by Kreig, K. L.
I don’t trust him as far as I can spit and my trust in Livvy sits precariously on a high cliff, where a brief gust of wind could easily knock it over. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but the cards are stacking up against her awfully quickly. Married two days after leaving me and then I find out she knows, and is “friends” with my gangster brother. I feel positively sick, wondering what she’s really been up to these past five years.
I stare at my brother across the waiting room. Luke and I were inseparable growing up and then one day everything changed and I never knew why. Luke became a completely different person. Withdrawn, angry, defiant. He started smoking. He got tattoos. He fell into a rough crowd, initiated into a gang at eighteen and started selling drugs. By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late to pull him back. I tried. I begged, I pleaded, I guilted. Nothing worked.
After graduation, we went our separate ways. Me to college. Him to live a life of crime. When I heard he got mixed up in the mob, I was done with him. Our family was done with him. Our father was sick with shame and worry and guilt. I think our mom has kept in touch with Luke all these years, although she’ll never say one way or another. She would never betray his trust like that. She wouldn’t do it to any of her other kids, either. My mom is a fucking saint.
I’ve asked Luke repeatedly how he met Livvy and he refuses to say. He only repeats his answer, “that’s her story to tell.” I’m growing very tired of being kept in the fucking dark. By everyone. I clearly see they share a secret between them, a secret that I’m not privy to, a secret I know is about these past few years. I want to tie him to that fucking chair he’s sitting in and torture him until he spills everything. Had I not come by Livvy’s apartment last night, or at all, would she have just moved on with my brother? Would she fall in love with him, if she wasn’t already, and marry him and live the life that I want with her…with him instead?
God, it makes me so sick, I can’t even think about it.
“I have to go,” I say, rising from the blue, pilled chair that I’ve been sitting on for the past two hours. Yes, it’s a cowardly move and one I know I’ll regret making, but right now I just need time to think. And I can see that Livvy clearly trusts Luke, although if she knew everything about him, she wouldn’t. Hell, maybe she already does and that’s the kind of man she wants. My head is so jumbled and confused right now, I don’t know which way is up and if I stay, I’ll just end up spewing more hateful words that I’ll never be able to take back.
Luke just shakes his head in disappointment. I ignore him. The last person I need condemnation from is my mobster brother. His statement stalls me for only a moment. “You’re making a mistake. She loves you, Gray.”
“You are unworthy of her,” I snarl, willing my feet forward. I heard his soft words, but they don’t register until long after I’m gone.
“At least you and I agree on something, brother.”
Chapter 46
Grant peeks his head in as I’m pulling on my jacket. Addy brought me fresh clothes a little while ago when she heard they were cutting me loose. When he told me Gray had somewhere to be and had left without saying goodbye, I broke down and cried again. He held me and let me weep. That was an hour ago.
“Hi,” he said, trying his hardest to be cheerful.
“Hi,” I replied, trying my hardest to reciprocate. He smiles at my pathetic attempt, making me laugh.
Taking a seat beside me on the small loveseat, he pulls me close. “How are you feeling?”
I turn to him. “That’s a loaded question.” His smile is sad and I look away. “Physically, I’m doing much better. Whatever concoction they gave me seemed to work.” I’d not said a word to Grant about the baby, he just thinks I have some sort of super flu bug.
But Addy knows. It was hard to keep that secret when I handed her the scripts I was given to fill, one being prenatal vitamins. She just hugged me, not saying a word. I could see the dozen questions she was thinking, but wouldn’t ask.
Does he know?
Are you getting back together?
What will you do?
They were questions mirrored by me. None of which I had the answers to. We had a whole silent conversation in the span of thirty seconds and then, like a good friend, she left without speaking one judgmental word, even if she was thinking them.
“Did you know? About Gray?” I turn to look at him when he’s silent for too long.
“Not until I had you followed. I didn’t know all those years ago. I swear.”
