“So, what now?” I ask when I can no longer stand the silence.
He lifts his head, stabbing me with his penetrating gaze. His eyes plead with me for understanding. “I can’t abandon her when there’s a chance the baby is mine. You saw what she was like today. If that’s my kid, I can’t risk her going completely off the rails. I’ll need to be with her every step of the way.”
That shouldn’t be necessary, but I expect Whitney will milk every situation until she has driven Kent insane. “And if it turns out the baby isn’t yours?”
“Then I’ll fucking throttle her with my bare hands,” he hisses.
I gulp over the messy ball of emotion in my throat. “Okay. I understand.” I stand, offering him a shaky smile. “I’ll see you out.”
“Sit the fuck back down, Pres.” His tone and his expression brook no argument, so I plop back down.
Pursing my lips, I look anywhere but at him. His fingers brush against my chin, sending delicious tremors skating across my face, and I automatically lean into his touch, craving his comfort. He tilts my head around so I’m looking directly into his eyes. “I know it won’t be easy.” He barks out a bitter laugh. “Fuck, that’s the understatement of the century. She will go out of her way to cause problems for us.” All humor fades from his face. “I know it’ll be tough, but I can’t lose you. Iwon’tlose you. Not when we’re only just beginning. Not when I know how great we can be. Not when I need you,” he adds, whispering the last part.
“But you need to be with her,” I say in a voice devoid of emotion. It’s not like I haven’t come to the same conclusion for similar yet different reasons.
“Only as a co-parent. I haven’t changed my mind, and I made it very clear that I will support her during the pregnancy, but I will not be her fuck buddy or her boyfriend or her fiancé. I told her there is no future for us except where the child is concerned.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
His big blue eyes penetrate mine, stabbing deep, like he wants to imprint these words on my brain. “This doesn’t have to change anything between you and me. I know it will be stressful, but we can get through it, and maybe she’ll back down when she sees how serious I am about you.”
I deliberately ignore his comment. The truth is, this changes everything for me. “You’re accepting this a lot easier than I expected,” I truthfully say because he was so angry earlier and now he seems resigned to the fact.
His lips tug up at the corner. “Full disclosure. I’m high as a fucking fairy. And before you go off on me, it’s the only way I could calm down. My heart was going crazy, and I thought I might actually have a coronary.” He drops my face, resting his head in his hands. “I’m not ready to be a father, Pres. I can barely take care of myself. What fucking good would I be to a child?” He lifts his head, looking sideways at me. “Am I a bad person for praying that the kid isn’t mine?”
The tortured look in his eyes twists my insides into knots, and I cup the side of his face. “No, Kent. That just makes you human.”
His Adam’s apple jumps in his throat, and I scoot in closer, circling my arms around him. “I’m sorry she is doing this to you and I’m sorry for what I’m about to say because I want to be there for you, Kent. I truly do. But I can’t.” Pain presses down on my chest, making breathing difficult.
“Why not?” he asks, his spine stiffening underneath me.
I slide away from him, needing space before I admit this. “Because it’s too painful for me.” I stand, pacing the floor. “Because it will be a constant reminder of what I’ve lost.”
He climbs to his feet, scrutinizing my face. “What don’t I know?”
Tears roll unbidden down my face. “I had a baby,” I whisper. “When I was nineteen.”
“What?” Shock splays across his face as he stares at me.
“She died,” I admit over a sob. “Tillie died in my arms, and I’ve never gotten over it. Or the fact I might not be able to have any more kids.” I swipe at my tears. “So, don’t you see? I can’t stand by your side while you support some other woman who could be pregnant with your kid. And I can’t tell you to let her go through this alone either, because I might never be able to give you any babies and I won’t deprive you of the experience, because to do so would only ruin us in the long-term anyway.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kent
It takes me a few moments to recover from the initial shock of her confession. The booze and drugs in my system aren’t helping either. But I’m not losing Presley over this. I can’t. I need her like I need air to breathe. “What happened to Tillie?” I ask, needing to understand so I can talk her out of her objections.
She sniffs, dropping to the floor, sitting cross-legged in front of me. I slide off the couch, adopting the same pose, urging her to explain with my eyes.
“I got pregnant by accident,” she says, staring off into space. “And I was fucking terrified because Chris and I had only been living on our own for eight months and things were already bad.” She looks down at the floor, knotting and unknotting her hands. “He was either high or drunk most of the time, and he’d just been fired from his job.”
When she lifts her head, her eyes are flooded with tears, and I want to pull her into my arms, but I’m afraid to touch her because I’ve never seen her this fragile and I don’t know what to do. “The pregnancy was stressful even though Rafe, my boss, was really great, and Ford and Imogen were amazing. Chris regularly failed to show up for my appointments, so Mo came to every single one.” Her smile is sad. “Kady was only five then, and it wasn’t easy for Mo to get a sitter, but she never missed a single appointment. She was my rock.”
Tears roll down her face, and I lean forward, brushing them away with my thumbs.
“I went into early labor at twenty-four weeks. The usual odds for babies born that early is fifty-fifty, but Tillie had a congenital heart defect that lessened her chances.” A sob splinters the air, and pain radiates across my chest. “She lived for three days.” Her eyes are swimming in tears. “I have never prayed as hard as I prayed those three days, but it was all in vain. She took her last little breath in my arms. Chris was with me, and whatever shreds of humanity he was clinging to died that day as well. That was the day I lost both of them.”
She sniffs, wiping the tears on her cheeks with the sleeve of her wrinkled dress. When she stares at me, it’s like she’s staring right through me. “We had nothing to say to one another after that. We buried our daughter, and he moved out the next day. I didn’t see him for over a year, and at first, I refused to have anything to do with him because he fucking left me to deal with the fallout by myself.”
