“Yeah.” Callum shifted onto his side to face me, his eyes shadowed but intent. “On the golf course this morning. He asked me why I thought his dad didn’t want him.”
I stared at the ceiling, willing my heartbeat to slow. “I never told him that. I’veneversaid that his dad didn’t want him.”
Callum’s hand stilled on my hip. “It sounds like he overheard your parents talking. I’m not sure if he heard them say exactly that or if that’s just the conclusion he came to, but I thought you should know that he brought it up again.”
My breath caught. In that moment, I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him the ugly truth, all about the fear that had been living in me since the day I’d found out I was pregnant, and about how many times during this journey I’d almost broken, but the words wouldn’t come.
Finally, though, I found myself admitting to at least a part of the story. A part of the truth. It was more than I’d ever given anyone who wasn’t Georgia or my parents.
“I never told his father,” I whispered, my voice barely there. “It wasn’t… we weren’t in a relationship or anything like that. By the time I found out I was pregnant, I honestly didn’t even think he would remember my name, and the shock?”
Callum’s expression softened, his thumb brushing gently along my side. He didn’t push for more and didn’t ask the million questions I knew he had to have. He just nodded once, like he was accepting what I’d been ready to give.
“You did what you had to do,” he said. “I don’t think anyone can blame you. One minute, we were all convinced you weregoing to take gold in the next Olympics, and the next, you were gone. It can’t have been easy for you to accept.”
The weight in my chest loosened but only just. He believed me, but lying here, cocooned in warmth and with the steady beat of his heart against my back when he pulled me closer, all I could feel was the gnawing truth I hadn’t told him.
The truth that, sooner or later, was going to tear all of this apart. I swallowed hard, my eyes tracing the shadows on the ceiling like the answers about how to do this might be etched there. “I was so young, Callum. We were both so young.”
He held me a little tighter but didn’t interrupt. “You’re right, too. It really wasn’t easy. My coach was furious when I told him I was dropping out. There were issues with my scholarship. I was barely holding it together myself.”
I felt more than heard him suck in a sharp breath. “You went through so much.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t only about me. I knew the very last thing Brody’s dad would have wanted back then was a baby.” My chest squeezed, each word dragging. “It would’ve derailed his life and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be the person responsible for taking the future he was meant to have, so I didn’t tell him. I kept it all to myself.”
“You gave up the futureyouwere meant to have instead,” he murmured quietly, an astonishing amount of emotion in his voice. “That wasn’t exactly fair to you either, but I get it.”
“As soon as I found out about Brody, it stopped being about me,” I whispered, but it felt like my throat was closing. “That was my choice and I’ve never regretted it, but at the time, I didn’t think his dad would’ve believed me anyway. There was too much going on. Too much on the line. Going through everything with my coach, and my teammates, and the school was traumatizing enough, let alone the prospect of actually having a baby when I still felt like one myself.”
The silence that followed stretched, heavy and suffocating. My heart pounded as I waited for judgment. I might even have been waiting for him to pull back and see me for the coward I was. My fingers twisted in the sheets.
“Does that make me a bad person?” My voice cracked, and suddenly, the ceiling blurred, hot tears stinging the corners of my eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. In fact, I was trying to stop someone else from hurting. Trying to stem the bleeding.”
“No.” The word came fast, certain, and almost fierce. Callum lifted himself up on his elbow to look at me and cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing away tears I hadn’t even realized had slipped free. His gaze held mine, as steady as stone. “You were doing what you thought would protect him. And Brody. That doesn’t make you bad. It makes you the strongest fucking person I’ve ever met.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted it so, so badly, but my chest still ached like the part of the truth I hadn’t spoken was burning its way through my ribs. Callum’s gentle touches grounded me though, his certainty enough to loosen something knotted deep inside.
I let out a shuddering breath and leaned into him, letting him pull me against the solid warmth of his chest. For once, I stopped fighting. I stopped running, and instead, I let myself give in.
Surrendering to his comfort and the safety I found in his arms, I let myself listen to the steady beat of his heart under my ear. When he pressed a soft kiss to my hair and murmured that he had me, that he wasn’t going anywhere, I let myself believe that, too.
Just for tonight. I let myself stay with him, here in his bed, cherishing these moments that I so wished would last forever, but the longer this went on, the more certain I was becoming that he was going to leave me as soon as he found out.
Because Callum Westwood wasn’t who I thought he was. It turned out that I’d had him all wrong. Maybe he might’ve believed me back then after all. Hell, he might’ve done more than just believe me. He might even have stayed.
CHAPTER 31
CALLUM
By the time I peeled out of the parking garage at the Westwood and Sons HQ and floored it across town, I’d already run through at least half a dozen disaster scenarios in my head. Dad had collapsed. The mansion was burning down. Sterling had finally lost it and had strangled Harrison with his bare hands.
All I really knew was that Mom had called and told me there was an emergency. No details. No elaboration. Her message had been short but clear.Come. Now.
All the way to the estate, my heart raced and the edges of my vision blurred, but when I pushed open the massive front doors, the only thing going up in flames was my mother’s temper. The mansion seemed fine. I’d called Sterling on my way here, and evidently, he and Harrison were both still alive, and if my oldest brother could be believed, so was Dad.
CC, however, was pacing the marble foyer floors in silk pajamas and a robe that had probably cost more than my truck and my Range Rover put together. She spun to face me the second I stepped inside. “You’re engaged and you didn’t tell me?”
I froze. “Wait,that’sthe emergency?”