I nod, silent for a few moments as I mull his answer. “You should have told me.”
“I know,” he replies softly. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t know how.”
I sigh deeply. “Well, those who live in glass houses and all, right?” I’d been thinking about this for the last three hours. Who am I to judge him for keeping secrets when I’ve done the same exact thing to Gray. And apparently he’s been doing the exact same thing with me. Oh, what a tangled web.
“Should I call you Grant or Luke?”
“I go by Luke now, but you can call me whatever you want, babe.”
“You look like a Luke,” I say after a few beats.
He twines our hands together and we sit in silence for several minutes, waiting for Addy to return so we can leave. “Tell me what happened with Gray. How he even found out? I thought I’d done a pretty damn good job of burying that so no one could ever find it.”
I lean my shoulder into him, throwing him off balance. “Me too.” I stand, not able to sit any longer. “He hired a private investigator. Townley Consulting. If you can believe it, I found out when I had to pay an invoice that came in last week. He told me he trusted me, that he’d wait for me to be ready to tell him, but we got into a fight about it last Saturday night on the phone and he hung up angry. Then, starting on Sunday, he wouldn’t return my calls or texts and I didn’t see or hear from him again until I woke to a WWE wrestling match in my living room yesterday.”
This is one of the things I loved most about Grant…Luke. He owned everything he did. He didn’t look sheepish or apologetic about my dig. Instead, his face lit up with a brilliant smile. “I was defending your honor. He was saying some pretty nasty shit.”
“I’m sure he was,” I mumble.
Addy walks in, cutting our conversation short, which is probably a good thing. I don’t want to know everything that Gray said. It would only hurt worse.
Chapter 47
Three days later I still haven’t heard from Gray, and with each day that passes, my anger grows and my sadness deepens. Luke, I’d finally gotten used to calling him that, is with me almost constantly, even though I’d told him repeatedly I would be fine alone. And because he is around constantly, he is starting to get suspicious that I no longer had the flu.
While the B6 that I took daily and ginger powder that I put on everything helped, they didn’t eliminate the morning sickness. I only vomited once or twice a day now. But my stomach is still pretty queasy and I didn’t have much of an appetite.
“You should go see him. Gray is a stubborn asshole,” Luke said. We are watching a movie on Lifetime. Luke’s been complaining about it the whole time. He’d do anything to get out of it.
“I know.” We’ve had this discussion several times already, but I think Gray’s absence is pretty telling. He’s trying to move on, get over me. But he came here the other night to talk, Livia, so that must mean something. And you’re carrying his baby. He deserves to know.
He grabs the remote, shutting off the TV. “Hey, they were just getting to the good part,” I whine.
“Let me tell you how it ends, babe. Man wrongs woman. Woman retaliates. Woman victorious. It’s how all these fucking movies end.”
“Wow, cynical much? And how would you know how Lifetime movies end?” I tease.
“It’s television for women. How else do you think they end?” I laugh as he stands in front of me, holding out his hand. “Now, no time like the present.”
>
My smile falls. “But it’s after nine.”
His brows arch and his hand wiggles, urging me to take it, not buying my bullshit excuses. “He needs to know, Livia.” His voice is soft and coaxing, but firm. Yep, he knows and he’s not going to let me put this off any longer. “I’ll take you.”
I put my hand in his and less than thirty minutes later, we’re idling in front of Gray’s building. I’ve had to practice my deep breathing most of the way here because now the nausea is all due to my nerves, instead of the baby.
“You okay?” He reaches over squeezing my hand.
“Yes. No. I’m nervous.” My right leg is bouncing so fast, the entire car is shaking.
“I know, baby.”
“Will you wait for me?” I don’t even know if Gray is home, let alone if he’ll see me.
“Until you tell me to go.”
