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“Ivy, baby, please.” His husky voice against my ear was nearly my undoing. “Let me stay and make this up—”
I let out a dry laugh. “We can’t make this up in bed like we did everything else.”
“Christ, I didn’t mean like that—”
“Rory, just go. Please.” The shuddering breath he released made me toss him a bone. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
If you’re still around.
He didn’t answer for a minute or more. All he did was hold me and let out more of those shaky, pain-filled breaths. Each one tore through me.
I came so close to turning and taking it all back. All I wanted was for him to stay. For real. Not just for me, but for the baby. For love, not only responsibility. It was all too soon, I knew, and I was expecting far too much. I wanted the fairy tale, and he was a flesh and blood man.
Except he’d been the reason I’d dreamed so big in the first place. Because deep down, I knew we could live that life. It wouldn’t be perfect, but we could be happy together.
All three of us could be.
Or we could have been if he wasn’t so attached to escape routes. And a rockstar never changed his spots, did he?
When Rory finally let me go, I wanted to sob. Yet somehow my eyes stayed dry.
“For you, I’ll go. Not for me. If it was up to me, I’d sleep on this truck floor if necessary. If that’s what it would take to prove to you I’m not going anywhere. You’re the one making me go, not me.”
He walked to the door and took a step down, then another before stopping and turning back. “I’ll be back tomorrow, bright and early. Make sure you rest. And dream of me, as I dream of you.”
The last bit I wasn’t sure if I’d heard or imagined. He was gone before I could ask.
I squeezed my eyes closed and let out a tired laugh.
Big surprise there.
Twenty-One
I tugged the brim of my pink baseball hat lower over my eyes. The sun was brutal and my to-do list seemed never ending. I was ticking things off on my app on my phone, the letters jittering a little as I walked.
I missed my coffee so damn much.
The measly eight ounces a day I was allowed per my doctor seemed more like a tease. Who could survive on that? Especially when sleep had been non-existent in my life.
All night long, the shock and panic in his eyes were replaying on a loop.
Rory was back.
Rory staring at my belly like it was an alien followed directly by him asking who the father was.
Yeah, that part was the suck and I still couldn’t get my anger in check about it. How dare he think that?
I smoothed my hand over my little bump. Almost four months along and I was already starting to show, thank you very much short torso.
Did he know me at all?
No.
I ignored the little voice. He damn well should.
How would he know? You guys hung out no more than a week total.
Shut up.
