Chapter 8

8

M y week at the beach was up and I was dreading going home. Carter would be there, or at least I thought he would be. He'd said he was out of the Navy and home. I wasn't sure which home he was referring to. His apartment in Virginia Beach, or Georgia.

If I'd thought I couldn't face him before I really couldn't now that he knew. I'd never seen a man brought so low. His body shook with sobs and his pain seeped from his pores and filled the room.

Tragic.

The end of us. I'd felt it, the love fading much like I'd felt my baby's life slip away.

I finished cleaning out the fridge and looked around the kitchen my dad had redone for my mom a few years ago. Crisp white cabinets, granite countertops, new stainless-steel appliances. One could say, Emily Walker was spoiled. My dad would argue she was not, and he'd never be able to repay the beauty she'd given him. I loved that for my mom.

I was dragging the trash to the front door when I heard it.

Unmistakable.

I never had to look out my front windows to know when Carter was pulling in. I'd long ago memorized the rumble of his truck.

Before I could execute my plan of escape, Carter was at the front door. He also didn't knock. No, not Carter Lenox. He walked right in like he had a right to be there.

"Why are you here?"

"We need to talk."

My right eye might've twitched as irritation surfaced.

"Aren't you tired of saying that? Because, I sure as hell am tired of hearing it. We talked, Carter. Then you left—like always. Now we're back to, there's nothing to talk about."

"Don't throw that in my face. You've had nine months. Nine. I've had three days to process you were pregnant, I was gonna be a dad, now I'm not."

I jerked in surprise at his harsh response, though I shouldn't have been shocked. He had every right to be angry with me. I'd kept my pregnancy a secret and the truth was, I hadn't planned on ever telling him.

"I'm gonna say this once, then it's behind us. Pissed as shit, you didn't tell me. I had a right to know we'd created a baby. I get you felt alone in that. But if you would've stopped and thought you would've remembered you were not. I knew I was wrong each time I pushed you away. Knew it down to my soul. But you also knew, and you cannot deny it, how much I loved you. You knew that no matter what I said, I always came home to you. You are my home, Laney. Not Virginia. Not the Navy. Not my team. You. And I know you felt it, because it poured out of me every time we were together. I couldn't hide it from you. So while you were alone, you were not. And you damn well should've told me we were having a baby."

Something had changed. Something big. And while I was trying to sort through the fact I'd never seen this side of Carter, he continued.

"When Lowe took our baby from us, you absolutely should've told me—"

"When?" I blurted. "When should I have done that? Sent you an email? An SOS? Called you while you were God knows where?"

"Yes to any of those. Wanna know why? Because my woman and my child come first. And cast your mind back, Laney, I was struggling with us being an us, because I told you flat out, I didn't know if I could do the job I did and leave my woman and child at home. I told you my family would come first and that would fuck my team. I would put my safety before having their back to make sure no matter what, I came home to my wife and kids and I'd let my brothers swing in the wind if it were them or me. Remember that, Laney? Remember how hard that was for me to admit? I'm such a selfish prick I'd choose you and my children over them. So once again, yes, you should've done something so I could've come home and saw to you."

He had told me that. He'd said he couldn't be a husband and especially a father while he was a SEAL. He couldn't have the distraction. Which was what I was.

"That's why I didn't tell you. I also remember you calling me a distraction."

"Yeah, well, it never mattered how hard I tried to push you out of my mind, baby. You were always there front and center. My best distraction. My lifeline. My reason for living. It's done. You didn't tell me. And I don't need to tell you never to keep shit from me again, because we'll never be in the position where you'll need to."

Damn, that reminder hurt.

"We're starting over," he declared on a demand. "Right here, right now. I'm done hesitating."

"What?"

"Full stop. We're hitting the reset button and starting over." I started to shake my head but he continued. "Not asking, Laney. I'm telling you. I screwed up big, so did you by keeping my baby a secret. We were both wrong, me more. But all of that is over. We're putting it all behind us and going forward."

