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“But when I got to our apartment, it all came crashing down.”
My mind starts racing to all the awful possibilities. Did he come home and find her with another man? Would she have cheated on him, given all that he was doing to support her? Many men in his situation would have simply walked away, letting the woman decide what to do with the pregnancy. To find a man that not only sticks around, but sacrifices everything to support his new family, would she have thrown all of that away so easily?
Or was she drinking, doing drugs? Had she gone through with terminating the baby and didn’t tell him? No, dummy, Allie is alive and well so that clearly didn't happen.
His gaze is now on the ceiling, sad eyes focusing on the slow twirl of the ceiling fan.
“When I moved home, she should have been a few months along, maybe about to start the second trimester. But when I opened the door, she was on the couch, and she was . . . pregnant.”
My brows pull together. No shit she was pregnant, Emmett.
Oh.
Oh my God. I lean over, nausea pushing at the back of my throat, and I claw at the skin covering it, not ready to hear the next line that flows from his lips.
“She was nearly seven months along,” he says softly. “She was very much pregnant before we ever met.”
Realization hits me like a ton of bricks. Allie isn't his child. He didn't make that mistake.
I’m going to hunt that bitch down.
He trails a hand up my spine until he reaches the back of my neck and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Are you okay?”
AmIokay? That’s what he’s worried about right now? He dropped a bomb on me, confessing truths that I’m guessing not everyone around him knows. He’s reliving his sacrifices, the suffering he went through. All the weight he’s carried these years and the love for a child that, by blood, isn’t his, and his thoughts are about me.
I roll my head to the side to look at him, letting him see the obvious raw emotion on my face. “I’m thinking a lot of things, most of them going back to the same thought I’ve had since the moment I met you.” I crawl up his body, pulling my hair to the side so I can lay with my cheek to his chest. “You are the best man I have ever met.”
He welcomes me with open arms and holds me tightly, hands slightly trembling as he runs them up and down my biceps.
“What happened?” I prompt. “Once you both knew how much she manipulated you?”
“She panicked. She said she wasn't ready to be a parent. She never came out and said she did it on purpose, and I didn’t ask. All that mattered was she wanted out. She told me she was due in two months, and it was a girl. I knew I wanted to name her after you.”
“Did you let her in on that little tidbit of where the name came from?”
“Nah, she didn’t need to know. I told her she could have her out if she would take care of herself through the rest of the pregnancy, have the baby and let me adopt her. I'd keep her on my insurance through all that and still pay for everything like we had originally planned. Maybe it makes a softie out of me. Or I'm a pushover. I had already come to terms with being a dad. I knew the gender, the name. The image of Allie was in my life long before she was born. I couldn't imagine losing her.”
I can't believe I agree with him. Knowing him, his heart, how he feels about his family and children, he made the right decision at the time. A part of me still wishes he would have told me everything from the start. Would it have made it okay? Would I have been okay with silence on his end, knowing that although they weren’t in love, he wouldn’t feel right about staying in touch with me when he technically had a wife?
There is no way it would have been okay if I knew the truth. I would have gone apeshit, driven myself down to Louisiana and fought with them both tooth and nail.
“I’m sorry,” he says sheepishly.
“You don’t owe me, or anyone, an apology. What you did for that little girl . . .” I trail off, willing myself to fight off the tears. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably keep saying it until the day I die: You are a good man, Emmett Owens. I’m so proud to know you.”
I adjust myself again, climbing on top of him. Chest to chest, legs over legs, touching every bit of skin as possible as I pepper him with kisses.
“One of the best I will ever meet.”
His arms wrap around me, tilting his head to kiss me harder as his hands roam everywhere before settling on my ass.
“It was so fucking hard being a single dad to a newborn, trying to make it through sleep regressions, teething. I lucked out with some of the wives of coworkers who stayed home with their kids. They helped any way they could when she was a newborn, and I had to work overtime to support us.”
He brings his hands up to my thighs and adjusts me so I'm straddling his hips, his cock between us and growing harder by the second. “I thought about you every day, Jenna; you have to know that. I wondered where you were working, if you still looked the same, if you still had an attitude and took shit from no one.
“Some nights, Allie would only sleep if I held her in the rocking chair. I’d stay awake for hours, quietly swaying with her in my arms, driving myself crazy wondering what you were doing on those late nights.”
I wonder if those were the same nights I’d lie awake, a stranger’s arms around me, nearly sick to my stomach thinking about him.
