“The idea was for you to get home, correct? And someone needed to drive your truck, am I right?”
Gray nodded with displeasure.
“Then shut the fuck up and show me where you parked.”
“Maybe I should ride with Brett.” He stumbled over the words and almost fell on his face standing still.
“Yeah, that’s a bright idea, Gray. Get in the car with your ex-girlfriend’s husband, who you called at two in the morning to come pick your drunk ass up. Make sure you let him know you asked if I missed you while you’re at it. I’m sure it will make for lively carpool conversation. Gah, you’re insufferable. Where is the truck?”
He started walking, so I followed. Brett pulled out and drove down the side street until we came to the vehicle we were looking for. Gray handed me the keys when I stuck my hand out.
Once in the car, I prayed Gray would keep his damn mouth shut. I didn’t know how we’d gone from his giving me advice at Applebee’s to this. Nothing had changed with Gray, but something had snapped inside me. My response to Gray had been completely over the top. I guess in my mind, our texts had been platonic, but maybe in Gray’s they were something more.
“Have I given you the impression I missed you, Gray?” I tried to keep my tone even. I didn’t want to start a fight…not that Gray would engage in one. God knew he would never fight for me.
“It’s just us, Bird Dog. It’s who we are. We’re meant to be together, and the universe is going to put us back that way.”
He put his hand on the inside of my thigh and leaned toward me. I swerved at the intrusion and swatted him away.
“What are you doing?” I screeched.
“Just trying to be close to you. You used to like it when I touched you. Loved getting my calls at night. Having me with you in your bed.”
“You’re a jackass.” I was tempted to pull over and swap cars with Brett, but even though Gray was ticking me off, I didn’t want him dead—Brett would kill him. “Do you care about me at all, Gray?”
“Of course. I love you.”
“You’ve never loved me, but if you care about me—don’t fuck up my marriage!”
“You don’t love him. You settled for him because I married Amber. The sooner you admit that the sooner this charade stops.”
I’d just put the truck in park in his driveway when I pursed my lips and slapped the taste right out of his mouth. Never in my life had I hit anyone, but Gray Dearsley had pushed me to my breaking point.
“You son of a bitch. I don’t know who the fuck you—” My door flew open and Brett’s arms caught mine.
He somehow managed to unbuckle my seatbelt and pull me from the driver’s seat, but he’d only derailed me. He hadn’t shut me up.
Gray met me at the front of the truck, and Brett let me go off like a rocket, or a redneck, I’m not sure which. I got right up in my ex’s face, my finger pointing hard into his chest. “You screwed up. You picked wrong. Not me. I’m not the girl you used anymore. Do not call me looking for sympathy, do not text me wanting pity. You did this to yourself, Gray. Your life, your marriages—they are a reflection of what you put into them. You will not drag me down with you again.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth under his lip, contemplating a response, but apparently thinking better of it. Even drunk, he wasn’t stupid enough to cross me in front of Brett. With a jerk of the head, he turned around and staggered toward his front door. Just once, I’d kill for him to engage in a verbal spar with me. One time, I wanted to be worth the argument.
With a quick gust of air out of my nose in a huff, I shook my head. “That right there is why you’re where you are, Gray. Nothing was ever worth the fight—it’s easier just to walk away.”
I threw his keys across the yard and onto the front porch. I refused to give that asshole one more tear. Instead, I turned toward Brett’s SUV and respectively, my back on Gray. The glass should have shattered in the window as hard as I slammed the door, but it still clung to the trim. Brett eased into his seat but said nothing. When we got home, I showered to rid myself of the smoke stench from the bar and climbed into bed. My rock pulled me into his fortress, and I rested my weary eyes in his comforting embrace.
I’d been poked and prodded more than any one human being should be in the last few weeks. Lissa had been a trooper, never once complaining, and I’d vowed if she could tough it out, I would as well. But at that point, I was tired and cranky, and overly emotional as it was from all the hormones and crap I’d been injected with to make my ovaries work on overdrive. Gray’s shit last night wasn’t necessary and only served to sour my mood even further.
