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“Shh.” He held her tighter, and she closed her eyes as she buried her face against his chest. “It’s going to be okay. This baby is going to be okay.”
“Our baby.” The words left her lips easily, and they took with them a portion of the weight that had been sitting on her chest. She knew he’d been worrying about whether he was really going to be a father to her child, and she needed him to know that he absolutely was. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you that chance before,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you carry that pain.” His voice broke a bit on the last word, and the sound made her chest ache. “But I’ll never be mad at you for any of it.”
She pressed a soft kiss to his neck. “Thank you.”
A few moments passed in silence before Luke spoke.
“Have you thought about names at all?”
Rose shrugged. “Not really. With everything that’s been going on, I haven’t had much time to.”
She felt him nod.
“What about you?” she asked. “I’d love to hear your ideas.” Rose looked up at last, pulling back enough to meet his eyes.
Luke smiled. “I’ll think about it.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “But in the meantime, how about breakfast?”
***
As Luke loaded the plates into the dishwasher, he looked out at Rose, who was lying on a long towel on the beach. Her phone lay face down in the sand beside her, and her fingers drifted toward it every now and then, but she always pulled them back.
He didn’t know what he would say if he were ever left alone with her mother again. He’d watched other people try to destroy Rose’s self-confidence for too long, and he’d had enough of it. She was the strongest, fiercest person he knew, and she’d become that way through years of fighting for what she wanted despite the hardships she’d faced. For God’s sake, she’d handled the pain of a miscarriage on her own, and while he absolutely hated that she’d had to deal with it by herself, it proved again how thoroughly resilient she was, as did the way she’d dealt with losing contact with her sister for a while due to her parents’ actions. She’d been so broken up about it when they had kicked Morgan out, and still, she’d pulled through.
Though he couldn’t imagine his parents doing anything like that, he knew he would’ve lost his mind if he didn’t have Lenore in his life. His parents had known how devastated he’d been after Rose had left, but after a while, they had shifted to encouraging him to find someone else. He knew they’d had his wellbeing in mind, but he hadn’t been ready. He never would’ve been ready. The few dates they’d managed to persuade him to go on had ended in disaster as the women hadn’t been able to measure up to what he’d wanted, and neither had the one-night flings he’d found on his own. He’d wanted Rose, and no one else would’ve come close to her.
Lenore was the only one who’d understood that and hadn’t tried to push him into moving on. She’d been around both of them long enough to know that Rose had always been the one for Luke. The only one.
The thoughts of his family made it impossible to hold himself back any longer. He retrieved his phone from the dresser in the bedroom and flipped through the websites for the prominent Chicago newspapers, and his heart sank at their headlines.
“Senator LeBlanc’s Son Has Meltdown, Punches Reporter.”
“Luke LeBlanc Attacks Photographer (With Video).”
He threw his phone onto the bed and turned away, bracing himself against the doorframe as he pulled in a series of deep breaths.
Four years. He’d spent four years rebuilding his image, and now here he was, burning it all down again.
***
By the time he finally went outside, he’d given in to the need to see what else was being said about him. He’d found too many disparaging threads on social media to count. They attacked his character and his “weakness” for going back to his ex-fiancée—especially when this meant raising someone else’s child—and when he’d begun to see the comments’ hatred turn to Rose instead, he’d logged out of every app and closed his internet browser.
Instead, he joined her on the beach. He brought out another towel and lay down on it beside her, and though he stared up into the bright blue of the cloudless sky, he couldn’t shake the heaviness pressing down on his entire body.
Is Alex right? Am I endangering her?
He let out a long breath and closed his eyes. He wanted to dismiss the words as driven by jealousy, and while he knew they had been, that didn’t necessarily negate their truth. Physically endangering her, no. But now strangers were insulting her online, dragging her name and character through the mud, and for what? For being with him? For going back to him, which he’d been begging the universe to let happen for the past four years?
She wanted to be with him. She’d told him as much—she’d made her choice. But was it one he could live with, if it was going to cause her constant pain?
At the feeling of a light touch on his hand, he turned his head to face her. She was watching him, a question in her eyes.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked.
“Is that what you’re worried about?” The skepticism in her tone said she didn’t believe that even a little bit.
“Yes.” At the core, that was true. His question just wasn’t confined to their current situation on the island.
