Transcending Regrets (No Regrets book 3)

by Noalane, Aimee

***

  Abbygail was right. Lyvia was very active. While fighting her tears of exhaustion, I held Abby’s body close to mine. It took my daughter a good fifteen minutes before she stopped kicking her mother. Once in a while, Lyvia would push her head or foot against my hand, and I’d rub my thumb softly across Abby’s stomach in response. Everything was exactly the way it was always meant to be.

  “Oliver,” Abby whispered, breaking the silence. By the sound of her voice I could tell she would finally be getting the rest she desperately needed. “Promise me that you will always put her first.”

  I smiled against her skin and kissed her shoulder. “Beautiful, I promise that I’ll always put the both of you first.”

  She took my hand in hers and pulled my arm around her to wrap herself tightly in a strong embrace. “Just her,” she whispered. “Always her.”

  Chapter 24

  Abbygail

  “Did I miss it?” Oliver asked, walking in the examination room. He’d texted me earlier to let me know that he got held up with a case at work, so I messaged him my room number, hoping he’d manage to be on time for the ultrasound.

  Camelia stopped talking and looked at him with her mouth wide open. “And you are?”

  “Camelia, this is Lyvia’s father, Oliver Langton.” I was relieved to see him walk through the door. “Oliver, meet my gynecologist and obstetrician, Dr. Camelia Collins.”

  “I’ve heard great things about you,” she said, extending her hand to Oliver.

  “You have?” he doubted.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head at him with a smile. “You haven’t missed anything except my regular physical exam.”

  Oliver’s phone went off interrupting us. He looked at it and grumbled. “I have to take it, I’m sorry.”

  “No problem, Oliver. Go ahead, we’ll wait for you.” Camelia said.

  He looked at me apologetically.

  “Go,” I shooed him out, giggling. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Yes,” he answered, stepping out in the hallway. By the sound of his voice we could tell he wasn’t happy with the person on the other end of the line.

  “Holy crap, Abby,” Camelia whispered. “He’s hot.”

  A shocked laugh burst out of me.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “Would you be surprised if I told you that I’ve known him my entire life?”

  “Actually I’d say that you are one lucky lady. I’m serious––wait no.” She laughed nervously. “I know this is super unprofessional, and I promise it will never happen again, but holy––” She stopped talking as soon as Oliver stepped back inside the observation room.

  He stood at the door scrutinizing us both. “Everything okay?”

  “Yep.” I held back another laugh. “Why?”

  “Because you two look like you’re conspiring something.”

  “Nope. We’re good. Important phone call?” I asked him curiously.

  Camelia stepped away and went to her desk to give us a little privacy. She wasn’t entirely aware of my relationship with Oliver, but she knew enough to know that what we had was pretty complicated.

  “Yeah. I need to head back to the office in Ottawa. Apparently Greg needs me for a case. Do you know how much of a pain that man is?”

  “Yes! Thank God...I thought I was the only one. Dylan always says I’m over exaggerating when I complain about him, but seriously he’s an ass. Do you need to leave now?” I asked disappointed.

  “Even if I did, I wouldn’t.” He looked at Camelia. “So Dr. Collins, is the mother of my child taking good care of herself?”

  “Please call me Camelia, and yes, Oliver, Abby has been doing great for the past three weeks now. No contractions, no blood loss, perfect blood pressure, and she’s gaining weight. I’m actually wondering how this turnaround is even possible.”

  “Three weeks, huh?” Oliver repeated smugly. “I wonder what the difference is from––oh I don’t know––four weeks ago?”

  I raised my eyebrow, “Are you here to gloat, or to see your baby girl?”

  He smiled and looked at our doctor, “Am I really going to see her?”

  Oliver

  The sound of Lyvia’s beating heart had to be the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. It just thumped faster and faster, making my entire face hurt from smiling.

  My daughter.

  “Are you ready to see her?” Dr. Collins asked me.

  Still lost to the beauty of her heartbeat, all I could do was nod. She lit up the ultrasound machine and I got to see my baby girl for the first time. Camelia proceeded to measure Lyvia’s organs. With every result, she assured me that my daughter was perfectly healthy. Honestly though, I wasn’t really paying attention. I was completely mesmerized by the screen. My heart swelled. Lyvia was the most perfect creature in the world, and as I watched the black and white monitor, I knew that I would never be the same person again.

  “Hey,” Abby whispered to me. She squeezed my hand and I turned to see her beautiful blue eyes staring at me. I smiled at her. Abbygail had always been the most magnificent and stunning girl I had ever met. She was smart, funny, and kind, but as I looked at her and her bare swollen stomach, I realized that the woman holding my hand was even more than I could have ever imagined. She was carrying and protecting our daughter with her life, and because of it, I fell in love with her all over again.

  ***

  I was still speechless when we walked out of the hospital hand in hand. I could tell that Abby was anxious to know what was going through my mind, but she just kept quiet, and let everything sink in.

  “So you get to see her like this every week?” I asked curiously.

  If so, I’m definitely going to need to talk to my boss and change my schedule.

