3. Evie

Chapter 3

Evie

Jenner shut the door after Stella's departure, and I prepared for the backlash of showing up here unannounced and dropping a bomb on him.

When I got the call from the agency in Indiana, I hadn't thought twice about hopping in my car and driving straight to Indy. This was the first one not to reject me outright, and I was so desperate for this to work out that I decided not to give Jenner a heads-up. I figured, without warning, he couldn't say no.

It was a risk, but one that had worked out so far. Jenner had played along in front of the social worker after his initial confusion at being blindsided. And from what Stella had said, it sounded like I would be added to their catalog once the paperwork was properly filed with the agency.

This was everything I'd ever wanted.

But there was still the matter of my ex-husband, who'd found himself tangled up in my web of lies.

He spun around, and for a moment, I was awestruck. I had been so focused on the interview that I'd put on my blinders and hadn't taken a good look at him until now.

Jenner and I had started dating when we were teenagers, meeting at the college we'd both attended in Arizona. He'd grown from a boy into a man before my very eyes, the transition gradual over the years. I knew every inch of muscle that remained hidden from view beneath his clothing.

Maybe it was the four years apart and not seeing him every day, but the level of handsomeness of the man standing before me had my heart racing. Had he always looked this incredible? Or perhaps it was the bachelor life that agreed with him.

Oh my God. I hadn't once stopped to consider if he'd moved on. What if there was some woman due home any minute?

Before I had any more time to freak out that some jealous girlfriend—or worse, new wife—was going to suddenly appear, Jenner sighed and ran a hand over his auburn beard.

"Evie, what the hell?"

"Look, I know you're mad—"

" Mad? " he huffed out. "I don't even know how to begin unpacking what just happened."

Dropping my gaze, I picked at my cuticles. "I didn't know what else to do." The admission was barely audible as my lower lip trembled, and I desperately blinked back the tears that threatened to fall.

"Evie."

My name fell from his lips like a prayer, and I peeked at him through my lashes. His tortured gaze reflected my own pain.

Jenner shook his head. "I honestly don't know whether to strangle you or hug you. What kind of mess have you landed yourself in?"

"Can we sit?" I gestured to the living room.

He checked his watch. "Might as well. I'm not going to make my flight."

I groaned. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry. I should go."

Jenner folded both arms over his broad chest. "You're not going anywhere until you explain why a social worker showed up today, and why she thinks we're still married and planning to adopt a baby."

Stepping past me, he took a seat on the same loveseat we'd shared during the interview. Taking a deep breath, I followed his path into the living room and settled onto the armchair, needing space as I laid myself bare. I wasn't blind to the irony that Jenner had been the one person I'd always felt comfortable being vulnerable with, and now I was terrified of him judging me.

For a few minutes, we simply stared at each other as an awkward silence stretched between us.

"Why don't you start at the beginning," Jenner prompted when he realized I wasn't in any hurry to speak.

Nodding, I sighed. "I'm in a tight spot, and I need help."

"I'm assuming you mean with the adoption?" He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his spread knees. "What I don't understand is why you shut me down about the subject years ago. What changed?"

Shrugging, I replied, "I was grieving back then—grieving the life I thought we would have, how it would happen. I couldn't see past it at the time. Not until I got away. The space allowed my mind to clear once the weight of expectation was no longer crushing me."

Looking skyward, he breathed out, "That's why I let you leave that day. You were so upset. I thought taking a breather would do you good, and then we could talk about our next step together. I never imagined . . ."

I had many regrets, and leaving Jenner the way I did would always sit at the top of the list.

I could admit I'd been a coward, running away and shutting down. So many nights, I'd laid awake in my childhood bedroom, wondering if I should have stayed and fought for us. But as time went on, I convinced myself that he probably hated me, and I made peace with my new reality, determined to take control of my own destiny.

"I know it's probably four years too late, but I am sorry, Jenner. I was hurting, and I didn't handle it well."

His chocolate-brown gaze settled on me. "The minute I found out where you were, I should have hopped on a plane. But I didn't want to strong-arm you into staying in a relationship you were so obviously done with."