Brett’s silence was not what I had expected, but he’d gotten up this morning and acted like it was another day. Well, not another day. He was ecstatic we were making progress with the baby, but he didn’t mention the incident with Gray. This was the one portion of the process Brett and I were doing alone. We hadn’t seen a need for Dan and Lissa to be here and promised to update them when we left. Now I wished Lissa was here to gossip with. Anything to calm my nerves.
My leg jumped, the nervous anticipation starting to get to me. Brett simply laid his hand on my knee, instantly quieting my anxiety. This had all been strange. Before we’d left the house, Brett had to ejaculate into a collection cup for his portion of the donation. Somehow that hand-job just hadn’t been terribly intimate or romantic. And seeing him hand it over to a receptionist at the center was even stranger.
“This will be over before you know it.”
“I’m scared it’s going to hurt.” The doctor had told me it might be a little uncomfortable.
“Sweetheart, you’ll be asleep. The discomfort might come after the procedure, but he said that would be minimal cramping.
In my mind, this hadn’t been real before today. Everything leading up to this had been informational, practice, figuring out what to do—this was the real deal—where the rubber met the road. Within the next week, we’d either have fertilized eggs, or we’d have more disappointment.
When the nurse called my name, Brett whispered in my ear, “I know in my heart, this is it, Annie.” And he kissed me on the temple.
We were in motion, nurses were telling us what to do, repeating the steps of the procedure, and then starting an IV. A few minutes later, I woke in the recovery room. Technically, I’d been there about two and a half hours, but I’d missed out on most of it.
My eyes opened to a smiling Brett, and I knew without asking things had gone well, and the doctor had gotten what we needed. I allowed myself to dream about our eggs and sperm swimming in a little dish trying to find each other—my best eggs and his strongest swimmers—fighting to give us a baby.
An hour or so later, Brett helped me into the house and onto the couch. I nodded back off for a mid-day nap, but he’d promised to call Dan and Lissa to update them and invite them for dinner. Not that they needed an invitation. I wished we could convince them to buy the house for sale next door, but at this point they weren’t living together, and Brett had warned me about not interfering in their relationship. He was concerned about the effects of the pregnancy on them and didn’t want us encouraging more stress. I understood where he was coming from but thought he was wrong. Since I was getting my way on the baby situation, I let Brett have his on the Lissa and Dan deal—for now.
I woke to the sound of Dan’s rousing laughter and even louder voice bellowing through the house with Brett interjecting often enough to ask for further details on whatever drama had taken place in the hen house at work today. Opposite me sat Lissa, cross-legged on the couch, watching me.
“Hey, creepy. Why are you staring at me?”
Her grin made her eyes dance. “Just willing you to wake up and tell me all about it.” Child-like, she sat Indian style with her chin in her hands. Her long red hair flowing down around her.
“Not much to tell. I don’t remember any of it.”
“Seriously? That’s all I get. Brett said he was in the waiting
room and didn’t know anything other than they had successfully retrieved eggs. You two are useless!” Her tone was playful, but I saw the disappointment on her face.
“We can call tomorrow to get an update on the embryo development if you want? And every day for the next five days. We could make a lunch date of it.”
And that we did. For the next four days, Lissa and I met for lunch. We’d eat, then call the lab, and the same embryologist would update us on our little guys. Then we’d celebrate with dessert. On day five, we dragged Brett and Dan with us. We finally gave up hope of actually eating before making the call. Today we would find out how many viable embryos we had and make the appointment for the transfer. My finger hovered over the call button. The only part of the conversation I heard amongst the chatter at the table was a number.
Three.
That was the moment—in that very second, the blink of an eye—I knew. In nine months, Brett and I would have a child. I believed in signs. We’d wanted three, we got three.
While they continued to ask questions of the nurse, the tears filled my eyes and spilled over onto my cheeks. I’d finally broken the cycle—God had given me His favor. I was no longer the victim of my circumstances. I was now the creator of my destiny.
