Natash scoffs. “Well you can’t expect me to raise this baby as a single mother, can you? I will need you every night, Everett, andduring the day. You can’t possibly expect her to be okay with you being with me? She was always the jealous type.”
I feel the anger rising in my chest. She will not force an ultimatum on me. “I’m not going to be with you, Nat. Not in that way. I’ll be a present father, we can work out a custody arrangement, but we will not be together. I’m with Leo. Now and forever.”
Nat stands and heads for the door. “If she will even want you anymore. Doesn’t seem like you have been forthcoming with who has been in your bed the last six years. Good luck, Everett. I’ll be in touch.”
She slams the door, and my head falls into my hands as I sit on my couch.
How in the hell did things get so fucked? One moment I’m snuggling the love of my life, making breakfast with my son, and now my pretty bird has run from me…again.
But one thing I know? Leo is mine. No matter what. Things just got a fuck ton more complicated, but that will always remain true.
I pick up the phone and call her. Forwarded. I try six more times and get forwarded six more times.
Then I call Gage.
When he picks up, I tell him everything that just happened, and he works his magic, confirming that the document I was given was real and not fabricated. I don’t know how he can tell, but he is confident that Nat is actually pregnant.
“I need you to track Leo’s phone. She is going to run, Gage, and I’m not losing her this time.”
“I won’t let her,” he growls into the phone.
And despite all that’s happened between us, this I know he means because he loves Leo just as much as I do, just in a different way.
Home.
It’s been a while.
After Natasha showed up and announced her pregnancy, I couldn’t take it. I was breaking—no, I was shattering. After everything I had been through, I had always been able to pick up my broken pieces and glue them back together. But not this time. No, this time I was shattered, shredded. I was left with no ability to put myself together again.
I needed to run. I had naïvely believed I had finally found my happy ending. Only for it to be ripped from my hands, by Natasha Baldwin.
But it’s not so easy this time. I have Rune, Henry Leo’s, Cole.
Sitting on this plane, I feel the devastation in my chest, the familiar burn, turning my heart to ashes. He is going to choose her and his baby. Why wouldn’t he? She can give him more children; sheisgiving him more children. And even if he wanted me still, Everett is the type to put his baby before anything, before anyone. As much as he loves Rune, Rune is a young boy. Ev has the chance to raise hischild with Natasha. To be there for their birth, their first steps, their first words. He has the chance to be a father from day one.
He won’t give that up.
He’s too good.
Once again, I am sacrificed for his future. My happiness pales in comparison to what their baby deserves. A father—a family.
Rune and I will be put on the back burner, a reminder of what was taken from him.
My throat burns with unshed tears. I’m not sure I have any more left. I think people are allotted a specific number of tears in their life, and I have burned through mine. They won't fall. They won’t release. They won’t help me shed my sorrow.
“Mom, where are we going?” Rune’s small hand lies on my arm.
He is scared. He has never seen me this way. I want to put a mask on and shield him, but I can’t. I can only protect him from so much in this world, but eventually it will fall down on him. Maybe being a mother isn’t about being their armor but giving them the tools to build their own, stronger than you ever made your own.
“We are going somewhere very special, little bird.”
“Why?”
I turn in the small airplane seat and pull his head into my chest, cradling his soft blond curls.
“Sometimes we are riddled with so much hurt that we need to escape. We need somewhere to cry, to grieve, to rebuild. That’s where we are going, sweetie. Mommy needs to find herself again, and I think it’s time I remind myself why I am strong enough to do so.”
“Okay.”
