AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” the bartender asks.
“Let him. He needs it,” Jace says. “We’ll get him home safe.”
They’re talking over my head as if I’m not there. I’m about to protest when thoughts of Ivy take over my brain. It feels like weeks since I last saw her. How is she really doing? Is she able to move around now that she’s well into the third trimester?
Is that fucker Peter rubbing her feet at the end of a long day?
My hand trembles as I reach for the whisky. Real fear steals into my heart. How the fuck will I get through this? It’s going to be a never-ending source of pain and nightmare. Ivy will give birth to our baby, and I’ll have to see her and Peter together. He’ll get to see her and our baby every morning when he wakes up and every night before he sleeps, while I’ll content myself with weekly visits. Life is so fucking unfair.
I gulp down the rest of my whiskey.
“Okay, Dr. Anderson. Time to go,” Dylan says, gripping my arm.
I shove it off and swing the barstool around. I try to stand up, and to my chagrin, my legs don’t have the strength to hold me up.
“We’ve got you,” Jace says.
Each of my brothers stands on either side of me and holds me up by the arm. I feel as though I should be embarrassed, but all I feel is a need to be in my bed. I slump in the back of Dylan’s car and promptly fall asleep.
The next thing I know, someone is shaking me awake. “Can you walk to the elevator?” Dylan peers at me through the car door.
“Yeah.” The nap helped, and I manage to get out of the car and walk under my brothers’ watchful stares. I give a wave and enter the elevator.
Today was a bitch, but now I have a plan. I’ll dive into my work and remove all thoughts of Ivy. I feel desperately grateful for my work and the fact that I love it.
How the hell did I allow myself to fall in love with Ivy? How did she break down my barriers?
39
Ivy
Why does it hurt so much? It’s what I wanted, right? I hate that Alec has the power to hurt me even when he’s not in my life. I push my head through the neck of the dress I picked to wear. Except that it won’t go past my chest. Frustrated, I jerk it off and toss it on the bed.
Tears fill my eyes, and my chest hurts. I fight for a few seconds but finally give in and allow the tears to fall. I don’t even know why I’m crying. Definitely not for Alec. I’m lucky to have gotten away when I did. I should be celebrating, not feeling sorry for myself. But it’s a hollow celebration. The truth is that I miss him. He lied to me, but I still miss him. I miss his smile, his grin, his hugs, his kisses … I miss everything. He’s the closest I’ve ever come to a loving relationship.
I reach for my phone and stare at the screen, willing there to be a message or a missed call from Alec. It stares back at me blankly. God, how desperate can a person get? The man used me. He went as far as proposing to me and even setting a date for our wedding. He humiliated me in front of everyone.
Well, not everyone. Other than Molly, no one else in my family knows. Her advice is to sit down with Alec and ask him point-blank whether it’s true. But I don’t need to ask if it’s true. What I need to know is why? What did I do to deserve to be hurt and humiliated? I hate him. No, I love him. I’m in love with a heartless, cold man. A man whose business comes first, even before his own child.
He must have known he was risking losing his child but clearly, he didn’t care. No wonder he has never said he loves me. At least he had the decency not to lie to me about that.
Alec doesn’t exist anymore as far as I’m concerned. In the same way, my baby and I don’t exist for him. He never even looked for me when I stopped answering his messages. That hurt more than anything, and it led me to two conclusions. One, he had never cared about me. And two, he was guilty. Had he been innocent, he would have looked for me to find out why I had stopped answering his messages.
My cell phone rings, and to my shame, I grab it, thinking it’s Alec. Fool, I murmur to myself. I stare at the name uncomprehendingly. Then it dawns on me who Daniella is. The wedding planner. I close my eyes and contemplate not picking up her call. What am I supposed to tell her? That my ex-fiancé is a lying bastard who was using me to save his family business? A man who would go as far as proposing when he very well knew he had no intention of marrying me.
I want to curse the day I met Alec Anderson, but I can’t. Those months of being with him were the happiest of my life. Tears sting my eyes. I can’t believe I’m crying yet again over Alec. What is wrong with me? My phone stops ringing. I’ll email Daniella when I come back from the clinic.
Feeling listless, I leaf through my clothes to find a dress that will fit me. Despite knowing where I’m headed, I feel utterly and completely lost as I leave the house. It’s a good thing that my brain remembers Doctor Brown’s office. When I get there, I don’t remember how I got there. I move and feel like a robot, which is a whole lot better than the pain, which comes in waves and almost cripples me.
“Ivy.”
I grind to a halt. Please make it not be a dream. I raise my head. It’s him. Alec. I resist the urge to rub my eyes. “Alec?”
He looks vulnerable, but in the next second, a hard look comes over his features. My brain is playing games with me. There’s no way Alec Anderson, protector of the precious Anderson clinic, would be vulnerable.
“How are you?” he says, glancing at my belly.
I look like a whale. Is that what he’s thinking?