I let go of his hand and open the car door. With each shaky step I take toward the building, and Gray’s apartment, my stomach churns faster. I feel sicker. My legs are like liquid, almost unable to hold my slight weight. When I reach the lobby, I wave to Sam and head to the elevator. I finger the card key Gray gave me with trembling hands, barely able to insert it into the thin slot.
The elevator ride goes all too fast, and then I’m standing in front of his door. It takes several minutes to get the courage to knock, but I finally do. After only seconds the door opens, and I realize that I should have called first.
Because it’s not Gray that answers the door, but a tall, beautiful blonde. The same woman I saw hanging from his arm like an ornament at the fundraiser. That day seems so long ago now. And not only is it bad enough that she’s answering his door, what makes it worse is what she’s wearing. Or what she’s not.
“Can I help you?” she asks sweetly, acting like she belongs there.
I stand mute, blinking rapidly like a fool. I can’t take my eyes away from the fair expanse of her legs peeking out from underneath the bottom of the mint green button down of Gray’s that she’s wearing. And when my eyes travel up, it’s clear she’s not wearing a bra, her cleavage peeking out from just the three buttons she’s managed to thread.
Finally, saying nothing, I turn and call for the elevator. Luckily for me, it hasn’t been called down yet and the doors open immediately. I step in and don’t turn around, unwilling to see if Gray’s joined her in witnessing my shame.
When the doors close, I fall to my knees and vomit. Then I curl into a ball and commence nuclear meltdown. I don’t know how long I lay there. I don’t remember anything, except that suddenly I was being lifted by a pair of strong arms and cradled to a male chest.
Luke has always been there for me whenever I’ve needed him. Every single time without fail. Looks like maybe he’s the only man I can count on now, because Gray has clearly left me standing alone in his rear view mirror.
Chapter 48
I lay quietly in the dark, listening to the sound of my bathroom faucet dripping. The steady rhythm is soothing and should lull me to sleep. It doesn’t. I’m mentally exhausted, but can’t seem to fall into that black nothingness that I crave so much. Every time I close my eyes, I see her. Images of Gray kissing her slender neck or slowly unbuttoning his shirt and removing it from her perfect body or the sounds he’ll make when she goes down on him. They haunt me. They’d obviously been very busy tonight. She looked like a woman who’d been well attended to when she answered the door, and I have first-hand knowledge of the sort of attentive lover Gray is.
Luke’s warm body spoons mine and for once, I don’t want him here, but he refused to leave. I think he knew if he did that I’d truly be lost. He may be right. I’m having a very difficult time not letting myself be pulled down by this massive undertow that’s sucked me firmly in its grasp. It’s one thing to know that I’ve lost Gray, it’s quite another to know he’s with someone else less than two weeks after we’re apparently through. How is it possible for your heart to still beat when it feels like it’s broken and bleeding out? I never understood that cruel trick the universe played.
As much as I want to succumb to this despair, I have to stay strong. For the baby. Even if Gray doesn’t want me, this baby needs me, so I can’t let myself fall into that dark place that’s whispering so seductively for me to join. It’s enticing, but I need to resist. I know sooner or later I’ll have to face Gray and tell him about the pregnancy, because I have to believe that he’ll want to be a part of his baby’s life, even if he doesn’t want to be part of mine. And I would never keep Gray from his child.
Gently lifting Luke’s arm, I slide slowly out of bed. I pull on my robe and open the door, careful to avoid the loose floorboard that squeaks when I step out into the darkened hallway.
Making my way to the kitchen, I pull a few saltines from the cupboard. Opening the fridge, I stare longingly at the milk. One of many things I’ve been told to avoid to help the morning sickness. I grab a bottle of water instead. Sitting in the dark at the island, I think back to Dr. Culross’s explanation of how I ended up pregnant.
“I had a procedure done with coils or something placed in my tubes. I was told they’d prevent pregnancy.”
“Well, not every procedure is foolproof, Livia. Did you have the follow-up visit where x-rays are taken to ensure sufficient scar tissue had formed? That’s what blocks the sperm, but it takes several months for the tissue to form, so that last step is critical to ensure the procedure worked.”
