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“Don’t worry,” I muttered, my voice as broken and empty as I felt. “I don’t plan on keeping the baby.”
He didn’t look happy at the news like I expected. Instead, his face only tensed up even more as he gasped, “Why?”
“What do you mean why?” Virulent sarcasm leaked into my tone. “Weren’t you just freaking out about a second ago about having a baby? You think I want to bring a baby into this world with a father who doesn’t want her and a mother who’s wholly unprepared for her? Or him? No thanks. I already went through enough of that with my parents. I know how shitty it is to be the child in that situation.”
The words seemed to hit him like a blow, and he squeezed his eyes shut to absorb them. When he opened them again, pain and regret swam in their depths.
“You don’t understand,” he said, sounding exasperated. “I’m not mad about you having the baby. And I’m not mad that you’re pregnant.”
“Well, you certainly have a funny way of showing your lack of anger.”
“I know. I’m sorry for how I reacted, but I didn’t yell because I was angry. I yelled because I was scared.”
“Do pregnant women scare you?” I cocked my head.
“Yes,” he replied, naked honesty in his voice. “When they’re women I care about.”
His eyes blazed as they stared into mine. “My mother died giving birth to me. She died because, according to the doctor, I was a big baby and did not turn the right way. Something genetic for the men in my family. She was a small woman like you, and she died bringing me into this world.” Pain enhanced his features, making his eyes lighter. “I can’t let anything like that happen to you. I would die if anything like that happened to you.”
My anger immediately vanished in the face of the vulnerability he displayed. I could tell he wasn’t lying to me. There was no way to fake that combination of guilt and devastation on his face.
“I’m sorry,” I said, although I didn’t know exactly why I was apologizing. Was I apologizing for getting pregnant or for reminding him of his mom?
Neither of that was really my fault.
And yet I wanted to take his pain away.
With desperation in his eyes, he looked up at me and said, “I love you.”
The words seemed to echo in the tiny room, growing bigger and bigger and resounding in my ears.
For a moment, I almost thought I’d hallucinated the words until he ran his hands through his hair again and murmured, “Shit. I didn’t mean to tell you that.”
“Didn’t mean to tell me…you love me?” I had to clarify.
He shook his head and smirked but said, “Yeah, that. I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but…there it is.”
“Oh,” I said lamely because I didn’t know what else to say.
Too much was happening at the same time. And I couldn’t take any more surprises today.
I didn’t know whether to believe him. He could be playing a game with me, but if this was all one long con, then it was the best con known to humanity because I was falling for it hook, line, and sinker, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from falling.
Plus, I didn’t think any of this was fake. At this point, it was just too farfetched to think that.
There was no way a man like him would show this much vulnerability and give me this for no reason. There was no reason he should be in love with me.
Which made it all the more amazing that he was.
“I need to tell you something else,” Chris said, interrupting the silence that had descended. It was funny because while the room was so quiet, my thoughts were very loud.He finally let his hands drop as he took a step back and ran his hand through his hair. “And what I’m about to tell you is going to affect how much you trust everything else I’ve told you until this point. Especially my feelings about you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I lied to you about the real reason I wanted to marry you.”
That wasn’t what I was expecting. His face was stony, and there was regret there that I hadn’t seen before.
“What do you mean?”
