45. Thea

Two Weeks Later

God, I miss him.

I close my eyes and lay back on my pillow. I'm in my childhood room and it's a place that always brought me comfort. It isn't doing that now. I'm miserable. Mom and Dad are both trying to talk to me. Oddly enough, my mom thinks I should forget about Dom, and my dad is urging me to talk to him. I would have totally thought it would be the other way around.

I'm trying to avoid everyone. That includes my big brother—who is totally team Dom. The thing is, I don't even think Dom is in the wrong. I just don't think I'm strong enough to live my life with Gabby trying to cause trouble every single day.

"You look like a woman in deep thought," Nicole murmurs. I look up and realize I never closed my damn door. I always do that. I'm kicking my own ass for forgetting now. In my defense, my room is part of the attic. It has been converted to a giant bedroom and I love it. Skylar threw fits all the time because she wanted it. Too bad for her I claimed it before she was born, and I never relinquished control—even after I moved out.

My gaze follows Nicole as she enters the room carrying this enormous bouquet of sunflowers and lilies. She takes them over to my large windowsill, putting them down before making her way back to me.

"It's a side-effect of being involved with a Savage Brothers member, I guess," I half-joke.

"Ain't that the truth," Nicole agrees, sitting lightly on the side of my bed. When she looks down at me, the sadness in her eyes makes me hurt even more, if that's possible. If anyone could understand my misery at the moment, I know it's her. I imagine that should bring me comfort, but it just makes me hurt for her. I don't want anyone to endure the pain I'm feeling and in a lot of ways, it's worse for Nicole. She's dealing with a grown man—a man who is proof that her husband had another woman in his life before her. That's not earth shattering, I guess. It would, however, be a huge stab in the heart to learn after building a life together. I sigh. Oh hell, it sucks no matter what the circumstances are.

"I guess I don't need to ask who the flowers are from," I mutter. I look around the room and there are five beautiful vases full of flowers. There's more than that downstairs. Dom has been sending flowers every day for two weeks. They're beautiful. At first, I refused them, but I got to where I couldn't do that. I love Dom. In my heart, I'm not sure I can let him go.

"You don't. I know everything is a mess right now, but Dom loves you, Thea. He's not going to just let you go without a fight."

I nod. I can't argue and I don't really want him to give up on me, so I say nothing. I push my thoughts away and try to concentrate on the here and now. "Did you need something?" I ask.

"I was just checking on you. Your mother said you were nauseous this morning and went back to bed."

"Yeah. I've been that way for the last week. I think it's a combination of nerves and stress. I don't know. I could even be coming down with something," I mutter, not able to drum up the nerve to care. Life has kind of lost its color for me at the moment. I'm not sure it will ever come back. I've been going around half dead since the day I left mine and Dom's house.

"Have you thought about the possibility that you could be pregnant, honey?" Nicole asks and my heart flip-flops in my chest. I immediately shake my head in denial. "That would be the worst thing that could happen."

"I don't think it would be at all. You'd make a great mother and believe it or not, Dom will be a great father. He's always tried to shield me and his brother from everything. It comes naturally to him."

"Dom is going to be a father. I'm sure he'll step up to the plate wonderfully with Gabby. The last thing he needs is me confusing things and adding pressure to him."

"Bull hockey," she scoffs.

"Bull hockey?"

"I'm trying to clean up my language around Little D and Tamsin," she responds with a grin. "I'm pretty sure I can clean up mine. I'm not so sure about Dragon's."

"Are you going back to him?" I ask.

"Yes, I just need to get up my nerve to call the idiot. I know the asshole loves me. I love him too. I'm not even hurt about King. I'm more hurt that he's known for a while about King and didn't think he should tell me or even invite King to our home so the three of us could discuss everything. I even asked him if he thought it was a possibility King was related to him. He denied it and made me feel foolish for asking. Dragon has always had a really bad habit of trying to hide situations he's afraid will hurt me or make me mad enough to leave. It's a trait that I thought Dom had inherited. That's what led to the mess with Gabby and T, I'm sure of it. Still, he seems to have finally got his head out of his ass with all this mess and you leaving. That makes me glad."

"Do you know King's mother?" I ask, wondering how she's going to deal with that. I think that's the one thing holding me back the most. I'm not sure I can deal with Gabby being a fixture in our lives every day. I'm adult enough to see their child as an innocent party, but watching Dom interacting with Gabby and the child as a family unit may destroy me in time.

"I think I do. There was a woman who kept trying to get Dragon alone at the club years ago. Dragon met with her a couple of times at a club. I walked in on them kissing and it nearly caused us to get divorced. I think Dom was six or seven at the time. Sadly, he was the only one old enough to know something was wrong. He heard us fighting, too. That's something I will always regret. I should have shielded him better. At the time, I was too lost in my own pain."

"Wow," I whisper. "Dragon loves you so much. I couldn't imagine him ever kissing another woman."

"To this day, he swears he was caught off guard by her and didn't have time to push her away before I walked in on them. Maybe he's telling the truth. Part of me believes it is. Still, the woman approached him that first night of the party and Carrie let me know, I made him promise to make sure it didn't happen again. The fact that it did, and he let it—despite his promise—was betrayal enough."

