Avoiding Temptation

by K. A. Linde

  “But what are you doing here?” Lexi blocked her escape route. “Why is she here?” She hated repeating herself, but answers weren’t following.

  “I came to bring him some paperwork, and now, I’m planning to leave,” Parker said softly. “That’s it.”

  “Is that right?” she asked, facing Ramsey once more.

  “Yes. Just some paperwork.”

  Lexi crossed her arms and glanced between them. Something didn’t feel right, but she didn’t know what it was. Why did she have to bring him paperwork to his house? Why couldn’t it have waited until tomorrow? Why couldn’t she have called him into the hospital? Nothing looked out of place. Ramsey’s suit was immaculate. Parker didn’t look guilty or anything. She just looked run-down as per usual—maybe even a little more worse for wear.

  “What kind of paperwork?” Lexi asked.

  Parker stiffened at the question, and Ramsey wouldn’t meet her eyes. Aha! So, she had touched on it—what neither of them wanted to talk about.

  “Ramsey?” she implored.

  “You should let Parker go. She doesn’t need to be here for this. Then, we should talk.”

  Lexi’s heart thudded in her chest. We should talk. It sounded like a death trap. Of course, she had come home early because she wanted to talk to him about the wedding, but…but this sounded different. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she tried to get herself under control. This couldn’t be good.

  She moved out of the way, and Parker left the room as quickly as possible. With her gone, she thought that the tension would fall off of him…but it didn’t.

  “What’s going on, Ramsey? You’re as white as a ghost.”

  “She had a miscarriage.”

  “I’m sorry. What?” she snapped, her mind going to the worst possible place.

  His green eyes locked onto her, and he shook his head. “When we were dating in college…she had a miscarriage.”

  Lexi’s mouth dropped open slightly. A miscarriage. “How do you know? I thought there wasn’t any proof.”

  He walked back to the desk and grabbed the paperwork. “See for yourself,” he said, shoving it into her hands.

  Lexi snatched the papers from him and scoured the paperwork to try to decipher what she was looking at—discharge paperwork for an abortion clinic.

  “What?”

  “Admitted and discharged in the same hour. She didn’t go through with it.”

  “Where the hell did she come up with this? Is that really suspicious to you that she just magically appeared with the paperwork to prove her point?”

  “She went to the clinic right after we broke up and tried to get some paperwork, but the person she spoke with said they had no record of her being there. She didn’t go to the doctor because she was scared that her family would find out. She went back just to see if someone else could be more helpful, and they were able to find this.”

  “Don’t you find it odd that she continues to corner you to talk about it? And now, she can prove her innocence even though she knows you’re marrying another woman?” Lexi demanded. “Why did she even have to bring this up? What does she gain?”

  “I don’t know, Lexi. I’ve been accusing her of having an abortion for years. It must have been hard to have someone think that you were lying. I guess she gains absolution,” he said softly.

  She thought the reasoning was bullshit. Parker was doing this to get back with Ramsey. She might want forgiveness, but she damn well wanted Ramsey, too.

  “And you don’t think these papers magically appeared because she wants to get back together with you?”

  Ramsey stared at the ground and shook his head. “We had our chance. She didn’t want that after the break, and she doesn’t want that now.”

  It was convenient how Ramsey didn’t say that he didn’t want that. Though, she knew he had told her that countless times. She knew that he had always said that he didn’t want Parker.

  Lexi ground her teeth together and rifled through the papers, wanting them to say more, wanting them to give her the answers. In frustration, she tossed the papers up in the air and let them settle down on the ground. “These don’t prove anything!”

  “Lexi! Jesus!” he said, scrambling to pick up the paperwork she had just discarded.

  “Why does this even matter to you?” She gestured at the paper, still scattered on his office floor. “Why the fuck won’t you just let it go?”

  “Because I ruined my life years ago over nothing!” he bellowed.

  Lexi stood very still. “Ruined your life? I didn’t realize that your life was ruined without Parker,” she whispered scathingly.

  “I didn’t mean that,” he said, fisting his hands into his hair. “Don’t you at least understand? We broke up because I thought she had taken away my kid without talking to me. Do you know what that does to someone? And then to find out you were a complete and total asshole to the one person who had always believed in you…I just feel like such a douche. And I know it shouldn’t matter to me because I have you, Lexi, but it does. It matters. I can’t explain it. It’s like watching a wall I’d put up for years crumble to the ground in an instant.”

  “Do you still love her?” Lexi whispered.

  “I love you.”

  “I know you do,” she said, swallowing back the lump in her throat.

  “I just need time to process this information. It doesn’t change anything with us, Lexi. It doesn’t change how I feel about you. I just never expected this to happen. I was so certain that it was an abortion. It was the only thing that made sense to me. I couldn’t believe Parker, and I couldn’t believe Bekah. Oh Bekah—fuck!” he cried, sitting back into the chair. “I was an ass to her about this for so long.”

  “Well, she probably deserved it.”

  “Lexi, just lay off for one second. I walked out of her wedding for you. Don’t you think you could cut me some slack when it comes to her?”

