I inhaled and took a while to release my breath. This was breaking me down. I knew I would never be the same person after this. But I had to stand firm. This was for his own good.
“Reason, I have to stay here.” My heart pounded so hard, and if it weren’t for his heavy breathing, he would’ve been able to hear it.
I got out of his bed and picked up my clothes off the floor. As he continued to stare at me while I got dressed, I knew I needed to get out of there before I gave in and told him the truth. He was breaking just as much as I was, and knowing I was the cause of it had me feeling guilty in every way.
This would be the last time I saw Reason… my Reason for life.
Before I walked out of his life for good, I bent down to kiss him. Our passionate kiss felt like a goodbye, both of our tears mixing and covering our faces.
I dropped to my knees and wailed into the palms of my hands. Not long after, Reason hopped off the bed and joined me on the floor. “I’ll drop it all, baby. I promise I will.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” I said repeatedly.
I slowly lifted my head and found the strength to stand up again. Reason did the same, wrapping his arms around me as I looked up into his eyes.
“I’ll always and forever love you, Reason St. Pierre.”
“Why you talkin’ like I’ll never see or hear from you again, Em Baby?”
I stood quietly, tears still streaming down my cheeks. My lips quivered. “Reason, please just tell me you’ll love me always and forever.”
With his brows knitted together and his chest moving up and down rapidly, he looked dead into my eyes. “Baby, I’ll love you ’til God brings us together again. Don’t ever give my heart to another man, Ember. You gon’ always and forever be in here.” His index finger pressed into his chest near his heart. “I’ma come back for you, I promise. You the only person I want forever with.”
That day, I walked out of the life of the only man I had ever been ‘in love’ with, and my life was never the same.
The trip down memory lane had me in my feels, remembering every detail from that day. The pain felt fresh, just like it had the day I walked out of his place when we were eighteen years old.
I still found it hard to believe that after all these years, Reason and I were face to face again. The feelings he made me feel back then only intensified as I stood in his presence now. I had never stopped loving this man. Yes, I had loved someone after him, but I had never completely given my entire heart to anyone except the man who hadn’t stopped staring at me since I arrived.
It was now just Reason, Rhema, and me left on the yacht. The emotional reunion between us, including his mother, had been emotional. She almost fainted when she laid eyes on me. Guilt shot through me more when I looked around for Mr. St. Pierre, and Reason told me he was no longer alive. I had taken away his chance to meet his first grandchild. That piece of information hit me hard.
When I made it to the gender reveal, I remember being so nervous as Rhema and I stepped onto the yacht. I looked around, wondering what had happened before I got there.People were all over the place; some looked frightened, a line of people were looking into the ocean, while others looked upset and shocked. As I tried to figure out why no one looked excited at an event that was supposed to be a joyful occasion, my eyes made contact with the man who I had never gotten out of my system. When I last saw his face, he was much younger, but he still had that same face, just more manly and as handsome as ever.
Reason was the last person I expected to see. I didn’t understand what he was doing at this gender reveal as I felt everything start to go dark around me. Before I could completely black out, someone sprang into action, and I knew it was none other than Reason holding me and screaming for help. Just like on the jet, there was a medical team on deck.
When I came back to my good senses, the first person I saw after Rhema was Reason. Right away, I asked what he was doing here, trying to take the attention off me. I didn’t want him to know what I was doing for money.
While I fretted about how I was going to explain my presence, Reason wasted no time answering my question and telling mewho he was. That’s when it dawned on me: I was pregnant with my high school sweetheart and my forever love’s baby.Oh, my goodness. It all made sense now.The name painted on the jet, “A&F Air,” meant Always & Forever. That was something I started saying to him one day, and it stuck. After all these years, this man still hadn’t forgotten about me.
Tears ran down my face and pooled around my lips as I stared at him.
My heart began to race and ache simultaneously, because I remembered he wasn’t doing this alone.Reason had a wife,and it wasn’t me.I repeated it in my head. But saying that didn’t feel right. I was supposed to be Mrs. Reason St. Pierre, but what didI expect when I was the one who left him? What would his wife think when she found out Reason and I go way back?
Or when she found out her husband and me already shared a baby.
I asked him what had happened before I got there, and he briefly ran down the horrible things that had occurred before and what he had found out about his wife. He revealed that she was a soap opera actress, and I realized she was the woman who was being escorted off the yacht while the medical team tended to me.
The best news he told me out of the bad things he mentioned was that I was pregnant with a baby boy, something that was revealed when I blacked out.
I felt bad because Rhema was scared and crying during the scare. She thought something bad was happening to me, and I didn’t want my baby to see me in such a weak state. She was too young to understand what I was feeling. She didn’t understand seeing her father after all this time had struck my heart, and my deep love for him had been activated. One day my baby would understand. I prayed to God a love like the one her parents had would find her too.
I could tell the question was swarming in Reason’s mind about whether Rhema was his daughter, especially when he asked her age. When I told him, his eyes grew large, but he didn’t ask any other questions.
Rhema went to sleep in one of the bedrooms below deck while Reason and I were in the master suite, catching up on all the years we weren’t in each other’s lives. He kept staring at me like this was all a dream, and I felt the same. I couldn’t believe how life had brought us back together in this way.
“Em, is Rhema my daughter?” Reason blurted out the question I was sure had been stuck in his head since he first saw her.
“Yes,” I admitted. There was no need to hold back now.