"That's—"

"It's gonna happen. You can fight it. You can push me away. You can tell me we're done, you don't love me, you've moved on, and whatever else you come up with until you are blue in the face. But check this, Laney, I don't care. I know you're lying. I know because we've known our entire lives, we were meant to be together. I know because never, not once, has any other woman ever made me look twice. Not from beauty or action. My heart is so twined with yours no one else exists. You own my soul, you own my heart, you own my mouth, you own my dick. Never have any of those parts touched another woman since you've been eighteen. Which brings us to that shit you pulled with Steve. I get why you made that play, but don't ever pull that shit again. You do, it will not be pretty. But that's done, too. I don't wanna know if it went further than what I saw. Don't ever tell me. From here on out, we reboot, we're startin' over—you and me."

"That doesn't work for me. And I don't think I like you being a bossy dick either. You don't get to tell me—"

"Just did, baby," he interrupted me.

What the hell was going on and who was this man?

"Who are you?"

"Your man."

What? He was serious?

I couldn't stop my hands from going to my hips and I knew my patience was gone.

"You're not my man, Carter. And I don't like being told what to do."

"Yeah, ya do."

My face heated.

I wouldn't have been surprised if it was flaming red at the reminder of how he bossed me in the bedroom. Especially after I'd read a sexy romance novel and asked him if he wanted to try something new. Blindfolds had led to erotic spankings. I shivered at the memory. However, out of bed, he'd never spoken to me like this. He was sweet and gentle with me, if not a little reserved, always careful not to pass over a line he'd drawn, therefore he'd never stepped over it.

"I don't know who you are right now. This isn't—"

"You know me and right now I'm showing you the rest of me. The part I kept hidden because I knew if I didn't keep it in check, I'd claim you and there'd be no going back."

God, he was infuriating.

"Stop interrupting me. It's annoying. I don't want to be claimed . And I don't like this side of you."

"You will."

"I will what?"

"You'll get used to it."

"I don't want to! I want you to leave me alone. You think you have this all worked out. That you can come in here and tell me the past is over and we can hit some magical reset button and everything will be fine. But it won't be. That ship has sailed. There's no going back and changing what's happened."

"You're right, there's not. That's why we're not going there. We're going forward. And I don't think I have anything worked out. I know I do. I know because you were meant to be mine. I was born to be your man. Born, Laney, not made into. I was put on this earth to love you. No other reason. And, baby, that's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna dig all the bad shit out and we're doing that by moving forward."

We went into a standoff. I was staring at him with what I hoped he could read as a seriously pissed-off face, and he was looking back at me amused.

"You think this is funny?" I snapped.

"Not even a little bit."

"Then why are you smiling?"

"Because you look cute as hell standing there with your hands on your hips trying to mad dog me."

"Mad dog?"

"Yeah, Laney, you know, arrange that pretty face of yours into what you think is an intimidating stare. Fuck, but it's cute as hell."

"I give up." I threw my hands in the air hotly. "You don't listen."

"I'm listening."

"No, you're not or you wouldn't be here in the first place."

"I'm not listening to the lies that are coming out of that sexy mouth of yours. I'm listening to your heart."

"My heart is broken, Carter. Shattered. There's nothing left for you to listen to."

"Yes, there is, Laney baby, and it's telling me never to let you go."

I sucked in a breath and tried to figure out why I was being tortured. What had I done so bad in my life that I deserved this? I'd already lost the man I never really had, lost our child, nearly lost my life, and now Carter was proclaiming his undying love for me, something I'd always wanted but learned I couldn't live through the pain of losing.

Not again.

Not ever again was I going to allow myself to feel that kind of pain.

Once the shock of him finding out I'd been pregnant wore off he'd go back to finding excuses about why we couldn't be together. I knew Carter, or at least I knew the non-bossy one that had hundreds of reasons why we didn't have a future. He'd remember those reasons soon.

So really I was doing us both a favor by lying to him and telling him I was over him and didn't want to be with him. One day he'd thank me for it when he found someone that he could claim and they didn't come with all the baggage we had.

"I just don't love you anymore."