  No, she most certainty did not. Bekah was the epitome of evil. If they wanted to talk about people who had ruined her life, then Lexi would be sure to put Bekah right up there on the top. In fact, the more she thought about it, the angrier she got.

  “We shouldn’t even talk about Bekah. I hate her.”

  “She’s still my sister.”

  “Well, it’s really clear that we don’t choose our family,” Lexi said.

  “What are you even doing home this early?” he asked, changing the subject. He sank in the chair at his desk and rested his head in his hands.

  She could see him hurting, and she wanted to find sympathy for him. She did feel sympathy for him…she really did. It probably hurt like a motherfucker, finding out that he had been all wrong about the woman that he had been planning to marry. She couldn’t imagine going through something like that with Jack. She was glad there had never been a pregnancy scare. She didn’t know what she would have done in that situation.

  But at the same time, all of this had happened years ago. And yeah, it was emotional and upsetting that he was just now discovering the truth, but it wasn’t the end of the world—not unless it changed something…changed the way he felt about Lexi or Parker or both.

  “My boss let me out since I had to be in early the rest of the week. I came home because I hadn’t seen you, and I wanted to talk to you. We haven’t gotten a chance to talk since Chyna’s wedding.”

  “What do we have to talk about?” he grumbled.

  She hated doing this right now. He was already hurting, and this wasn’t going to make anything better. But she couldn’t hold back any longer. It was eating at her every day. She couldn’t keep things from him, not when it was impacting her this much.

  “I want to postpone the wedding.”

  Ramsey let loose a strangled cry at the words, and Lexi felt like her heart was breaking.

  “You said it was okay…”

  “I didn’t think you would actually want to do it.”

  “So, you…lied?” she asked, her brow furrowing in confusio
n.

  Ramsey stood slowly. He was so tall that he towered over her, even with the weight of everything that had happened holding down his shoulders. “I didn’t lie. I want to marry you whenever you’ll have me. I just worry about postponing.”

  “Why?” she whispered, feeling like she knew what was coming.

  He sighed and dropped his head before answering. “I’m afraid this is a reaction to what just happened, not a reflection of how you really feel. I promise it doesn’t change things with us, Lexi.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “This isn’t about Parker. This is me. This is my decision.”

  “It just seems like you didn’t want to do it before, and now you do because of what just happened.”

  “I’m telling you that I’m making up my mind about what I want. This is my decision. The pressure at work is too much. I don’t feel in control.”

  “Are you ever going to be in control?” Ramsey asked, running his hand back through his hair. “You keep talking about control like you’ll ever have a grasp on it. If we ever had control over our relationships, then I wouldn’t have just found out about Parker’s miscarriage. That,” he said, pointing out the door that Parker had just left through, “that is what it’s like to be out of control. You just use it as an excuse.”

  “An excuse? Seriously?” she growled. “It’s okay for you and Parker to be out of control but not for me? I get it. This was a mistake. I guess I shouldn’t have even brought this up to you.”

  She whirled around and out the door. Rushing into their bedroom, she grabbed a change of clothes and an extra suit and stuffed them into a bag.

  Ramsey appeared in the doorway a minute later. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m taking control,” she spat.

  “Lexi, wait, wait, wait…you can’t leave,” he pleaded, grabbing for her bag.

  “I’m sorry—what? I can’t leave?” She held the bag to her chest and away from him.

  She turned to walk to the bathroom, but he blocked her path.

  “I don’t want you to leave. That’s not taking control. That’s leaving.”

  Lexi pushed him aside and walked into the bathroom. She dumped her makeup bag, a bottle of mousse, and her toothbrush into the bag. “That’s right. That’s leaving. I’m taking back the control in this situation. I flushed it down the drain two years ago when I let you make me think that Parker wouldn’t be an issue and that you would trust me.”

  “I do trust you,” he pleaded, his voice rising hysterically.

  “And Parker?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “Lexi, please…”

  “You’ll never let it go. If you would just let it go,” she said.

  “I’ll let it go. Just don’t leave.”

  He grabbed her around the middle and tried to get her to stay, to kiss him, to hold him, but she couldn’t. How could she stand there for another second, feeling this way? She was aching all over. Her body felt like it had been pounded into the ground from being overworked, and then when she had come home to see her fiancé, he was emotionally distraught over another woman. No, she couldn’t be in this house for another minute.

  “Lexi,” he called, following her out the bedroom door and down the stairs, “please just stop and think about this for a minute.”

  “I’ll think about it when I’m gone.”

  “Are you leaving me?” he asked, snatching her wrist and forcing her to look at him.

  “I’m leaving the house. I can’t stay here—not with the way I’m feeling right now.”

  “Lexi, I love you.”

  She sighed, her resolve breaking. This wasn’t what she wanted. This was the man she had spent more than three years loving, the man she had agreed to be with. He was perfect, absolutely perfect—except when he wasn’t, except when she saw his flaws, the flaws he never let the rest of the world see. She knew him inside and out. She knew all of his quirks. He was hurting right now, and he wanted her to make it right. She didn’t want to argue with him, but she was stubborn.

