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“Lexi.”He squeezed my hand.“I was never trying to—”
“If you want to leave I won’t stop you.”
“Wait, what?”I still wouldn’t look at him.“Lexi, look at me.”His fingers latched around my upper arm and he squeezed just hard enough for me to finally look at him.The expression in his eyes was wild.I’d seen every emotion on Leo’s face from sadness to joy and everything in between, but I’d never seen him look at me the way he looked at me at that moment.“What are you talking about?”He spoke so softly, I almost didn’t hear him.“Leave you?”
Tears sprang to my eyes as I heard him speak the words I didn’t even want to think about.
“Talk to me,” he urged.“Please.”
“Roxanne told me about the hotel,” I admitted.“That Keith wanted you as an investor.”I took a breath and exhaled slowly before I added, “And that you said yes.”
Leo’s face dropped as the realization of what I was saying sank in.“And so you thought I wanted to do this.”He waved his hands, encompassing the bathroom, but mostly what lay beyond it.“You thought I wanted to do this...by myself?”
I nodded.
“Lexi.”His hands dropped away from my arms, leaving me feeling strangely empty.“Why would you...how could you?I just don’t understand.”
Suddenly cold, I crossed my arms around my waist, hugging myself and our unborn baby.“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Did you agree to invest in the Oasis?”
He pressed his lips together and nodded once.
I had to swallow hard to keep myself from crying.“Then how could I not think that, Leo?”The urge to cry pressed hard against my throat.“You made a huge decision.A life-changing decision.And you didn’t even talk to me.What else could I think?”My arms shook.I clung harder to myself in an effort to maintain control.
“You could not think that I was going to leave you.”He spun on his heel and paced away from me in the cavernous bathroom.Just when I thought he was going to leave the room, he spun around hard and stared at me.“God, Lexi.You could give me the benefit of the doubt.After everything we’ve been through.Everything we’ve done together.Our life.Ben.”I swallowed hard when he said our son’s name.“You really think that I’d just leave?”There was so much pain and hurt in his eyes that I could no longer hold in the tears.They slid unchecked down my cheeks.He shook his head and looked away, an action that hurt me more than anything else he could have said.
But it angered me, too.His response to this entire conversation angered me.Of course I could think that.What reason had he given me lately that would allow me any other way of thinking?I crossed the tile floor and retrieved the robe that hung on the wall, tying the plush material around my body before I turned back to him.He hadn’t moved and the break had given me a chance to compose myself.“What else could I think, Leo?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t give him a chance.“You brought us down here without telling me what it was really about.You kept it from me.A decision that affects both of us and you didn’t think it was important to mention it.And then you accepted Keith’s offer.”I swallowed hard at that and what it really meant.“An offer that definitely involves us both and pretty much every penny we have.No.”I waved my hand wildly before I tucked it into the pocket of the robe.“It involveseverypenny we have.And some we don’t.Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, Leo?Really?What were you thinking?We don’t even have that kind of money.Not unless—”
I couldn’t finish my thought because at that moment I realized just how he had found the money to buy into the Oasis and it didn’t include the inheritance from Uncle Ray the way I’d originally thought.No.It was...“The inn.”It wasn’t a question, but he still nodded in response.
“How could you...the inn?You love the inn.You turned it around, made it successful, made it...yours.”
“I can’t run them both, Lex.I—”
“You did this.You made this decision without so much as a word to me about it.”Hurt and pain flowed through me.From the moment we’d arrived in Vegas, I’d known something was up.Heck, I knew it before we’d even left.But I’d become really good at ignoring things I didn’t want to deal with, and that’s exactly what I’d been doing.Even after talking to Keith and Roxanne, part of me thought—no, hoped—that Leo would tell me it wasn’t true.I’d never felt so gutted, so completely stripped open.I couldn’t stand there anymore.I couldn’t look at him.Not knowing that he would do such a thing.I had to get out.
I moved as carefully as I could with the slippery floor beneath my feet toward the bedroom carpet.
“Lexi.”Leo’s hand grabbed for my arm and I both spun and slipped in his grasp.Fear shot through me as I started to fall but in a flash, his arms surrounded me and pulled me tight to him, both safe from the fall and in danger of having my heart broken further.“Are you okay?I didn’t mean to...God, babe, if anything...”He nuzzled his face into my hair and breathed deeply; his arms tightened their grip on me.
The tears continued to flow down my face.How could I love this man so much and be so completely shattered by him and his actions at the same time?
“You have to know I’d never do anything to hurt you.”I could hear the pain in his voice.“I love you and Ben more than anything in the world.I’d never do anything to...I should have told you.”
I nodded against his chest.
“I didn’t know how to bring it up.I know how much you love it at the lake and to be honest, I didn’t have any intention of even entertaining Keith’s offer.”I wiggled in his grip just enough so I could look at him while he spoke.I needed to see the truth in his eyes, and it was there.“Originally I thought coming here would be a good chance to get away,” he continued.“To have a bit of a break before the holiday season.I know how hard you’ve been working and Ben’s troubles at school this year with the other kids.We’ve all been so busy, we needed a bit of a family holiday.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“But when I got here and...”
“Saw the potential?”I finished for him.I knew Leo well enough to know exactly how his brain would have kicked into high gear when he saw the opportunity that Oasis represented, and the idea of a project he could really sink his teeth into.His dark eyes flashed and he nodded.
“It’s incredible.”
I nodded.“It is.”And I knew in that moment, that even though I hated how he’d gone about it and I couldn’t agree with the fact that he’d made the decision without me, Icouldagree with the actual decision.I’d never known anyone the way I knew Leo and I’d known from the moment I set foot outside the limo at the Oasis that the resort was his future.
But so were we.Myself, Ben, and...the baby.
How could he have it all?