  “Pretty much, but before you came in Doctor Collins said that unless I’m having anymore heavy contractions in the near future, there will be no need for another ultrasound. She made an exception for you today. Lyvia is doing great, so technically she doesn’t need to run anymore tests.” She chuckled at my disappointment. “You’re welcome to come to my regular appointments though. According to Camelia, in two weeks it’ll be procedure to get weekly physical exams, and we always listen to her heartbeat.”

  “Isn’t Dr. Collins a little young to be a doctor?” I asked her as we made our way to our cars.

  She shrugged. “I think she’s maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old. Why?”

  “So she’s fresh out of school?”

  “Yep. She told me I was one of her first patients.”

  “Don’t you feel like it would be better to have a more experienced doctor?”

  She frowned. “No.”

  “Are you sure she’s good?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I mean, what if something goes wrong?”

  She stopped walking and looked at me. “Oliver, nothing will go wrong, but if anything were to happen, I trust Camelia with my life and I trust her with Lyvia’s life. I really like her. And yeah, I mean she might be new at her job, but it doesn’t take away from her qualifications. She was there when I lost Riley, and she’s been around ever since.”

  “But––”

  “Oliver.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Let me make myself real clear on this: my doctor is not a debatable subject. Now tell me, what does Greg want?”

  “One of the kids in my caseload flipped out. Jane is supposed to be taking care of some of my cases while I’m substituting, but apparently she can’t handle him.”

  “That’s a first,” she remarked.

  “Greg told me they can’t contain him and wants me to give it a try. I’m sorry we can’t spend the afternoon together.”

  She smiled, but I could tell she was upset. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find something to keep me busy.”

  “Okay good. I’ll be home as soon as I’m done.”

  “You don’t need to come back, Oliver. We can just see each other tomorrow after my exam
.”

  “I know I don’t need to, Abs. I want to. So, are you going to tell me what you and the doc were talking about when I stepped out to take his call?”

  “You saw that huh?”

  “Well, it was kind of hard to miss.”

  “Camelia thinks you’re cute.”

  I chuckled. “Does she now?”

  “Um hum. Actually her exact words were ‘holy crap, Abby, he’s hot.’”

  I tried to hide my grin, but wasn’t really good at it. “So…”

  “So what?”

  I stopped walking and pulled on her hand lightly to look at her eyes. They were blue. Sapphire blue, exactly like I loved them. “So, do you think I’m cute?”

  “Stop fishing for compliments, Langton.”

  “I’m not fishing,” I retorted. “I’m curious.”

  She licked her bottom lip with a priceless wicked grin and pushed me against a nearby car. “I don’t think your cute, Oliver Langton.”

  Her fingers danced along the lines of my abs and her hungry eyes followed close behind. She stopped at my lips contemplating her next move, and while she knew exactly the reaction she would be getting from me, she bit on her bottom one. She pressed her warm eager body against mine, and a low groan escaped me.

  “In fact,” she continued leaning closer to whisper into my ear. “I think you’re fucking hot.” Her voice was sending shivers straight to my groin. “And in the last twenty-four hours, every time I’ve closed my eyes, all I can see is the picture of you stroking your dick inside my shower.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “And right now,” she continued to whisper. Her hands ran up my chest, caressing my bare skin. I was trying very hard to let her keep the control she was having over me. Clearly she was enjoying every bit of it, and it would be a lie to say that I wasn’t. “I want more.”

  Fuck.

  “I need to feel you inside me so fucking bad, that if you didn’t have to go to work, I’d let you fuck me against this car.”

  I looked down to her deep blue eyes and stifled a moan as she grazed her fingers inside my buttoned loose jeans.

  “Abs.” I groaned.

  She put her lips to my chest and let out a long controlled breath. “Later, Ol.”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled incomprehensibly. “Later.”

  Chapter 25

  Abbygail

  After leaving the hospital parking lot, Oliver went back to work, and I went to the grocery store. My hope was to make a quick stop and grab something easy to cook for dinner, but as soon as I passed by the cookie aisle, a sudden urge for white chocolate covered Oreo’s overcame me, so I made a detour,

  “Hey.” I heard behind me as I pushed my grocery cart down the aisle. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. He was the last person I wanted to talk to, so I chose to continue as if I hadn’t heard him. “So that’s it? You’re just going to completely ignore me now?”

  Yes.

  I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of stopping. I wanted him to live his life believing I hated him.

  “Abbygail,” he pleaded.

  I froze at the sound of his voice. “What do you want, Damian?”

  “To apologize.”

  My eyebrows shot up in fury and I turned around. “Are you freaking kidding me right now? Save your apology. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “I feel like I owe you an explanation.”

  “An explanation?” I snapped. “Trust me. You owe me much more than a fucking explanation.”

  “Little Bird––”

  “Don’t. Don’t call me that.” My eyes welled up. The name brought back too many memories, things that I wanted to forget. “The police report––did you read it before or after I told you everything Nancy and your father put me through?”

  He looked at the floor and I knew. The tears that were threatening to fall, ran down my cheeks. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was if they were tears of anger, disappointment, or sadness.