  He didn’t get to pick and choose when he was going to be the man that the rest of the world saw. Relationships were work. They were really hard work, and she had put her fair share into this one. She wanted it to work so desperately. But how could it with everything else hanging over him right now? These were the things she needed to figure out, and she wouldn’t do that while she was still around him.

  “I love you, too,” she said before standing on her tiptoes and kissing his lips tenderly. “I do. I really do.”

  Tears hit her as he held her in his arms, silently pleading for her not to do this.

  “But…I have to go,” she said, pulling away from him and walking out the front door.

  Lexi sat in her car, her hands shaking. What the hell had she just done?

  She had walked out on Ramsey. She had left their apartment with a change of clothes and her toothbrush. Did that mean they were over? She looked down at her diamond engagement ring, and the tears came harder.

  No. They hadn’t broken up or broken off the engagement, but she had actually just walked out of their place.

  She didn’t know what to do. She could barely breathe.

  Through her tears, Lexi backed out of the garage and started driving aimlessly. She didn’t even know where she was going to go. She wanted to talk to Chyna, but her friend was thousands of miles away on a private island for her honeymoon. She wouldn’t be back until next week.

  How did it keep happening that Chyna was out of the country when she and Ramsey were having problems? Chyna needed to stop leaving!

  Not that Chyna would be able to do much more than talk her off of the ledge. She would have been in New York when Lexi needed her in Atlanta. Granted, her best friend had access to a private jet and could have been in Atlanta in a few hours, but Lexi needed her now. In any case, it didn’t matter because Chyna wasn’t even close to a couple of hours away.

  Pulling off the road and into a parking lot in frustration, Lexi let the tears fall until her fingers and toes tingled from hyperventilation. Her cheeks were hot and wet, no matter how many times she tried to dry them. She wanted the pain in her chest to go away. She wanted to feel human again.

  Wasn’t this supposed to be the happiest time of her life? She kept repeating that to herself, but it didn’t matter if she said the mantra a million times. She had to admit that she wasn’t happy. She was sitting on the side of the road in an abandoned parking lot, crying her eyes out. If that didn’t show how low she had sunk all over again, then nothing did.

  Her phone buzzed at her side, and she glanced down. Ramsey.

  Please come back.

  No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t do that. She wasn’t ready.

  Exiting the screen, she found another number and dialed, knowing it was the only place she could go.

  “Lex, I didn’t think I’d hear from you again today,” Jack said pleasantly into the phone.

  The sound of his voice made the tears fall harder. She didn’t even know why. Maybe it was the prospect of talking to someone else about what had happened. Maybe it was just Jack.

  “Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

  “Ramsey,” she said. It was the only word she got out.

  “Do you need me to come get you?”

  “No,” she said, hiccuping through her tears. “I’m parked somewhere.”

  “You shouldn’t drive like this,” he said, concerned. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Can I just come to your place?” Lexi asked weakly.

  “Of course you can. Are you sure you don’t want me to get you?”

  He paused, and she could feel the tension in his stillness.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said.

  “I’ll survive.”

  She hung up the phone, dried her eyes, and set back out on the road. She knew it was probably stupid to go see Jack when she was so emotionally messed-up, but where else would she go? A hotel probably
would be the better option, but the last thing she wanted was to be alone tonight.

  Jack would take care of her.

  The drive over to his place happened in what felt like a matter of seconds, or it could have been a couple of hours. She didn’t remember any of it. All she remembered was walking out of her place, leaving with a bag of clothes…leaving Ramsey behind.

  She parked the car in front of Jack’s place and walked deliriously through the entrance. No one was waiting around in the lobby, and she was thankful that she didn’t have to face anyone else in her condition. The elevator dinged open, and then she was standing in front of Jack’s door.

  What was she going to say to him? How could she begin to explain what she had just done? Jack wouldn’t judge her, of course. He had never judged her, but it didn’t change how she was feeling in that moment.

  “Lex,” Jack whispered when he answered the door.

  His brow furrowed when he saw her face swollen and red from tears that she hadn’t been able to hold back. And when she looked up into his handsome face—his hair, dark and shaggy, his eyes, her favorite color of blue, that jawline so well-defined—she started crying all over again.

  He sighed and pulled her into his arms. She grabbed the T-shirt he was wearing between her fingers and buried her face in his shoulder. His hand came down on her back, holding her securely against him as he toed the door closed.

  “Shh,” he said softly.

  He ran his hand through her hair over and over again, stroking it soothingly, until she settled against him. The tears were still flowing, but the hysterics subsided, and she felt like she was able to breathe again.

  “You know,” she said against his T-shirt, “that I don’t hate you, right?”

  He chuckled softly and kissed the crown of her head lightly. The gesture seemed so perfectly in tune with what she needed in the moment that it didn’t even make her freak-out.

  “I know you don’t.”

  “I kind of hate myself though.”

  “If you don’t hate me, you can’t hate yourself,” Jack said, holding her at arm’s length with a smirk.

  Lexi grinned and shook her head. “You don’t know the kind of person I am.”