Abel nodded, staring at James. “You say you care about this woman. Do you love her?”
Staring hard at his father, he blinked and waited. Waited for the rush of anxiety to race up his legs, through his stomach, and straight into his heart. But nothing happened.
Megan was…hell, she was amazing. James thought countless times how lucky he was that they’d met when they had. He wanted to protect her, to provide for her. He wanted her to be happy, but most of all he wanted her to be happy with him. And these feelings weren’t something new that started after he’d found out she was pregnant. He’d realized sometime before the holidays that he could picture the two of them together for a long time. Megan would be an excellent mother, not just to their new baby but to Cade as well.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded at his father. “I think I do, Dad.”
Half of Abel’s mouth curved up in a smile. “If that’s the case, son, then a marriage certificate isn’t going to mean anything. You aren’t scared of marriage. Your issue is with trust and commitment. And it sounds to me like you’re already past the point where your heart is involved.”
Jesus. His dad was right.
His father stood up slowly and stretched his stiff back. Clapping him a couple times on the shoulder, he said, “It sounds like you kids need to sit down and discuss this.”
Nodding, James tried to organize his thoughts. He loved her. He loved Megan, and that didn’t scare him.
His father squeezed his shoulder and turned toward his truck. “I’m heading out now. I should be home before curfew.”
James snorted at his father’s joke. He watched the older man amble across the parking lot and get into his truck. The vehicle roared to life and James found himself staring at the vacant parking spot long after his dad pulled away.
Why hadn’t he realized he loved Megan before? This entire time, he’d been worrying about marriage when he shouldn’t have been. The anxiety that had invaded his body earlier had lessened but it was still lingering. He was no longer concerned about marriage. Instead, there was one other issue that hadn’t been answered yet: Did Megan feel the same way about him?
###
When Megan opened the door to her apartment, James knew right away why she’d preferred to get takeout tonight. Her nose was cherry red, her lips were dry and chapped, and there were dark circles under her swollen eyes.
“Hey,” she sniffled.
Stepping back, she let him inside the apartment. She was dressed in black yoga pants and one of his Chicago Bears T-shirts. The sleeves hung down past her elbows, and the bottom of the shirt was only a couple inches above her knees.
“Jesus, what happened?” he asked, shrugging out of his coat and putting it on the coatrack. It had only been three days since he’d seen her last, and she hadn’t sounded sick when he’d talked to her last night.
“It’s just a cold. I think I’m over the worst of it though. I’m feeling much better today. My nose isn’t dripping like a faucet anymore, and I can sort of breathe out of one nostril.”
A strand of hair had fallen out of her ponytail, and he pushed it back behind her ear. “Why didn’t you call sooner?”
“I didn’t want you to catch anything. If I’m lucky, this cold will be long gone by the time I have to fly to Boston in two weeks for Ewan’s wedding.”
She picked up a partially full mug from the kitchen island and went to sit on the couch. James placed the Thai food takeout on the counter. After unpacking the bag, he grabbed some bowls out of the cabinet and dished out their rice and curry.
They both liked the same dish: massaman curry. And they both liked it spicy. Maybe the food would clear out Megan’s sinuses.
After delivering her bowl to her in the living room, he sank down next to her on the couch. “Are you taking any cold medicine?”
“Yeah.” She stirred her curry and rice. “The doctor told me I could take acetaminophen-based products. So that’s what I’ve been taking.”
James took a bite of his food, getting a spoonful of both potato and pineapple. Glancing down at her bowl, he was startled to find it resting on a tiny baby bump. He’d never noticed it before, and her protruding belly wrapped in his Bears shirt made him smugly satisfied. He had an overwhelming need to touch it. Reaching over, he placed his palm on her stomach.
“You can see it now,” she said, smiling.
“Yeah. There he is.” He rubbed his hand over her tummy and felt Megan laugh.
“Or she.”
Pulling his hand back, he shrugged. They were four weeks away from finding out the gender of their child, and Megan was convinced it was a girl. James didn’t care either way, but he still liked to tease her about it.
“In most of my clothes, you still can’t see the baby bump, but when I wear formfitting clothes, you can.” She took another bite of her food and chewed. “I hate to say it, but I might have to buy another dress for the wedding. I didn’t think I’d be showing this much.”
Megan would be flying to Boston on the Thursday after school finished for the summer and planned to return the following Sunday. Her cousin Ewan and his fiancée, Quinn, had been engaged for over a year, and the wedding was going to be a simple affair in their hometown of Ballagh.
James had never said anything, but he wondered if she’d ever considered inviting him along. Weddings weren’t really his thing, so he wasn’t pushing the issue, but it’d probably be as good a time as any to introduce him to her family.
Speaking of weddings…the reminder of why he’d come over here tonight made his chest tighten. He’d come to the conclusion that he wanted to marry Megan, and he hoped to God that she wanted to marry him too.
With all the focus being on the baby lately, he decided instead of just popping the question, he’d broach the topic with her first. Ease into a conversation and test the waters. Maybe she’d prefer to get married after the baby was born. Maybe she’d want a simple justice-of-the-peace sort of thing. This would be the second time around for both of them, and honestly he could do without all the hoopla that came with a wedding.
