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“Teagan. We have to stop.” I dropped my head to her shoulder as my breathing dragged in and out in long, labored pants. My fingers curled into the back of her shirt, both of us filled with regret. “We can’t.” The next words killed me, but it was reality. “You’re not mine. We aren’t us. You’re married.”
Her movements stopped dead but she didn’t make a move to get off of me. Rather, her arms tightened and she sucked in her breath, turning her face into my neck. I could feel the hot, wetness of her tears as they fell from her eyes onto the skin exposed by my open shirt. Her hand lifted into a fist and she brought it down on my chest in agony. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it was a sort of lashing out in misery. “Don’t! Don’t say that. I can’t bear it.”
I inhaled, struggling to get control of my emotions and my body. I wasn’t ready to let go of her completely and still held her close, rubbing her back with one hand with one arm wrapped around her hips. She was hurting and I felt the same way; regret, misery, and desperation… it was so thick around us it was impossible to deny.
Maybe there was more to the story than I knew, but my brain argued that there was no excuse good enough to justify the betrayal or the lies. No matter how much I loved her, or how good this felt to hold her, it was just a beautiful illusion. There was a huge, unfair loss that engulfed us and reality refused to let me fix it.
“I’m so fucked up over this, Teagan. I have every reason to hate you, and it would be easier if I could. I want to, but I can’t. I just—fucking can’t!” I let out a ragged breath, my eyes starting to burn again. My heart was content and broken at the same time. “That’s the shit of it. No matter what you do to me. I’m completely screwed. You lied to me for years, broke me to the point I wanted to kill myself…” my voice cracked on emotion. “You’ve even kept my child from me for years… and despite all of the hell you’ve put me through, I still...” Her arms tightened and she pressed her forehead to my chin, her hot tears dripping onto the skin to roll down my neck. “I still love you.”
“Do you think I don’t feel the same way?” Her voice was laced with tears and muffled because her face was still buried against me. “That’s what unconditional love is. You don’t get to choose.”
My heart exploded at her words. “I don’t want to, Teagan. I don’t want to, but there isn’t one goddamn thing I can do to change it. No matter how much I want to be free of you and this life-sucking misery, I’m stuck. I don’t want to love you anymore.”
She covered her mouth with her shaky hand. “I know. Trust me when I tell you hearing you say that, kills me. You just have to let me explain and then maybe you’ll understand. I’m begging you, Chase.”
I put my head back, facing the ceiling of the car as I tried to breathe and regain control. I blinked my eyes to clear them of tears. I was tough and didn’t wear my emotions on my sleeve. I never had; except with Teagan. She, and now Remi, were the only two people on the planet who could reduce me to tears.
So many things rushed through my head as I sat there holding her, arguing with myself. I loved her beyond imagining, but resentment of her also brewed close to a boil. So many things were standing between us, but most of all, the beautiful little girl who was depending on me.
“I’m not sure anything will make me understand. Even if I choose to forgive you, the pain and everything that happened isn’t going away. It happened. It’s been years of pain and helplessness. Nothing is worse than the helplessness I felt at not being able to stop you from leaving me, and my inability to change anything; even how I felt... the not knowing why…”
“The let me tell you.”
“It might be too late.”
“I understand. All I can do is tell you that I’m sorry and that I’ll always love you, Chase.” Her hand flattened on my heart and then slid up my chest and around my neck. “Forever.”
“No matter how either of us feels, it’s not about us anymore. There are other people involved, the most important of all is Remi.”
“I know that. What’s going to happen?” Teagan asked, finally.
I couldn’t resist smoothing her hair down her back one last time. “I don’t know, beyond moving heaven and earth to get Remi well. I honestly don’t.”
“I know I made the wrong decision.”
“Understatement of the century.” I couldn’t get my head or heart around it and I was incapable of sugarcoating it, even if I’d wanted to. Just because I want her, and even though I loved her, didn’t mean instant forgiveness or reconciliation. Too much was involved. I was totally aware that Teagan knew exactly what I was thinking.
“We don’t have to figure it out all at once, Chase.”
“Maybe not, but we can’t let things like this happen, again. I’m not strong enough to be alone with you. We’re both overly emotional and scared to death about Remi’s cancer and it would be too easy to fall into—” I stopped myself and reconsidered my choice of words. Teagan wanted forgiveness and maybe she meant what she said, but the situation was already too convoluted. “Jensen and Bronwyn have to be considered.”
“Bronwyn. Is that her name? What’s your relationship with her?”
There it was. Whatever I said next would be as much for me as it would be for Teagan. Bronwyn helped me through some heavy shit way before we dated, and I wasn’t about to lie to Teagan about her. I refused to lie about either one of them. “She means a lot to me, but you’re the love of my life. Nothing will change that, but she’s been supportive and helped me crawl out of hell. I can’t betray her. I have to keep my focus on Remi.”
“This, now… what’s happening between us isn’t just about Remi.”
“I know that, Teagan.”
It was hard for me to resist the feel of her body and the longing in her voice and even harder not to give in to what I couldn’t help wanting, but I didn’t know what was in our future and I had to have a singular focus. I couldn’t tell Teagan how strong the pull between us still felt, or that she was my beginning and my end.
I cleared my throat. “But, one night like this doesn’t change the six years that stand between us. Even if Remi gets better, it isn’t black and white. You can’t just decide you didn’t want me and now, when you need me, think everything will go back to the way it was.”
Teagan nodded in slow and sad acquiescence, and her fingers were rhythmically kneading the skin and muscles at the side of her neck. “I know. I don’t.”
I opened the door to the car and got out, still holding her, but as soon as I was outside, bent to set her on her feet. I could feel her start to lift her legs around me like she used to, but then stopped. My heart literally lurched in my chest. So many things remained unchanged.
“So, I gotta go.” Monkey. The love nickname I used to use all the time ricocheted through my mind and I had to literally stop myself from saying it. It would be so easy to fall right back into it with her… as if not one day had separated us, but reality was a vengeful bitch that swung a huge fucking sledgehammer to wake you up from the dream. Like clockwork. “I don’t know if I’ll see you at the hospital tomorrow or not because I’m probably going straight to the airport.”
