Coming Apart at the Seams

by Jenna Sutton

  When he’d come here today, he had only been thinking about himself. He hadn’t thought about what was best for Teagan. Was it better for her to go back to San Francisco and move on with her life with another man—one who could communicate clearly, one who had more to offer than Nick?

  The thought made him sick. He didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t know if he could let her go.

  Rising to his feet, he pulled open the door to the sixth floor. The hallway stretched in front of him, dull and empty—just like his life without Teagan. He hesitated on the threshold for several heartbeats before closing the door and starting the walk back down the stairs.

  Yes, he was a selfish bastard. But he loved Teagan, and for once—for once—he was going to put someone else’s happiness above his own.

  * * *

  Teagan placed a stack of shirts in one of the suitcases on top of her bed and turned toward her closet to pull several pairs of pants from the hangers. She threw them on the bed and began folding them.

  “Are you sure you feel well enough to pack?” Bebe asked. “Maybe you should lie down and let me do it.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Bebe’s soft sigh carried from the corner of Teagan’s bedroom, where she sat in the overstuffed chair. Teagan glanced toward her best friend, who watched her with concern.

  “Okay, I’m not fine,” she admitted. “But I have a million things to do before I go back home to San Francisco.”

  “I know,” Bebe said sympathetically. “Are you still having cramps?”

  “No.”

  The physical pain from her miscarriage was gone, but the emotional pain was still there. She worried it might never go away.

  The cramps had started during the final exam for her organizational behavior class. She’d felt slightly off all day, but she and Bebe had stayed up late the night before studying for the exam, so she’d blamed it on a lack of sleep.

  The first twinge in her lower abdomen had been a painful shock, but when it disappeared after a few heartbeats, she’d relaxed and continued with the exam. A few minutes later, she’d felt as if a huge fist had gripped her lower half and squeezed.

  She had known immediately something was wrong, but she hadn’t been able to move. She’d been paralyzed by pain and fear. Fortunately, Bebe had been right next to her. Her best friend was fabulous in a crisis, and she had Teagan in the ER in less than fifteen minutes.

  But it had been too late. Teagan had lost her baby.

  Nick’s baby.

  The on-call ob-gyn told her these things just happen sometimes—it just wasn’t meant to be. And the doctor assured her there was no reason she couldn’t have other children.

  But Teagan knew this was her one and only chance to have Nick’s baby. She’d been pathetic enough to think if she couldn’t have him, at least she would have his child. But she couldn’t even have that.

  She had wanted the baby like she’d wanted nothing else in her life, even its father. She’d wanted to see what she and Nick had created, maybe a dark-haired, green-eyed little boy or a blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl.

  “Still no word from Nick?”

  Teagan shook her head, trying to push back the wave of rage that threatened to pull her under. Nick had never even known about the baby because he hadn’t bothered to return any of her phone calls or texts.

  She hadn’t wanted to break the news about her pregnancy in a voicemail or text, so all of her messages were short and to the point. “Call me. I need to talk to you.” But he’d never responded.

  Bebe made a sound of disgust. “What a jerk. I wish he were here so I could take him down.”

  Teagan smiled sadly. Bebe had been one of Nick’s biggest fans—not a football fan, but a fan of the man himself. She’d been convinced Nick and Teagan would end up together. But now he was on Bebe’s black list.

  He was on Teagan’s black list, too. Her love for him was slowly turning into something ugly—something shaded with anger, disappointment, and disgust. It was transforming into hate.

  He had abandoned her when she’d needed him the most. She had needed him when she found out about her dad’s cancer. She had needed him when she writhed in pain and sobbed from the knowledge their baby was gone.

  But he hadn’t been there.

  The doctor had told Teagan that her miscarriage was no one’s fault. In fact, the woman went out of her way to make sure Teagan didn’t blame herself. And she didn’t, not really.

  But she blamed Nick. And she didn’t care if she was being irrational or unfair. Maybe she wouldn’t have miscarried their baby if Nick hadn’t rejected her. Maybe her body wouldn’t have been so overwhelmed with stress it couldn’t sustain a pregnancy.

  She still didn’t understand why Nick had acted the way he had. She knew she’d been the aggressor the night they’d finally had sex, but he had wanted her, too. In fact, it seemed as if he hadn’t been able to get enough of her. He’d taken her so many times she lost count.

  She had looked into his eyes when he was deep inside her, and she had seen more than desire. And the way he had touched her had felt like love.

  But maybe he was just really good in bed. Maybe he was like that with all his lovers.

  “Are you going to tell him you were pregnant and miscarried?”

  “No. I hope I never talk to him again. I hope I never see him again.”

  Teagan didn’t know how she’d react if and when she saw Nick again. She had known loving him would bring her nothing but heartache, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  She had imagined what it would be like to have sex with him, but she’d never really thought it would happen. And she’d never considered the possibility of having a child with him.

  “You’re not going to be able to avoid him entirely,” Bebe warned. “He’s an honorary member of your family, you said.”