He simply wanted Megan.
Looking down at his half-empty bowl, he suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. He stood up from the couch and strolled into the kitchen, hoping to shake off his nerves.
“You want anything to drink?” he called over his shoulder. He fished some iced tea out of the refrigerator.
“No, thanks,” Megan replied.
James poured himself a glass and drank the whole thing in four long gulps. Taking a deep breath, he turned toward her. “Do you ever think we should get married?”
He held his breath as she stopped chewing and blinked at him. Her eyelashes fluttered a couple more times before she leaned forward to place her bowl on the coffee table. She rose and slowly walked to where he stood in the kitchen.
“Are you proposing?” she asked hesitantly.
“No, I’m not actually proposing. This would be a really horrible proposal if I were. But I thought we should probably talk about this since we’re going to have a baby together.”
He kept his breathing shallow and hoped she couldn’t see him struggling to keep from panting. Megan frowned and shook her head.
“I don’t think we should get married,” she said.
Dread pushed away his anxiety. He tried to swallow the giant lump in his throat. “Really?”
She turned to put her empty bowl in the sink. “Yeah, really. I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
He was frozen, his limbs unwilling to move. Instead of vanishing, the tightness in his chest only increased.
She doesn’t love me.
He felt his breath shake as he exhaled.
“Are you done with this iced tea?” she asked, shaking the bottle that he’d left out on the counter.
He nodded, and she put it back in the refrigerator. Getting up on her toes, she reached for a box of teabags from a cabinet.
After she filled her mug with water, Megan put it into the microwav
e. “I feel like this is my tenth cup of tea today. It just makes my throat feel so much better.”
Swallowing again, he watched as she pulled the milk out of the fridge. Was she not going to say anything else about his question?
“I bet Cade is excited about the end of the school year.” The microwave beeped, and she pulled her mug out. “All the kids have pretty much checked out. Another week and they’re finished with second grade.” Smiling, she looked over at him. “I’m just as excited as they are.”
James tried to smile, but he wasn’t sure if he was successful. He felt hollow and numb, like his insides had been emptied. His heart thumped in his chest, and he swore that if he looked down, he’d be able to see it beating through his shirt.
Megan walked back over to the couch and sat down. After taking a sip of her tea, she sighed and rested a hand on her stomach. “It’s sort of cute, isn’t it?” She was grinning down at her tummy.
He managed to clear his throat. “Yeah, it’s cute.”
The words echoed inside his head. So they were done with this conversation. There would be no wedding for them. They would be unwed co-parents.
That idea would have once thrilled James. But that was before he’d realized he loved this woman. Now he felt like his heart had been ripped out through his throat. And proposal or no proposal, he still felt rejected.
Unlocking his legs, he moved away from the fridge and toward the kitchen island. After putting his empty glass on the granite, he braced his arms against the edge of the counter. He looked at the dark swirls of stone as they twisted and spread out within the mostly white slab.
“Would you do me a big favor?” she asked. “Can you go into my bedroom and grab the box of tissues on my nightstand? That curry got my sinuses moving.”
He pushed off the counter and stepped into her bedroom. The lamp beside her brand-new bed was on. As he snagged the box of tissues, the pile of mail on the nightstand shifted slightly.
He reached down to steady it so nothing slid to the floor. He saw a couple magazines, a postcard flyer, a few pieces of junk mail, and a cream-colored wedding invitation.
An invitation addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Niall Dempsey.
He reached for the envelope and ran his fingers over the golden embossed letters. It must have been the interior envelope of the invitation because it wasn’t postmarked and it lacked a mailing address as well.
He stared at the name of Megan’s ex-husband and the Mrs. beside it. Megan hadn’t been a Mrs. since her divorce was finalized last August. Yet the sender of this invitation didn’t know she wasn’t a Mrs. anymore.
What the hell was this? Surely she had told her family about her divorce. She’d told him she was going to.
James walked back into the kitchen and looked at Megan.
“What’s this?” he asked, holding up the invitation.
She squinted at what was in his hand. “Oh, that’s Quinn and Ewan’s wedding invitation. Where did you find that?” Her tone wasn’t accusatory, just interested.
“Beside the box of tissues you asked for.” He tossed the box on the counter. “Why is this addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Niall Dempsey?”
Her mug stopped midway up to her lips. After rising slowly from the couch, she walked to the kitchen island and looked at the envelope he placed in front of her. She turned the invitation over and then set it back down.
“Who sent out the invitation?” he asked her.
She swallowed without looking up at him. “Quinn.”
“Why does Quinn still think you’re Mrs. Niall Dempsey?”
The heat surging through his body had reached his neck, and he felt a warm flush pass over his cheeks. Anger blossomed inside his chest as she stared at the envelope.
“Because I haven’t told my family about my divorce yet.”
Chapter 28
It pained Megan to see James’s entire face turn to stone. His jaw locked, his nostrils flared, and his eyes pierced into her like searing blades straight from the forge.