"Well." I swallowed thickly. "After a few years, I was able to save enough money to cover the costs of an adoption and decided to pursue that option."

There was an audible rumble from deep within his chest. "If you weren't so damn stubborn, you could've had all the money you needed."

"I didn't want your money, Jenner," I shot back. "You earned it, not me."

"You were my wife!" he roared. "I took vows to take care of you!"

"Look. I didn't come here to argue."

"No," he huffed. "You came here to lie to an adoption agency, apparently."

I flinched at his accurate assessment of my deception. My desperation was driving the train now, and it was going too fast for me to stop it.

Softly, I confessed, "Six agencies turned me down."

His brows shot up. "What? Why?"

I held up my ringless left hand. "Because I'm not married."

"That's ridiculous!"

My lips curved into a wry smile. "It's their playground. They get to make the rules and decide who gets to play. No single moms allowed, it would seem."

"So, you thought it would be a good idea to put my name on the application with yours?"

Shame burned through me, knowing I'd put his reputation on the line if it were ever uncovered what I'd done.

"I need help, Jenner." My voice wavered.

He ran a hand through his auburn hair. "This seems like an involved process, Evie. How is this going to work?"

"I know it's asking a lot—"

"Stop. Let me rephrase that. What happens if someone chooses us? There's an innocent life who will be caught up in all of this. Or have you not thought that far?"

"Truthfully?" He nodded, so I continued, "I thought it was a long shot. Figured, at some point in the vetting process, they'd discover we were divorced and I'd be black-listed on every adoption list in the country. But I wasn't getting anywhere on my own, so I had to try. I got a call two days ago that they wanted to do a home visit, which was further than I'd ever made it before, so I got in the car and drove right here."

"You drove?" Jenner's eyes widened, and his eyebrows shot up.

"Well, I figured if it went well, I'd be here a while."

Reclining on the couch, he tucked both hands behind his head, blowing out a breath. "How long do you think?"

I twisted my fingers. "Not sure. Months at minimum, maybe a year? It depends on how long it takes a mom to choose my file."

" Our file," Jenner corrected.

"Right." I nodded. "Our file."

"That's where I'm stuck, Evie. If some mom picks us, I would assume that means more home visits, correct?"

"Yes."

"Are you back in Indy for good then? Popping in and out with a kid at will whenever the social worker calls? Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't there be unannounced visits? Am I expected to stall until you show up? And won't they expect there to be baby gear all over this place? How in the world do you expect to pull this off?"

"I don't know!" I shouted, throwing my hands in the air.

"Well, you better figure it out if you want me to go along with this."

Hope stirred in my chest. "You're going to help me?"

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. "I don't know yet. I need to think about it, and you really need to iron out the details because, right now, it's a half-baked idea at best."

"Okay." I nodded, willing to do whatever it took to make this work. Standing, I said, "I'll let you go. I really am sorry I made you miss your flight."

"It's fine." He waved me off. "Where are you staying?"

"Don't know. I literally drove straight here. I'll grab a hotel or something tonight and figure the rest out."

"Stay here."

"What?" I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly.

"I'll be back on Sunday evening. You can stay here until I get back, and we can talk more about this."

"Are you sure?" I asked skeptically.

"Yeah. Make yourself at home. Shouldn't be too hard," he muttered dryly.

I ducked my head. "Thank you."

He rose to stand and walked to the front door, grabbing the handle of a suitcase I hadn't noticed earlier. "It's fine. I'll see you on Sunday, Evie." Jenner opened the door and was gone before I could say another word.

Even though he hadn't agreed to help me yet, I knew I was making progress. I had forty-eight hours to put together the proposal of a lifetime to get Jenner to say yes. My entire future relied on it.

Alone in the house that had once been my home, I ventured upstairs. Jenner had left the first floor exactly the same as when I'd left four years ago, and I wondered if that also held true for the upper level.

During the home tour with Stella, I'd claimed stomach issues and excused myself while allowing Jenner to take the lead. I hadn't been ready to revisit the memories held in these rooms, not when I wasn't sure what my emotional reaction would be.

