“She lost the baby… she had a miscarriage. It was unexpected because she had passed the first trimester.”
“I’m so sorry, Weston.”
“The baby was a boy, and we’d already named him Oliver.”
“Oh, I see…” I ache for him. He’d already lost a small child, and then… Oliver. Now I understand the darkness I sometimes see in him. Like me, he’s been broken. He’s had to re-glue himself together, too many times.
I kiss his forehead.
“She still wears it every day too,” he tells me. “I see it in the pictures she posts, and it warms my heart every time, to know that Oliver meant as much to her as he did to me, to know that our relationship meant that much.”
“I’m sure it did. She obviously loved you as much as you loved her,” I say. “She had a very tough choice to make.” I couldn’t imagine being in such a situation. What would I do if I had to choose between Weston and Donovan?
“She did.”
I attempt to tame his rebel lock of hair. “Do you think she made the right one?”
“Yes. Definitely. She seems very happy.”
“Do you think her husband loves her as much as you did?”
“Yes… possibly even more. I saw it in him when he beat me to a pulp. It was more than a hot temper, it was intense passion, intense fear. He was afraid to lose her, and he wanted to kill me because he thought I’d stolen her from him.”
“That kind of love is scary,” I point out. “The man sounds intense.”
He laughs. “He was… he still is, I suppose.”
I don’t want to ask him the next question again, but I can’t help myself. I need him to reassure me. “Do you still love her?”
He traces a finger along the curve of my cheek. “Yes. I always will. A small part of my heart will always belong to her.”
My heart sinks. Yet again, I wonder what I really am to him. We’re playmates. Employee and boss. I’m probably just a fun distraction.
“But I have a big heart, Gretchen,” he goes on. “And right now, all I can think about is you. I was still hung up on her until you came along. But you’ve changed everything.”
I kiss him on the lips. “You always know the perfect thing to say.”
He smiles, and takes me in his arms again.
I feel safe. Physically and emotionally. And I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