And it would include a child.
I was supposed to be on Lissa duty for the next few days, but I’ll be damned if Dan wasn’t acting like an overprotective, overbearing, ass. We didn’t even have confirmation of a pregnancy, we’d only done the embryo transfer, but her being put on bed rest to give them the best chance at implanting had sent him into overdrive—and I was over him.
“Lissa, I’m going to get out of here and leave you with Hovering Harry over there. If he goes home, call me, and I’ll gladly come back.” I winked at her, so she knew I was playing but didn’t give Dan the satisfaction.
Lissa groaned, but I knew she was eating up the attention from Dan. This was exactly how I’d always envisioned Brett being had I been able to get pregnant. There was a part of me that was envious, but the excitement far superseded it.
I called out my goodbyes over my shoulder as I left Lissa’s house. The two of us had been together non-stop since the embryo transfer. I was looking forward to getting home to Brett, and a night alone.
I hadn’t anticipated the mood I found Brett in. He was always happy to see me, even when he’d had a horrible day, but tonight, he was out for blood.
“Brett, did something happen at work today? What has you so fired up?”
“It’s Friday,” he sneered but never made eye contact with me.
“Normally, people look forward to the weekend.”
“This has nothing to do with the weekend. It has to do with your keeping things from me.”
“What?” I half laughed the word. There were no secrets between Brett and me. None.
Our eyes finally met, but I couldn’t discern the expression before me.
“Gray came to apologize today. Because he works on Fridays. And I haven’t seen him since we picked him up that night.”
Lord only knew what Gray had told Brett, but I hadn’t been keeping anything a secret intentionally. “Brett, you think I’m keeping Gray’s secrets for him? You’ve got to be kidding. You heard the conversation at his house that night. Hell, you dragged me out of his truck after I slapped him. I assumed you connected the dots. Not to mention, the following day was a pretty big deal, and most of the days since then have been as well. Hence the reason you haven’t seen Gray.”
“You should have told me.”
“Told you what? What did he tell you?”
“That he’d said inappropriate things. And made you uncomfortable touching you.”
“Brett, you knew he’d said inappropriate things. I screamed that like white trash in his front yard. As for the other, it didn’t matter. He put his hand on my back in the bar and then the inside of my thigh in the truck. I dealt with it.”
He slammed his hands down on the counter, and his face burned an angry red. “You shouldn’t have to deal with the likes of Gray Dearsley, Annie. Damn it. When do you stop giving him a free pass?”
“You’re kidding me, right? I didn’t give him a free anything. I almost swerved off the road that night removing his intrusive touch. And I slapped the shit out of him in the driveway. I haven’t talked to him since.”
“You should have pulled over and let me drive his truck. Hell, after he touched you in the bar you should have insisted I drive him home.”
I smirked a pissed off look Brett’s way. “As I recall, I wasn’t the one who answered the phone that night. Nor was I the one who agreed to go pick him up. And for the record, if Gray came to ‘apologize’ to you, it was an effort to rub it in your face because you hadn’t confronted him. He knew if you hadn’t said anything to him, I hadn’t told you he’d laid a finger on me—and you played into his manipulation. Way to go, Brett. I finally broke free, and you hopped on the merry-go-round.”
There was no way I would stand here and go through this with Brett. It was reminiscent of my time with Gray, only instead of fighting about drugs, we were fighting about my ex. My shoulder brushed Brett’s as I pushed past him, but instead of letting me pass, he grabbed my arm. With a tug, he had me back in front of him, and then instantly pressed to the wall. He’d ducked, putting his face inches from my own.
The green that normally sparkled with love burned with raging emotion. Had we not been yelling fifteen seconds earlier, I would have sworn what I saw was lust. My husband boxed me, caging me between his arms. To others, his size might be intimidating, but nothing about Brett scared me. I’d learned the hard way not to speak first in these situations. He’d stopped me, he had something to say—I’d stand here quietly until he let the words out. And I would not break eye contact under any circumstances—I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I refused to take the fall.
