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Right underneath that message, dated and time stamped just a few hours after the picture of the ultrasound and message was Jace’s reply.
Love you too, E.
I slammed the top down on the laptop, hiding those words from my eyes, telling myself I’d read it wrong. But my heart was already shattering. Tears pouring down my face, I threw the laptop across the room, not even caring when it landed on the floor with a loud thunk.
“Kin?” Angie yelled from the direction of the living room.
I was already in my closet, pulling out my carry-on case before the bedroom door flew open and my stepsister was storming in like the little whirlwind she was, ready to fight any danger that threatened me. I barely spared her a glance as I started tearing clothes off their hangers and throwing them into the case, uncaring that they would wrinkle.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, grabbing my wrists when a sob tore out of me without my permission.
“He…lied,” I cried, pulling free so I could scrub my fingers over my soaked face.
“Who lied?” She pulled me into her arms for one of her tight hugs. Normally, they made everything seem better, but not this time. Nothing could make this better. “Sugar bug, I swear, if you don’t start talking—”
“Jace!” I screamed, pushing away from her and returning to my packing. “Jace lied. All this time, he’s been lying. He’s been cheating—” An intense burning in my chest robbed me of my breath as that realization began to rot what was left of my heart. “He’s been cheating on me this whole time.”
That had my stepsister pausing. “Really?” I could only nod. “Huh. I didn’t imagine that was what was going on all this time. I knew you two were having problems a while back, but I thought you sorted all that out when we went to Vegas for Lucy’s bachelorette party.”
“So did I,” I whispered brokenly.
“Where are you going?” she asked as I continued to pack. “You flying out to North Carolina so you can kick him in the balls and tell him to go fuck himself?” She was practically rubbing her hands in glee. She and Jace had a love-hate relationship, only getting along for my sake.
“No. I’m going home.” I didn’t want to be there when Jace got back Monday night. I didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to talk to him. If I heard his voice, I…I didn’t know what I was going to do. Fall apart, most likely. Three years, that was how long we’d been together this time. Three years of—for me, at least—perfection. I loved him; he loved me. We took on the world together. We were going to be together for the rest of our lives.
Or so I thought.
No wonder he hadn’t proposed.
Fuck, he didn’t even want to talk about moving in together, always changed the subject whenever it happened to be mentioned. Three years apparently wasn’t long enough for him to determine if he wanted to live under the same damn roof, share the same bed, the same life.
I closed the case, grabbed my purse and headed for the door. I just wanted to go home, to the house I grew up in. Crawl into the bed I slept in every night until my mom died, be beneath the same roof she used to live under. It was as close as I was going to get to her now that she was gone.
“Let me drive you to the airport, at least,” Angie said as she followed me out of our apartment. I threw her the keys to my Range Rover and tossed my case in the back, not even second-guessing her.
Once I was in the passenger seat, I pulled up my airline app and booked the first flight out. There was a single seat left on a nonstop to Roanoke that left in ninety minutes. I could easily make that one. Selecting it, I didn’t even care that the last available seat was close to the bathroom in the very back of the plane. I’d take whatever I could get as long as it meant I was going home.
Angie was trying to get me to talk as she maneuvered through traffic. Normally, her driving scared the hell out of me, but right then, I wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on outside the vehicle. All I could see was that damn ultrasound picture and the one of Eden holding her son. Jace’s son?
The truth was, I didn’t know, and that was what hurt the most.
I didn’t know, because I’d lost all trust in my boyfriend months ago. I didn’t know if he would cheat or not, but all the proof was screaming that he had.
“You should at least call Lucy and let her know where you’re going,” Angie tried to reason. “She’s pregnant and hormonal, and she’s going to be upset if you don’t tell her you’re leaving.”
“I’ll call her later. I…can’t right now, Ang.” Lucy would understand. She knew more than anyone how things were between Jace and me. She would know this was killing me, and she’d understand why I had to leave.
I just wanted to go home for a little while. To figure out what to do now that it was so glaringly obvious Jace and I could no longer be together.
As Angie pulled up into the drop-off lane, I gave her a quick hug. “Love you,” I told her and pulled back. “I’ll call you when I land.”
“I love you, sugar bug. Take care of yourself, and come back soon.”
Seven plus hours later and I was parking my rental in the driveway outside my family home. The two-story house on the golf course was where I grew up, where the majority of my happy memories took place. It was also home to some of the worst memories of my life, the biggest one saying the final goodbye to my mother.
Fuck, why had I come back here?
Because even though I missed my mother, I needed to be as close as I could possibly get to her. I’d never needed her arms around me as desperately as I did in that moment, but this was as close as I could ever get to her now.