We'd bought this house right after Jenner had signed his first big contract, three years after he began playing for the Speed. To that point, we had been living in an apartment, never sure when he would get sent to Cincinnati to their minor league affiliate. But he'd paid his dues, grown into a stronger, smarter player, and was rewarded with a four-year, twelve-million-dollar contract to stay in Indy permanently.

I was twenty-three and Jenner twenty-four the day he signed that contract, and it had seemed surreal. That amount of money was life-changing, and while I didn't know how to wrap my mind around it, Jenner knew exactly what our first purchase would be—a house. We'd been married for two years, and he had declared we were no longer broke newlyweds, so it was time to act like grownups.

This was the first house we toured. I could only imagine what the realtor had thought of me with how I'd bounced around, excited over every little detail—the chef's kitchen, in-ground pool, a living room and a family room, and five bedrooms. That was before I'd gotten a firm handle on tamping down my accent, so that probably hadn't helped dispel the idea that the handsome, rich hockey player had pulled a girl out of a trailer park. I bet she wondered if I was pregnant, and that's why he'd married me.

Ha, I wish.

It was crazy to think back to those early days when we were so in love and couldn't keep our hands off each other. There had been so many times when we'd gotten carried away and forgotten to use protection, only to spend days or weeks stressed out that it would result in a pregnancy we weren't ready for.

It had been drilled into our heads—especially mine—that it only took once.

But we knew better now. Using contraception all those years had been pointless.

The ultimate irony was that an unplanned pregnancy early in our marriage might've been the thing to save it. Years of heartbreak could have been avoided by the arrival of an unexpected bundle of joy—one that was half Jenner, half me.

But none of that mattered now. We couldn't change the past, and we certainly couldn't change the fact that my body had failed me.

Reaching the top of the staircase, I turned left toward the master suite. The door was closed, and I pressed a palm to the wood surface, letting my fingertips trail over it slowly.

I didn't dare turn the knob and peek inside. And it had nothing to do with the fact that this was now Jenner's bedroom alone, and it would be an invasion of privacy to go snooping through it.

This was the room where our marriage had died. But if I was being honest, it most likely died in the countless doctors' offices and hospitals during those final years. Our relationship had grown so fragile over that time that a strong gust of wind would have been enough to shatter it.

My chest tightened, thinking back to that time, and I stepped away from the door.

To the right was another closed door, one that promised to be even more painful if I dared to open it and step inside. But my curiosity got the better of me, and with a steadying breath, I closed my eyes, forcing myself to turn the doorknob.

Counting to three silently in my head, I opened my eyes, and a soft gasp flew past my lips as my knees threatened to buckle. The room was exactly as I'd left it, painted a pale yellow. And instantly, I was transported to the past.

"Oh God, Jenner, I'm going to come!" I screamed as Jenner's forceful thrusts threatened to throw me over the edge.

His chest glistened, covered in sweat, each muscle defined as he kept up his punishing pace between my thighs.

"Hold it, baby," Jenner gritted out. "Wait for me."

"I can't," I whined, my back bowing off the bed as my body grew taught, each muscle tensed in preparation for an earth-shattering release.

"You can. Just a little bit longer." He slammed into me harder, making it damn near impossible to stop the freight train of my climax rushing toward me.

"Jenner!" I cried, unable to hold back, stars bursting behind my eyes as pleasure crashed over me in waves.

"Fuck," he grunted, feeling my pussy tighten around him.

A few more thrusts and he followed with a groan, his cock pulsing inside me as he came.

Collapsing by my side, he pulled me to his damp chest, stroking my hair gently.

When our breathing evened out, his hand slid down my back, gripping a fistful of my ass. "Goddamn, you're perfect. I love how fucking soft you are."

I hummed with my lips pressed against his chest in response.

You didn't often see professional athletes who made a living by treating their bodies like peak performance machines with women of my size. I'd never felt bad about being a big girl, topping out at a size twenty-eight, and Jenner had never taken an issue with it either. He always went out of his way to tell me how much he loved my body, especially how soft and curvy it was. And clearly, it had no problems turning him on. Our sex life was off the charts.