“You’re mine, Annie. That ring on your finger stakes my claim. No man, not Gray Dearsley, not Jesus Christ himself, touches you—ever. There is never a time or a place for anyone other than me to put his hands on you. So help me God, I will maim anyone else who tries. Understood?”
He’d turned into a Neanderthal in a matter of minutes. I got that he was protective and didn’t want anyone else touching me, but hell, I bumped into people more intimately in the mall. The truth was, Brett was pissed off because it was Gray.
I held his stare and didn’t so much as blink when I responded, “I got it, Brett. I thought I had it then, too, but apparently, you don’t trust me to handle myself. I’m not the naïve girl I was five years ago. There was no part of me that thought Gray’s little games were cute. I am as protective of our marriage as you are of me. So please, give me a little credit and trust I stood my ground.”
Done with the conversation, I ducked under his arm and slowly climbed the stairs, listening to the wood creak with each step I took. I couldn’t remember a time Brett had ever left me feeling defeated. In a matter of minutes, I’d crashed from my baby high, and the evening I’d been looking forward to had been destroyed. One day, hopefully, sooner rather than later, Gray Dearsley would stop having an effect on my life and the people in it. I’d finally stripped him of that power, only to have Brett turn around and give it back to him. One way or another, I would deal with Gray’s shit. He would understand I was done—we were done. There was no way in hell I would continue down this rabbit hole with a baby in tow.
Gray had finally met his match. If he’d believed I’d settled for Brett, he would damn sure know I’d chosen my family. And he wasn’t a part of that.
Chapter Thirteen
Brett
I couldn’t stand being at odds with Annie, especially when it was about our relationship. If we disagreed about some trivial subject, fine, but fighting about Gray wasn’t worth the energy. There wasn’t a valid reason for my outburst, but I couldn’t bring myself to apologize. The thought of that man’s hands on any part of her skin was more than I could handle. He’d been a poison
in her life for far too long, and I refused to let that toxin seep into our marriage. But fighting with her had the exact same effect. She was right; he got to me. He played the game, and I willingly offered myself up as a pawn.
I’d sent her flowers, but she knew they were to pacify her, not to apologize. For that very reason, they’d had the opposite effect I’d intended. My hope was for her to soften enough to explain my ignorance without directly saying I was sorry. That hadn’t happened. Instead, I’d found them left as a centerpiece on the patio furniture. Her quiet way of saying, “Man up.” This had gone on too long, and I refused to let this ruin today. Lissa had gone in for the beta pregnancy test yesterday. It had been two weeks since they’d transferred the embryos, and we would find out this afternoon if any of them took. The three of us were meeting at Lissa’s house to call in together at four o’clock.
If this call ended up being another disappointment, I didn’t want Gray hanging between my wife and me. There’s no way I’d be able to stop the darkness from taking her over. And as it was, I’d left the door wide open for Gray to come waltzing back in as her comfort. The DC could do without me for the rest of the day.
Annie and Lissa had taken the day off, so I knew where to find her. I just couldn’t go empty handed. I needed a meaningful offering, but damn I sucked at gifts. I stopped by Lynn’s desk on my way out to see if she had any suggestions.
It hadn’t dawned on me that Annie hadn’t been spending much time with Lynn because we’d been doing the whole baby thing. The hurt was in her eyes when I mentioned my wife’s name. Annie hadn’t wanted to tell anyone that wasn’t critical to the mission about what Lissa was doing for us. She didn’t want to deal with condolences if it didn’t work out. I assumed Lynn was critical to the mission, but I now realized, Annie hadn’t told anyone.
I couldn’t walk out and leave Lynn wondering what was going on, so I gave her a quick rundown, grateful I had. Understanding washed over her when I explained why Annie had been so absent and secretive. Luckily, Lynn had been through the loss of both pregnancies with Annie and was not only sympathetic but compassionate.
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