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I couldn’t move. I just stood there, limp, staring out the window behind him. The mirrored skyscrapers no longer reflected the morning sun like diamonds catching the light. They just looked cold. Dead. Cabs honked ruthlessly downstairs, and there was nothing magical about the December chill freezing my tears. Was this still my New York? It didn’t feel like it.
“You promised.” I shook as the words came out, broken and sharp, shards of the future we’d planned. “You promised no matter what.”
“I still do. I still promise.”
What was he saying? I wasn’t sure he even knew. He was in as much shock as I was, I could tell by the lifeless, stilted sound of his voice. I pulled back. “Manning . . .”
“I’m not walking away from you again,” he said, and his warmth returned. He wasn’t in shock. He wasn’t lifeless. His eyes were melted brown sugar, begging me, loving me, wanting me, still, after all this.
It should’ve changed everything, but in fact, all it did was make things clearer.
We’d been through this before—he’d chosen this. “You could’ve had me so many times, Manning, but you picked her.”
“I settled—I didn’t pick her. Now I choose. I choose you, and I will never make that mistake again.” His hand found my face, and he thumbed the hollow of my cheek. “You told me once love was enough. I didn’t think so, but you made me believe it is.”
“But it isn’t, Manning.” I put my hands on his chest to move him back a safe distance, enough that I wouldn’t cave and give him whatever he was trying to ask for—but instead I curled my hands against his bare chest. “I couldn’t think past the moment back then. I know better now—life isn’t fair.”
“I don’t care what lies ahead, how bumpy the road is about to get. I made you a promise, and I’m keeping it.” The longer we stood there, the more determined he looked. “It took me too long to say it, but now . . .” He moved his forehead against mine. “I can’t imagine not telling you every day that I love you so fucking much. I trust in us.”
I worried it was too late for that. This wasn’t about trust or love anymore. I believed Manning thought we could make this work, but there was one thing Manning cared more about than me, and that was doing the right thing. That was why I’d lost him the first time. And the right thing for him was not letting his child grow up with a bad father the way Manning had—or without a father at all. “This is it. We’re over before we even began.”
“No, Lake,” he said softly, shaking his head. “I . . .” He ran the tip of his nose along mine, his lips brushing my cheek. “I’ll find a way. Trust in me, in us.” He kissed the corner of my mouth, whispering. “I’ll find a way. I will.”
I trembled with his loving words, with the sense of hope he’d finally found, even if it was too late. My hands were red, fisted against his chest, but I still couldn’t push him back. “There’s no way around this, Manning.”
“What if you’re pregnant?” he asked.
At that, I lost my breath and had to look away. A part of Manning could be growing inside me already, something nobody could take from me, not even Tiffany. After this week, I wanted it, but not like this. I had no choice but to live with the pain of losing Manning, but I could never have his child now. And I did have a choice there. “I can’t be pregnant,” I said.
He put his hand against the wall, keeping me where I was. “You don’t know that.”
“I can’t,” I repeated, shaking my head. For once, fate was on my side. What I’d thought was irreversible, actually wasn’t. “I won’t. I’ll take the morning-after pill, and if that’s not enough . . . I wouldn’t keep it.”
“Don’t you fucking say that.” His entire body vibrated, but he wasn’t angry. He was pleading. I recognized a breaking heart when I saw it. “If you’re pregnant, you know I’ll tear down the universe to be with you.”
I did know that, and I refused to get him that way. Maybe that was good enough for Tiffany, but I wanted Manning to have chosen me from the start—not because I’d trapped him into it. Manning, at his core, was a good man. And at my core, I loved him above all else. I could never ask him to leave his child, to not be there with Tiffany every step of the way. “Go home,” I told him. “Be with them.”
“Lake.” He slid his hand under my hair, but I shied away from him and kept my eyes down. He didn’t belong to me, and he never had. “Don’t pull away now that I can touch you,” he murmured. “I don’t know how or when, but I’ll come back to you. You and I have a life here. I’ve seen it, and so have you.”