"I understand. It would be for me, too."

"Men are different creatures than women, Thea."

"Is this one of those Mars and Venus kind of talks?" I laugh.

Nicole grins. "Sort of. When you're dealing with alpha males, they see things in black or white. They see betraying the woman they love as having sex with someone else. In Dragon's eyes nothing he did crossed the line. It wasn't my place to tell him what he could and couldn't do as long as he didn't cheat. The kissing thing—which is what he referred to it as—he said that was all her, and he was going to put a stop to it. To him it was clear cut and nothing I should end our relationship over."

"Did you hit him over the head with a baseball bat?"

"Oh, believe me, honey, I wanted to. I packed the kids up and we moved to Tennessee. I came very close to staying there."

"What changed your mind?"

"He cried."

"Huh?"

"He followed me there and begged me to come home. He banned the woman from our clubhouse and told the president of the group we were hosting the parties for that she wasn't allowed back. When I told him he shouldn't bother, that it was too late to undo everything, he broke down and cried. He knew I was going to leave him, and he lost it. In his mind, I was the one throwing our family away, and he hadn't done anything to warrant it."

"Did you get him to see things differently?"

"Eventually," she says.

"How?"

"Let's just say I gave him a taste of his own medicine. The point is, that this time he truly didn't mean to hurt me. He was scared. He still is. That can be hard for a man to accept. He loves me and he's terrified he's going to lose me. I think in some ways he's been worried about that ever since the night I caught them kissing. It has led him to make decisions with our kids that I don't entirely agree with—especially Dom. Let's hope for your sake that Dom doesn't take after his father."

"I haven't decided I'm going to go back, Nicole."

"You will," she says, like she knows positively that I am. "Just like I know that Dragon is terrified right now and the only way he will talk to King is if I'm there with him," she sighs. "Which, I will be."

"Wow."

"You can say that again. I can do it, I know I can, but if King's mother is there, it may not end well."

"I guess if you can face that, I could go to the doctor."

"That's the spirit. I'll take you. After you get a pregnancy test, we can have ice cream and you can hold my hand while I call Dragon. We can ask him to meet us at your and Dom's house and you can tell my son the good news."

"He might not think the fact that I'm pregnant is a good thing," I point out.

"Nonsense. He'll be on cloud nine. Still, I was talking about the fact that you're coming back home."

"I'm not sure I am," I argue.

"You are, you're just scared. We'll work through that. In your heart, you know you aren't going to give Dom up to that girl without a fight."

"I don't think I could take him hurting me again for her, Nicole—even if there is a child involved," I whisper the one thing that is truly terrifying me. If Dom picked Gabby over me after all of this, it would kill me.

"Dom won't let you down. If you think I'm wrong, look at the flowers he's sent you. Dom's never sent flowers a day in his life. Not to Gabby, that's for sure."

"He didn't?"

"Not even once," she confirms. "Gabby complained about it incessantly—even though she thought she was being slick and had no idea she was berating Dom in front of us all. Poor Thomas would send her flowers often after that. I swear, as a mother, it is a daily struggle not to choke your sons when they get old enough to date." She lets out a heartfelt sigh. "Still, you need to know that Dom never put effort into a relationship before, no matter what you think. He had no problem kicking Gabby, almost violently, to the curb and sleeping with every twinkie he could find when everything blew up. With you, he's asked me, your father, your brother and my bull-headed husband for help. If you can't see the difference in how broken he is at losing you compared to her, you're not as smart as I give you credit for."

"He really asked them for help?"

"Dom loves you, Thea. I think he has for longer than you even know. You know in your heart that you've been in love with him from day one. You're not going to walk away. Quit punishing you both. Stand with Dom and make a relationship that can stand against whatever storms you'll face. If he had cheated on you, I'd be the first to tell you to let it go. He didn't do that. He's not even thinking about it. He wants you and only you. I know how big of a mess he is right now. I think the term is man-up, but honestly, us women do it much better. We're the glue in any relationship."

"That sucks," I mutter.

"It does, but let's face it, women keep men going. They're complete messes without us."

"I do love him," I admit softly.

"I know you do, sweetheart."

"I'm not sure meeting at mine and Dom's is a good idea, Nic," I mutter, knowing she's right. I am going to go back home. I can't give Dom up to Gabby without a fight.

"Why's that?"

"The last time Dragon was there it didn't work out so well. He and Dom got into a physical fight. I had to shoot a gun to break them up."

Nicole's mouth opens and then closes. She shakes her head and stares at me. "I guess that will just give me another reason to rake Dragon over the coals."

I laugh despite being a nervous wreck. "I guess we better get this over with before I lose my nerve."

"There's the spirit," she laughs as I get up.

My hand goes to my stomach. I find myself wondering if I really am pregnant. If I am, what does that mean for my relationship with Dom? Will another child added into the equation be too much for him? I never envisioned my life going this way. I know if I am pregnant, I want my baby, and I want Dom in his or her life. I guess the rest will just have to fall into place as we get to it. I don't have a choice here. I have to find out if I'm pregnant and go from there.

Nicole is right. I have to man-up.

Damn it.