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“That’s great,” she said. “Congratulations.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t great. I mean… it was, but…” He sighed. “We were all there, in the hospital, all packed into the waiting room — my brother and Elise and Elise and Julia’s mom, and my dad. When Ronan came out, we were all there, and it felt so… big. Like someday we’ll all tell this little boy about the day he was born, and how we were all there, waiting to welcome him to the family, you know?”
She nodded, swallowing the lump that had risen in her throat. She could see it, but she would never have it, would never be on the other side of the hospital doors, bringing new life into the world.
“Except it didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel complete, because you weren’t there, Lex. And you’re part of my family. I wanted to call you, wanted to share stale chips from the vending machine, wanted you to stand next to me in front of the nursery window and watch a baby in his first moments of life. I saw how excited and proud Ronan was, how the love just shined from his face when he looked at Julia and the baby, and I wanted that to be you and me.”
She shook her head. “That will never happen, Nick.”
“You don’t know that.” His voice was fierce. “And I realized I didn’t know it either, because I’d been a coward. About telling Ronan and Declan, being honest about the fact that I love you, that I want to be with you, really be with you.” He hesitated and sucked in a breath. “So I did it. I just… came clean.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “What are you talking about?”
“I told Ronan about us. I told him how much you mean to me, that I didn’t want it to be a secret anymore.”
The room started to spin around her. She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that, Nick. Not without talking to me.”
He stepped toward her. “I know. I’m sorry. I realized on the drive over that we should have talked about it first, but I just couldn’t hold it in — couldn’t hold in how I feel about you — anymore.” He put his arms on her shoulders and looked into her eyes and she saw it all, knew he meant it, that he loved her — or the person he thought she was anyway.
She shook off his hands and moved past him to the window, hugging herself tighter, trying to stop the shaking she could feel starting in her body.
“Lex?”
She turned to face him. “You had no right to make this decision without me. It affects my life, my privacy. It could affect my job. You don’t… you had no right.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought… well, I guess I thought maybe you’d be happy.”
“What could possibly make you think that? Everything is a mess between us. You don’t even know me, Nick.”
He looked like she’d slapped him. “I don’t know you?”
She held his gaze, aware that she was being harsh but unable to stop herself. That’s what she did when she was hurt or scared — she lashed out, fought to keep people away. It was easier when they didn’t want to be around you in the first place.
“Just because we’ve been sleeping together the last couple months doesn’t mean you know me,” she said.
His eyes flashed with pain before he tucked it away. “I thought we’d been doing more than sleeping together. I thought you’d let me in.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know anything.”
He walked toward her. “Then fucking tell me, Lex.”
“That pretty picture you painted of your family in the waiting room at the hospital, everyone excited over Julia and Ronan’s baby? That will never, ever happen for us, Nick.” She took a deep breath. “And the biggest reason of all is because I can’t have children. Not ever.”
“You can’t…” He lifted a hand toward her face and she took a step back.
“One of the injuries I sustained in the accident caused hemorrhaging. They had to take my uterus. That door closed forever for me when I was eighteen.” Tears streamed down her face, and her voice caught on a sob she hated herself for. “Still think you know me, Nick?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not something you say to someone when you’re first dating, and then…”
“Then?” he asked.
She looked at him. “I knew you’d say it was fine, that you don’t care, but I can tell from the way you’ve always talked about your family that you want a family too, and that’s something I can never give you. You’d stay. You’d stay because you felt sorry for me. But one day you’d wake up and look around at your brothers’ families and you’d realize you’d missed out because of me.”
“So you know me but I don’t know you?”
She wasn’t prepared for the bite in his voice, the anger flaring in his green eyes. “Are you telling me you don't want to have children? That you never saw us with kids of our own, one more spoke in the Murphy family wheel?”