I shake my head.
“Well, then I guess you’re lucky you haven’t gotten pregnant before now. If you truly don’t wish to have children in the future, you’ll either have to have it re-performed or choose an alternative method of birth control.”
Dr. Culross had no idea of my history. She had no idea that I hadn’t even had sex in the past almost three years, until recently, and she certainly didn’t know the man who used me as his plaything before couldn’t have children. She never asked me why, but I could see the question in her eyes about why someone so young would have such a life altering procedure.
As I sit here in the dark and think about the circumstances that led me here, that led us here, for the first time I have a deep-seated need to tell Gray what happened. Not for sympathy, not to win him back, but for closure. For both of us. Maybe if he knows why I left, why I really stayed away all this time, he’ll truly believe it wasn’t him. I need him to believe that. I’ve been exceedingly selfish keeping this to myself and I need to make things right. He needs to understand that I didn’t abandon him, at least not in the way he thinks.
Maybe then we can both put this part of our lives behind us. It makes me incredibly sad to think that’s a real possibility, even though I saw evidence of that with my own two eyes tonight. To know that I may have to see him in the future with another woman, or other children, when we swap weekends with our child almost brings me to my knees with sheer, raw pain.
Resolute in my decision, minutes later, pen and paper in hand, and a soft glow from the lamp adding just enough light, I begin my confession. It takes four tries, but an hour later, with my deepest shame now in writing, I strangely feel a little bit lighter. I feel a tiny bit of peace lingering around the dark edges. I hope it does the same thing for Gray.
When I glide back into bed, Luke puts an arm around my waist, pulling me close. “Feel better, baby?”
I nod and close my eyes, finally able to drift off into a light, fitful sleep.
Chapter 49
This week isn’t much better than the last. I go through the motions, not even sure what decisions I’m making anymore. I attend meetings. I sit on conference calls. I blindly sign documents without even so much as a cursory review. I could have sold our company ten times over by now and not even known it. I can’t get Livvy out of my mind. And I can’t get the image of her in Luke’s arms out of it, either. It’s forever scorched there, the outline of it still smoking.
I’ve sat outside of her apartment every night for the past three days, but I can’t
force myself to go up and knock on her door. I can’t see her in his arms again. Last night I saw them walk out together and get into his car. He held open the door and they were laughing. They looked like a couple. I don’t know how many times I have to be destroyed by this woman before I give her up or give up on her. I never would have pegged myself to be such a glutton for punishment.
As I watched her, I noticed she looked better, not nearly as peaked as she did when I up and abandoned her in the hospital without so much as a goodbye. I don’t even know why I care anymore, but I do. I can’t make myself stop.
I sat there long after they left, doing nothing but staring into the night. I was in so much pain seeing them together I couldn’t even move. An hour later when I returned to my apartment, I had another problem to deal with.
Lena. In my fucking shirt and nothing else.
That conniving bitch had sweet-talked Sam into letting her into my apartment, making him believe we were back together and that she’d just misplaced her key. Because she’d been to my place several times, he believed her. Sam felt terrible. I told Lena if I ever saw her, or if she so much as thought about contacting me again, I would take out a restraining order. Psycho bitch.
A sudden loud commotion outside my office gets my attention and I’m almost to the door when it flies open, knocking me back a few steps. Seconds later I’m on the floor, my cheek feels like it exploded. I look up and Luke hovers over me, fists clenched, ready to strike another blow.
“A simple hi would have worked,” I grumble, licking the blood off my lip as I stand. My temp is in the doorway, eyes as wide as saucers. “It’s fine, Allison. Shut the door on your way out, please.”
“Are you—”
“Yes. Shut the door.” The last thing I need is for the entire office to hear what I’m afraid is about to go down, although I’m pretty sure they’ll hear plenty of muffled shouting here very shortly.