  Teagan shrugged. Since he wanted nothing to do with her, she was sure he’d find a way to avoid any messy encounters.

  “Are you going to tell your brothers what happened?”

  “No!” Teagan shuddered at the horrific thought. “Of course not.”

  She never wanted anyone in her family to know what had happened between her and Nick. It was too private.

  Too painful.

  “Why not? They’d beat the shit out of him,” Bebe said gleefully.

  Teagan suspected Bebe was right. Quinn and Cal were über-protective of her, and she had little doubt that Nick’s best-friend status wouldn’t protect him. If anything, her brothers would probably consider his behavior even more deplorable because they trusted him.

  “How do you know what they’d do? You’ve never even met them.”

  “I feel like I know them because you talk about them all the time. Cal would hold Nick down while Quinn beat him to a bloody pulp.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Teagan said. “Cal is more laid-back than Quinn, but when he loses control . . . let’s just say it’s better to be far away from him when it happens.”

  Teagan passed Bebe a pile of shirts. “Make yourself useful, Ms. Banerjee.”

  They lapsed into a comfortable silence for several minutes as they focused on folding Teagan’s clothes. Bebe sniffled, and Teagan looked up to see her best friend’s big golden eyes full of tears.

  Dropping the shirt she’d been folding, she rushed to Bebe’s side and knelt next to her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, placing her hand on Bebe’s knee and squeezing.

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’m going to miss you too, Beebs,” she replied, tears springing to her eyes.

  “Things are going to really suck without you here. I know I sound pathetic, but at least you have your family waiting for you. I don’t have anyone.”

  Teagan nodded. Bebe wasn’t being dramatic. She didn’t have many friends, and her family on
ly got in touch with her when they wanted to harangue her for disappointing them.

  But Bebe’s affection wasn’t one-sided. Teagan didn’t want to go for months without seeing her best friend, either.

  “I know you’ve already accepted the job with BioEdge, but there are a lot of biotech companies in the Bay Area. Why not think about working for one of them? We could see each other as often as we wanted. We could even be roommates.”

  Bebe shook her head. “I’d love that, but it’s not realistic. Those companies are start-ups. They’re biotech incubators, and they have to funnel their money into research. The East Coast biotech companies pay almost double, and I need every penny I can get.”

  Teagan had wondered how Bebe had paid for Harvard, especially since her parents had cut her off financially. She’d assumed her best friend had taken out student loans, and once Bebe graduated, she would have to start paying them back.

  Like many college students, Bebe probably was drowning in debt. Teagan wondered if she would allow Teagan to pay off her student loans as a graduation gift or if she’d be offended. Bebe was unpredictable, so it could go either way.

  “What about working for Riley O’Brien? I know a few executives there,” Teagan quipped.

  “No. I appreciate the offer, but I want to use my degrees.”

  “I understand.”

  Bebe had undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology. She had gone to medical school when she’d graduated from Northwestern University, and she had obtained her medical degree, but she had declined to go through her residency.

  “What are you going to do once you get back to San Francisco?” Bebe asked, clearly wanting to change the subject.

  “I’m going to be working in Riley O’Brien’s law department. My dad and I talked about it, and he thought I could make the biggest impact there.”

  “And what about Nick?”

  He’d told her to forget their night together. She was going to do one better.

  She was going to forget him.

  Chapter 22

  Present Day—San Francisco

  She’d just had sex in a linen closet. With Nick.

  Teagan cringed, ashamed and disgusted by her behavior. What is wrong with me? Where is my self-respect?

  “This was a mistake,” she said, an observation for him and a reminder for her.

  Nick sucked in a breath, and she knew he remembered that morning in his condo when she had discarded her pride and made herself an object of pity. It was something she thought about every single day, even though she tried not to.

  Her legs shook, and she leaned against the wall to steady herself. Her body had yet to come down from the orgasms he’d given her, and she squeezed her thighs together to stop the internal pulses.

  “I’m going to forget this ever happened,” she said.

  She prayed she could push it from her mind. God knew she hadn’t been able to forget their one and only night together.

  His eyes narrowed as he realized what she was doing, repeating almost verbatim their conversation from that morning so long ago. A conversation that was burned into her soul.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” she added.

  She wouldn’t allow it to mean anything. And she ignored the voice inside her that said it meant everything. The voice that said he still had the power to hurt her.

  He shook his head, but she didn’t know if he disagreed with her statement. He met her gaze, and the look in his eyes made her stomach churn.

  “It meant something,” he said slowly, as if the words were pulled from him. “Then and now.” She tried not to let him see how his words impacted her, but her heart rate picked up. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “It . . .” He hummed a little, and she tilted her head, wondering what he would say. “It meant something to me,” he continued.

  His words made her body flash hot and cold, and she rubbed her hands over her arms. Now he was the one repeating their previous conversation.

  “It was just a quick fuck between two strangers,” she countered, wincing internally at her bad language.