  “So you have no issue with your father almost raping the girl that gave you her virginity?” I spat. “Do you share all your women with your father, or was that lucky turn of events reserved just for me?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Right.”

  “Don’t––”

  “He almost raped me,” I shrieked. “And if Tyler hadn’t called the police when he did, he would have.”

  While all I wanted was for him to look at me, he avoided my gaze. I wanted him to see the truth, to feel my pain. I reached inside my purse for a tissue, but instead I pulled out the note he’d left on my airplane seat. I had no idea why I held onto it, but as I read it again I snickered. When his curious eyes met mine, I tightened my fist around the piece of paper and I shoved it against his chest. “Do you want to know what the worst part about all this is, Damian?”

  He took the note and lowered his eyes to read it.

  “It’s the fact that it was all a lie. It’s that you care so little about what we had––”

  “Stop,” he growled. “If you want to be angry at me, Abbygail, then be angry. But don’t you fucking dare tell me that what I feel or have felt for you isn’t real.”

  “You stood in court defending him like I meant nothing to you.”

  “I had no other choice, Abs. He’s my dad.”

  “That’s the most pathetic and cowardly answer you could have ever come up with.”

  “You know nothing, Little Bird.”

  “He’s free because of you.”

  “No. He’s free because you walked out of the courtroom, Abby. His case got dismissed because you couldn’t handle the pressure.”

  “Go to hell,” I retorted walking away.

  Damian knew that even if I hadn’t walked out, he would have crushed me with my lack of proof. Tyler was out of it or passed out. Nancy would never testify against him. I had nothing.

  Before turning the corner, I took one last look at Damian who was standing alone in the deserted aisle. The pain and regret that roamed through his sad blue eyes while I walked away crushed me, so I stopped. For that fraction of a second where our eyes met, I was reminded of who we used to be. I remembered us. Whatever we had didn’t last very long, but it was intense. When it was over, I turned the page and never looked back. But as Damian stood broken in front of me, the memory of how it ended hit me with an unexpected force. For the first time since he left Carrington, I wanted to understand why our relationship ended the way it had. I needed––I deserved that closure.

  “I waited for you,” I whispered.

  He lowered his gaze and I knew he understood what I was talking about.

  “Hours. And you never came. You broke your promise, Damian.”

  Damian

  “Damian,” she cried on the phone.

  “Yeah, Little Bird.” My voice was trembling. I wasn’t sure what I missed the most, her or the drugs. I’d never met a girl like Abby before. She was smart, sweet, and so fucking beautiful. The fact that she was so broken hearted over her best friend leaving made her the perfect naïve victim. The only thing I hadn’t expected was getting sucked in and falling for her.

  “Come and get me.” Her voice was just as unsteady as my own, but I was glad to hear it. Even if it sounded raspy and broken, at least she was alive.

  I tried to wrap my head around what went wrong, but the only logical explanation was that my father had tampered with the drugs. He didn’t like Abbygail. He said I spent too much time with her, that she was using me and making me soft. He was right, sort of…

  When she blacked out, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to leave her, but I didn’t have a choice. If I got caught…

  My fists tightened. I despised my father. He ruined everything.

  “Abby, I––”

  “She’s making me leave with him. I don’t want to go to fucking Toronto with my dad, Damian. Please. I hate him.”

  “He’s your dad, Abbygail. You don’t hate him. You w
ant to, but you can’t.”

  “If you knew anything about me, you’d know that’s not true.”

  “And if you knew anything about what my father does or has done to me, you’d trust that I am the first person that understands what you’re feeling.”

  “I know what he does to you,” she snapped.

  “No you don’t.”

  “The bruises, the burn marks on your body, the scars...Damian, if I ever meet your father, I’ll make sure he pays for everything he’s put you through.”

  I smiled at the receiver. She had so much more fight in her than she could possibly believe. It was one of the things I loved the most about her.

  Love…ha! What a bizarre word to come out of my head.

  “Just––please run away with me.”

  “Run away?” I laughed. “And where would we go, Little Bird?”

  “Does it matter? Anywhere…we’ll be together Damian. Fuck Carrington. Fuck life. Fuck Oliver––”

  And that’s when I realized what this was about. That even contemplating the whole idea was beyond stupid, because all she really wanted was to escape her pain. The pain that he’d caused.

  “Abby.”

  “Please?” she sobbed.

  “We can’t.”

  “Of course we can. We can do whatever we want. You’re the one that told me you wanted to be free. If you’re the predator you claim to be, take the shitty life you were handed, and for once in your life DO something about it. Free yourself of him…you’re worth so much more.”

  “Even a predator has a weakness, Abbygail.”

  “And you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

  We both stopped talking and listened to the sound of our breathing. Maybe she was right. Maybe I was better than I believed I could be. Maybe I was better than whatever people thought I was. God, I missed her...so fucking much.

  “Okay, Little Bird. Wait for me at the football field. I’ll pick you up at nine.”

  I lied.

  I was a good liar. She deserved a lot more than what I could offer, and I’d be damned if I led her down the life I hated so much.

  “Thank you.”

  “Abs?” I asked before hanging up. “Tell me something real.”