forced him to say mercy. Now, she could barely look him in the eye.
“What’s wrong?” Beau asked. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. Nothing’s going to change my—”
“I’m pregnant.”
Beau jerked his head forward, his mouth and eyes wide open. They were both shaking—her body, his head side to side. They’d fucked a lot during the two nights of their arrangement, over and over. Him coming inside her, needing to own her in the quickest, most irrefutable way possible. He gulped some air, closed his mouth. “You’re what? With—with me?”
She bit her bottom lip. “Yes. We are pregnant. I know it’s not—what happened was, when my purse was stolen, my birth control was in there. When I moved in, we had those rules—I didn’t think we’d—”
Beau squeezed his eyes shut for a brief second. He could barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. He was grateful he’d stepped away from the cliff. It came back to him all at once, his moment of weakness, taking her from behind against the bathroom counter. It’d nearly driven her away. He hadn’t understood why then. It’d never occurred to him to ask about birth control.
That little girl in his dream, clutching Lola’s leg, both of them otherworldly, divine. That was going to be his reality? After all the wrong he’d done, he was going to have that pureness in his life, that picture of perfection?
She was still talking. “And I know I signed that agreement—”
It was awkward handling her that way. He pulled his hand off her stomach and held it up. “Stop.”
She blinked, her blue eyes sparkling more than usual, red and shiny with tears. By her quivering chin, she was trying not to cry. “You’re not saying anything.”
Already, he felt out of control. That’s what children were—just a clusterfuck of disarray and irrational behavior. They couldn’t be reasoned with.
Not his little girl, though. She’d be an angel.
Don't Break This Kiss (Top Shelf Romance Book 5) Page 58