He released his grip on my backside and rolled over, slipping out of bed. My limbs still felt weighted down, so I lounged on the mattress, pulling the sheet up to cover myself while he took care of things in the bathroom.

The sound of the toilet flushing reached my ears, and I forced my heavy eyelids open in time to catch the sight of the Adonis I married walking naked toward me.

I'd grown up in the country, where men's lean muscular forms were born from years of manual labor, but Jenner's was well-defined from over a decade of playing hockey, working to hone the muscles that served him on the ice. He might be in love with my large, fluffy ass, but you could bounce a dime off his tight glutes, and his thick thighs had mine shifting restlessly, knowing the power they wielded, both on the ice and in the bedroom.

A smirk tipped up on Jenner's lips as he crawled back into bed. He leaned in for a lazy kiss, murmuring, "Is my needy girl ready for round two already?"

I bit my lip, running a hand over his bicep. "Maybe."

He chuckled, lowering his head to skim a line of kisses over my collarbone as his hand traced circles over my hip.

"I'm sick of using condoms. I want to feel you skin to skin." To emphasize his point, he dipped his hand between my thighs, teasing two fingers deep inside me.

I moaned, eyes sliding closed as my hips bucked involuntarily while he worked me over slowly.

Mind hazy, my words were breathless. "We've been over this. We have to use something, and I don't like how the pill makes me feel."

"Why do we have to use something?" His thumb brushed my clit, and I gasped.

"Be-because," I stammered. "When you don't, there's a chance of making a tiny human."

"So?"

I froze, and my eyes snapped open. "Excuse me?"

Jenner flashed me with a charming grin, the same one that had gotten me to fall in love with him years ago. "So what if we make a tiny human? Probably would be pretty cute."

"Um." I sat up, shimmying far enough away that he was no longer touching me. This was not a conversation to be taken lightly, and I wasn't sure our rational minds would thank us in the morning if our fuzzy sex ones made life-altering decisions.

"Problem?" he teased.

I leveled him with a glare. "Are you being serious?"

Jenner heaved out a sigh. "I don't know. We decided to wait until things were settled, and now that I've signed my first major contract and we've bought this big, beautiful house, it's got me thinking."

"About the B-word?"

He smiled. "Are you afraid that if you say it out loud, it will invoke the stork, and they'll drop one right into your lap?"

I shoved at his shoulder, rolling my eyes. "No. But it's one of those things where if we have this conversation, it becomes real."

"Evie." He took my hand. "I want to try for a"—he lowered his voice to a whisper—"baby."

"Really?" My heart was beating so loud I could hear it in my ears. "You think we're ready?"

Jenner shrugged. "Is anyone ever really ready?"

"Someone has to be, right?" I joked, nervous laughter falling from my lips.

My handsome husband softened, pulling me close. "You're allowed to say no. You're the one who has to sacrifice your body to make all this happen. If you want to wait some more, I'm okay with that, too."

"I just—" I sighed. "I never let my mind wander there. We were both so focused on your career getting off the ground, and I didn't want anything to distract from that."

"I think it's safe to say my career is set for a while. So, what do you say? You wanna try the family thing with me?"

He was so damn adorable that even if I wanted to say no, I wasn't sure I would be able to.

"Okay, I'll agree to do this on one condition," I said.

Jenner's eyes lit up. If he was this enthusiastic about starting a family, I had no doubts he would be an incredible dad. He was a competitor; he never gave anything less than his all.

"Name it."

"We keep this light and fun. Scheduling sex and using only optimal positions sounds like a nightmare."

His smile grew wider. "Works for me. It'll happen when it's meant to happen."

God, we'd been so optimistic back then, having no clue the storm we were sailing into.

The very next day, it had sunk in for me that we might've already made a baby, and I began to get excited. Jenner came home from practice to find me in the bedroom next to the master suite, painting it a pale yellow—that way, it didn't matter if we had a boy or a girl; it would work for either.

Little did we know this room would remain empty for years.

And I didn't realize how badly I wanted a baby until it became the one thing the universe wouldn't let me have.

There was still hope, still a chance, if I could convince Jenner to go along with my plan.

No, there was no if . I had to get him on board. There was no other option.