  She rarely cursed and could count on one hand the number of times she’d said “fuck” outside the bedroom. But she needed to remind herself how he had treated her the last time they had been together.

  Nick flinched at her words, his eyes shadowed. Clenching his jaw, he looked down.

  “I know you’re not picky. You’ll stick your dick anywhere,” she said, unsure whether she was trying to warn herself or insult him. Maybe both.

  He jerked his head up, his eyes locked with hers. He paled a little under his tan, and she pushed down the guilt that swamped her. She had never talked to anyone the way she was talking to him, and more than likely, the things she said hurt her a lot more than they hurt him.

  “I’m not special,” she added. “You made that clear.”

  He laughed softly, the sound shaded with bitterness, and she frowned, confused by the pain she heard in it. He’d hurt her, not the other way around.

  “You’re special,” he said hoarsely.

  “Really, Nick?”

  He nodded, and she laughed, a sharp sound completely devoid of humor. “Wow. I can’t imagine how you treat women who aren’t special. I didn’t feel special when you acted like I was a one-night stand. I didn’t feel special when I told you I loved you, and you had Vanessa toss me out of your condo. And I definitely didn’t feel special when you ignored my messages that I needed to talk to you.”

  “I can explain . . .”

  He exhaled loudly. Stepping closer, he wrapped his big hand around the back of her neck and stared into her eyes, his gaze searching.

  “So sorry,” he finally said.

  She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing he’d said these things when it could have made a difference—when she’d been pregnant with his baby and wanted nothing more than for them to be a family.

  “Sorry,” he repeated before leaning forward and kissing her, a gentle brush of his lips.

  She turned her face, and he dusted tiny kisses over her cheek. He brought her mouth back to his, and she let herself enjoy the feel of his lips against hers, smooth and firm.

  Opening her mouth, she invited him in, and he moaned against her lips. He swept his tongue inside her mouth, and she sucked on it, savoring the taste of him, strong and spicy with a trace of champagne.

  She wasn’t sure how long they kissed, but it was long enough for him to drop his hands to her hips and pull her against his burgeoning erection. She pulled back from his mouth, and he groaned in objection.

  Stepping away from him, she waited until he opened his eyes, and then she slapped him across his face as hard as she could. His head snapped sideways, and he pressed his palm against his cheek. He slowly turned his head back toward her, his eyes wide with surprise and some other emotion she didn’t recognize.

  “I’ve been waiting for years to do that, but it never seemed like the right time. But this”—she waved her hand around the room—“is definitely the right time.”

  He dropped his hand, revealing a bright red mark where she had struck him. The sight of it gave her perverse pleasure that she’d hurt him, although it wasn’t nearly as much as he’d hurt her.

  “I told you to leave me alone. I told you not to touch me. And now I’m going to tell you again: stay away from me, Nick.”

  He stared at her, and she sucked in a deep breath, a little worried about how he would react. But then he smiled slowly, his green eyes so bright they were almost incandescent. He laughed softly, rubbing his cheek.

  “Better than tears, T.”

  She growled, enraged by his comment. She hated to be reminded of how many times she’d cried in front of him.

  He took a step toward her, and she spun awa
y from him, lunging for the doorknob. She twisted it, trying to escape from the small room, but he slammed his hand against the door. She was trapped between his body and the door, his front pressed against her back. She elbowed him in the ribs, and he grunted but didn’t move away.

  “How many times do you need to slap me before you forgive me?” he rasped into her ear.

  Pulling her earlobe between his lips, he sucked lightly. She gasped at the heat of his mouth, goose bumps breaking out all over her body.

  He smoothed his hands down her sides before cupping her hips. He pressed into her, his erection huge and hard against the upper swells of her behind. She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the fact that she was so turned on, wetness trickled down her inner thighs. Jerking her head away from his mouth, she flattened her hands against the smooth wood of the door and slanted a hateful glare over her shoulder.

  “I’ll never forgive you,” she vowed. “I hate you. If you were on fire, I wouldn’t toss water on you. If you were drowning, I wouldn’t throw you a life preserver. If you were bleeding, I wouldn’t tie a tourniquet. If you were—”

  Nick curled his hand over her mouth to silence her, laughing huskily against her ear. He squeezed her hip gently with the other hand.

  “I get the picture,” he said as he fisted her dress in his hand, raising it to her waist and baring her entire lower half.

  He slid his hand across her hip toward her stomach and cupped her mound. Tracing her labia, he eased his fingers between the folds. He gathered moisture from her body, drawing it upward toward her clit and circling it lightly with his long fingers.

  “Do you hate this?”

  Dropping her forehead against the door, she bit her lip in an effort to hold back a moan. He squeezed her clit between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing gently, and a zing went through her body.

  He knew exactly how to touch her to make her fall apart, and she knew it would only take a few more strokes before she came again. She locked her knees and tried to wiggle free, but he just moved closer until she could feel him all around her—until she couldn’t smell anything but him and her own arousal.