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Tonight, I wasn’t the geek. I wasn’t the good girl who loved old books and early bedtimes. I wasn’t the girl who did everything that everyone expected her to do. Tonight, I was a sexy woman who saw the fantasy within her reach and stretched for it.
“If you want a paternity test to prove that we’re both idiots, fine,” I said. “But it’s not going to change the fact that I’m pregnant. And you’re the father. Like it or not, your life is now tied to the one growing inside me.”
Leo was temptation personified, rugged sex appeal entangled with the thrill of the forbidden. He was the flame I’d known would burn but I’d touched it anyway.
A mess. That four-letter word was too small for what I was feeling, and for a woman who had an extensive vocabulary, it was too inconsequential. But mess . . . that was the right word.
My life was falling apart, but at least I had amazing parents.
He didn’t answer. And that was answer enough. This was, hands down, the most painful experience of my life. Sitting there, I watched a man who I’d once fantasized about, who’d given me one unforgettable night, shrink before my very eyes. All because of fear.
Tears wouldn’t make Leo a better man. Tears wouldn’t fix the past. This baby—my baby—didn’t need tears. What he or she needed was a mother strong enough to stand on her own two feet.
Well, the joke was on them because I didn’t need their help to feel like a piece of shit. I could do that all on my own.
Eventually, Cass would come back to visit. Her family was here too. As much as I loved Clifton Forge, my home and my history here, Cass had the same. I couldn’t take that from her.
I’d regret being a shitty father more than I’d regret being absent.
He flinched and my silly, tender heart softened toward that look of pain. Maybe one day, I’d turn that heart into steel where Leo was concerned. I’d need more time to practice because at the moment, damn it, I wanted to hug him again.
“There’s no undoing this. I’m not ready to be a mother but what we want isn’t part of the equation anymore. It’s not about you or me. It’s about her.”
If awkward were a sweater, this one fit like a scratchy wool turtleneck that choked and stifled.
Maybe after we spent more time together those flutters would go away. Maybe the allure of his handsome face and sexy grin would wear off. I was banking on a lot of maybes these days.
The point of me being here was not to intimately reacquaint myself with Leo.
“Put some effort in, Leo. Stop going to the bar every night and get to know the woman who is having your baby.”
“No, you’re doing you. Cass moved in to give you a chance that, let’s be honest, you didn’t deserve. Then she sits there alone, in a stranger’s house, when she could have been with her parents or in her own space. While you, what, go out and party all night?
“Because what if you regret me in the morning?” I voiced the biggest insecurity I had when it came to this man.
I’d fallen. I’d fallen for Leo. I’d fallen for his lies.
What use was a pregnant girlfriend if she didn’t play the designated driver?
My knuckles were red beneath the faucet, the water having warmed to a scalding temperature, but still, I scrubbed. I would not walk into that hospital with grease on my damn fingers. There wasn’t much I could control in this, but my hands would be clean.
Because to her, like it was to me, working at the garage wasn’t just a job. Most of us would show up even if Dash didn’t pay us. That garage was our family.
We had other things to worry about right now, namely keeping our daughter alive and our sanities intact.
This was her area of expertise. Books. History. Knowledge. I was just a thug mechanic doing his best not to let the nerves creep into his voice or his hands shake as he turned the page.
I didn’t want gentle or reserved. I wanted him to kiss me like a woman he wanted to consume. A woman he craved.
Leo needed to know who loved him. How many of us loved him. That he didn’t need to feel lost or alone because he’d always have us.
