Chapter 35
Rowe
“What happened with Luke?” Pane asks later that night when we’re in bed.
I’m lying on his chest, tracing the lines of his abs. I tip my head up to look at him. “Oh, we’ve reachedthatstage in our relationship, have we?”
He glances down, frowns. “What stage?”
“The stage where you reveal your deepest wounds.”
Pane’s frown intensifies. “You already know mine.”
My heart contracts, and I feel bad for bringing it up. I drop my head, and he hooks a finger under my chin, lifting my face until our gazes lock.
“Okay, maybe I do have one or two more.”
“Of course you do. We all do.”
He releases my chin and I snuggle back onto his chest, where I resume admiring him. I comb my fingers over his pecs. They have just the right amount of chest hair—enough for me to know he’s a man, but not so much that I get swallowed whole.
“What happened with Luke is that I got pregnant.”
Beneath me, he stills. “I see.”
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t know the half of it. “I didn’t know until after he’d left me for Sally Ray. I must’ve missed taking some of my pillsbefore we broke up. I mean, the whole time was so stressful, what with my dad being sick and everything. I was trying to help my mom and dad, and Luke was acting weird. I knew something was going on, but I didn’t know what.
“Then Luke left just before my dad took a turn for the worse. We’d just found out that his cancer was inoperable. It had spread too far. At the time I was furious at Luke. How could he leave me? How could he cheat with Sally? How could he have done that? I was heartbroken on so many levels—for my dad, my mom, myself.”
I glance up at Pane’s perfect jawline before continuing, “I was miserable. But I still did my best to be present while my dad went into hospice. I must not’ve done a good job, because my mom took me aside and reminded me that my dad wouldn’t be around much longer. She said it was best that Luke left instead of staying and leading all of us on. Deep down, I knew she was right. But it was still a bitter pill to swallow.”
Pane’s lips brush the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”
I sit up and prop my head on my fist. “I’m not. I’m glad he’s gone. But anyway. Yes, I found out that I was pregnant, and when I told him”—my stomach twists—“he said that I was lying.”
Pane’s eyes become as dark as midnight as his jaw clenches and unclenches. “I wish I’d broken more than his nose.” He starts to get up. “Let me change that.”
I tug him back down and press my lips to his. “The best revenge is not letting him take this farm.”
“It’s not quite good enough.”
“It is for me.” I slump back onto the bed and lie on my side, facing him. “Do you want to hear the rest?”
“Do I have to?”
“Don’t worry. You’ll have your time in the hot seat.”
Pane pinches his eyes shut with his fingers and sighs. “Let’s hear it.”
I brush his hand away from his face, and he slowly blinks his eyes open. When I’m satisfied that his anger has died down enough for him to listen, I keep on.
“Luke wouldn’t take my calls, and as far as I knew, we were having a baby. So I went to Sally Ray’s to confront him, to try to get him to see the truth.” Pane brushes hair from my cheek. It’s a sweet, comforting gesture, but surprisingly I don’t need any comfort.
I exhale and keep on. “Luke came to the door and said that I was pathetic. But he wasn’t done. The pregnancy was a lie, he told me. I was just trying to win him back. I pleaded,beggedhim, swore that it was the truth, but he laughed in my face. He slammed Sally Ray’s door and flicked out the porch light while I was still standing there.”
The memory washes over me. Used to be that I would’ve experienced the heartache all over again by just talking about it. But now I don’t feel anything, because every moment in my life has led me to this one, to being with Pane.
“He shut the light off and left me standing there. It was the most humiliating experience of my life.” I lift my eyes and meet Pane’s scorching expression. He looks like he wants to rip Luke’s head off. I squeeze his hand. “But all that bad brought me here, to you, so I’m grateful for it.”