She’d never seen him this angry before. Not when he’d dealt with his ex-wife at the school. Not when her ex-husband had approached them at that bar and said some nasty things to them.
The tendons in James’s neck strained with tension as he held his shoulders rigid. She wanted to shrink away from his penetrating eyes, but she felt glued in place, helpless to escape the agony that was collecting in the pit of her stomach.
Megan had told James months ago that she planned to tell her family. He must think she’d lied to him. She honestly thought she’d have told them by now. But James wouldn’t know that.
“Why haven’t you told your family that you’re divorced?” he spat out, his tone deadly cold.
“I wanted to but—”
“But what?”
“I couldn’t find the right time.”
“You’ve had months!”
Her lips moved soundlessly. The moisture in her mouth and throat were gone, and she had to jut her neck forward to work up to swallowing. “I’d planned to tell them in person.”
“Like when you saw them over Christmas?” As he narrowed his eyes at her, his hands twisted into fists at his sides.
“I had every intention of telling them over Christmas, but the right opportunity never came. Quinn and Ewan were talking about their wedding. Sean and Darcy got engaged. I just couldn’t dump my news on them.”
He huffed a fake laugh. “Oh, right, your heartbreaking news. The news that would devastate your family and make them so disappointed in you.”
She frowned. “Don’t say it like that. And don’t invalidate my fears either.”
“News flash, sweetheart.” He leaned toward her. “You’re not the only person in this fucking world who’s ever gotten a divorce.”
She stepped away from him as if his words had teeth.
He pushed off the counter and walked into the living room, running his hand over the back of his neck. “Can you not see how this makes me feel?” He turned back toward her. “You don’t want to disappoint your family by telling them you divorced the successful, rich real estate executive who gave you everything your heart desired?”
“Not everything,” she whispered. Niall hadn’t made her half as happy as James made her. All the gowns or jewels in the world couldn’t make her feel as amazing as James did when he simply smiled at her.
James either didn’t hear her reply or ignored her. “Did it ever cross your mind to tell them about me? That you were dating a new guy?”
She took a step toward him and his whole body locked up. She halted, guilt eating away at her insides. “Of course I wanted to tell them about you.”
And she truly had. In fact, she was so excited to tell them about James and the baby that it was killing her. She wanted to go shopping for baby clothes with her mom. She wanted to see the look on her dad’s face when she told him he would be a grandpa. But first she had to tell them about Niall and her divorce. And that giant piece of news was holding everything up.
“So why didn’t you? Do you think they won’t like me? Won’t approve of me? Is that why you didn’t invite me to the wedding?”
“Of course not! They’re going to love you, James.”
Her mounting panic made her voice shriller by the second. Hurt twisted his gorgeous face and it slayed her.
“So if it’s not them, is it you?” A muscle on the side of his jaw twitched. “Are you ashamed of me…of us?”
She blew out a breath. Her mouth opened and shut, yet her vocal cords wouldn’t utter a sound. Megan was shocked to her core that James would even think such a thing. “Why would I be ashamed of you?” was all she could rush out.
He shrugged casually. “Maybe because I’m a blue-collar mechanic? Maybe because I have permanent grease-stained hands and calluses on the pads of my fingers that feel like sandpaper. Maybe because I don’t drive a Mercedes? Maybe because I’m divorced?”
She could only shake her head. Blinking angry tears away, she stood motionless an
d helpless at the edge of the kitchen. She couldn’t believe he could think for one minute that she would ever feel that way about him.
“Do you really think I’m that shallow?”
“I don’t know. Are you? Here you are, the woman who’s carrying my child, and you can’t find the time to tell your family that I even exist?”
“That’s ridiculous! How can you say that?” Megan cried, her voice breaking. “You sound like one of the seven-year-olds in my class. You’re using the sharpest words just so you can inflict the most pain!”
“I hear you responding to my questions with questions of your own, Megan.” His voice climbed, and she winced as he spat out her name. “They aren’t fucking answers!”
Her brain was spinning, and she desperately tried to latch onto something to say so she could stop this argument and ease his pain. But she couldn’t think fast enough. James shook his head and strode past her to the front door. He didn’t even look at her.
She was making a mess of this. He had every right to be angry at her. But it had absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with her and her fear of failure. Her fear of disappointing her family. And here she was disappointing the man she’d fallen head-over-heels in love with, and it hurt worse than she’d ever imagined.
“James, I promise you. This has nothing to do with you.” She gripped the edge of the kitchen island. She wanted to run after him, fling herself into his arms, but she resisted.
Grabbing his coat from the rack, he turned toward her. “When you show up in Boston in a couple weeks and everyone can see you’re pregnant, are you planning to pass the baby off as Niall’s?”
His words felt like a punch to the gut. She instinctively dropped her hands to her stomach. Leveling her gaze at James as best she could, she insisted, “I’m going to tell them everything when I’m there for the wedding.”
And she really planned on it. In fact, she was excited to tell her family. For the first time in a long time, she was happy. Her first year at her new job had been amazing. So far, she’d had a healthy pregnancy. But most importantly, she was in a relationship with a man she loved and who treated her like she was important to him.
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