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The financials had checked out, at least during Alexa’s initial review. She knew now that Nick was good at what he did — and that he’d been very, very careful to cover their financial tracks.
Still, their generosity couldn’t be ignoredbecause they had money. It was a big deal to let someone into your home, especially with a new baby, and an even bigger deal to be so welcoming when that someone brought as much baggage as Alexa.
Which was why she felt so ashamed. She had no right to be envious of Ronan and Julia, to feel anything but joy at the gift of their son, whom Alexa had come to love.
And she did. She felt all of those things. But she couldn’t lie — to herself anyway — about the sadness that haunted her every time she looked at John Thomas.
“I think he’s asleep,” Nick whispered, pulling her from her thoughts.
She stretched to get a better look at the baby’s face, careful not to move too much in case she woke him. His lips were slack around the bottle’s nipple, his long lashes casting shadows on his creamy cheek.
She looked at Nick and nodded.
They got up carefully from the couch and crept down the hall to the private suite shared by Ronan and Julia. The house had been outfitted with three of them — one for each of the brothers — plus two guest bedrooms, one ofwhich was occupied by Elise, and the communal living room and kitchen area. It was situated around a central courtyard where, weather allowing, they hung out with morning coffee and shared dinners that lasted late into the night.
Alexa always felt weird entering Ronan and Julia’s apartment when they weren’t around, but she didn’t want them to have to move the baby once they got home.
They passed through the suite’s living room and continued down the hall, past the bedroom shared by Ronan and Julia to the nursery.
The room was painted a soft yellow, one wall covered in a mural that depicted ocean waves, and beneath them, an assortment of friendly-looking fish and other sea creatures, including a whale and a dolphin. A nightlight in the shape of a sailboat glowed from one of the outlets, casting the room in soft, shadowed light, and the ceiling glowed with stars painted in glow-in-the-dark paint.
Nick lowered the baby into the crib against one wall, covering him with the plush blanket folded at the foot of the mattress. John Thomas’s face was so sweet in sleep, so innocent. His cheeks were plump and velvety, his lips pursed, occasionally mimickinga sucking option as if he were still drinking from his bottle.
Alexa’s chest ached, and she turned away, busying herself with the monitor on the bureau. Once it was on, she picked up one of the receivers, then left quietly with Nick.
They pulled the door shut behind them, exhaling loudly when they reached the main hall.
“Whew,” Nick said. “I think I need a beer.”
His weariness was all for show. He loved the nights they babysat for Ronan and Julia. She knew he was careful not to be overly enthusiastic, something she suspected was for her benefit, but she saw the wonder in his eyes when he looked at the baby, saw him light up when the baby laughed for him.
“I’ll join you,” Alexa said.
They went to the kitchen for the beer and then stretched out on the sofa in the living room. Ronan had planned to take Julia out to her favorite restaurant for dinner, then to a movie, where Julia had vowed to eat her weight in popcorn and Red Vines. They wouldn’t be home for a while yet.
Alexa sank against Nick’s body, breathing in his spicy maleness. His legs were strong against hers, their feet covered in socks and nestled against each other at the foot of the sofa. She let the momenteven out the sharp edges of her emotions surrounding the baby. This was what mattered, wasn’t it? What she’d wanted? What she’d given up her career for, alienated her parents for?
She loved him, was so in love with him she couldn’t see straight. So they wouldn’t have children. It was okay. They had each other, and they could eventually consider fostering or adopting.
The reassurances rang hollow in her mind. They were all true, but they didn’t get at the heart of her loss, didn’t change the fact that she and Nick would never create life together. There would never be a baby with his green eyes — the green eyes that had only been shared by Nick’s dead mother and sister — and pronounced jaw, cheekbones as fine as a classical sculpture. They would never watch their child and marvel that she had her mother’s laugh or her father’s gentle nature.
“I’m sorry if it’s hard,” Nick said softly.
She swallowed. There was no point denying it, no point going through the exercise of saying it wasn’t, only to have Nick know she was lying. “It’s okay.” She hesitated. “I do love him.”
His arms tightened around her. “I know that.”
“I feel like I’m denying you something important,” she said.
He kissed her head. “The most important thing in my life is you, Lex. Anything else would be gravy.”
“I want you to have gravy,” she said. “I want you to have everything. And I want to have it with you.”
“Look at me, Lex.” She looked up at him. “I do have everything. Right here in my arms is everything I need.”
She saw the truth of it burning in his eyes, but it didn’t comfort her the way it should have. Instead it felt like a dare. She wanted to tell him to take it back, not to tempt the universe to turn his words into a lie.
Because the truth was, anything could happen. It was something no one wanted to admit when they were happy, when they were having a baby or falling in love or getting married. But Alexa knew that happiness could turn to tragedy, that children could grow up safe and sound only to be run down on a dark street by someone with enough money to make it disappear, that all the things you overlooked about someone when you promised to love them for better or worse looked different in the tedious light of reality.
