AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She might not be ready to marry him, but she did care about him and she didn’t want to be without him. Becka scrubbed a hand over her face. Trust their first real fight to be one for the record books. She rolled over to get more comfortable and stared at the clock. An hour—two, tops—and he’d be back there. She just had to smother her instinct to flee the penthouse until then. She curled her legs and hugged the second pillow on the bed.
Just a little longer...
15
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, Becka ran out of excuses. Aaron hadn’t come home last night, and though she’d called in to both her jobs because she wanted to be here when he did come back...he didn’t. She checked her phone, but her single text had gone unanswered.
He left me.
No, stop that. Maybe something happened. This is Aaron. He wouldn’t have just left. Not like that.
She scrolled through her contacts to find the one Aaron had given her when she’d first moved in. There might be times when she needed to get ahold of him and wasn’t able to, and so he wanted her to have Cameron’s number. She held her breath as she pressed dial.
An unfamiliar voice answered almost immediately. “Cameron O’Clery.”
“Hi, Cameron. This is Becka. I’m, ah, Aaron’s... Whatever. I was wondering if you’ve seen him?” Please say he’s okay. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if something happened to him.
“Yeah, he’s in his office right now.”
She stared at the wall, her breath leaving her in a whoosh. It had been bad to think that Aaron might be hurt in some hospital in the city and unable to contact her. Knowing that he was fine, that he’d chosen not to call her or come home...
It was worse. So much worse.
“Thank you,” she said through numb lips and hung up.
Becka looked around the room that had ceased to be hers the second she’d ended up in Aaron’s bed a month ago. She’d built this fiction around the idea that Aaron was different from her father—that being with him was different from every relationship her mother had ever been in. From every relationship Becka had been in. She’d believed him when he said they were in this together, when he claimed she wasn’t alone. That declaration had only lasted as long as their honeymoon period had. The second things got rough—and they had gotten rough—he’d bailed.
He left.
She shoved to her feet and rushed to the closet. He wanted in the baby’s life? Fine. She might feel like he’d ripped her heart out of her chest and thrown it into a wood chipper, but she wasn’t completely delusional. He loved the baby as much as she did.
He just didn’t love her. If he really had, he wouldn’t have pulled a cheap stunt like this.
Maybe he’s clearing the way for me to move out without him having to deal with me again.
She threw her clothes onto the bed and had to lean over to wait for the lurching of her stomach to pass. A lie. It had all been a lie. Becka packed as fast as she could. She had things in his room, but she couldn’t bear the thought of crossing that threshold and being assaulted by all the good memories they’d made there.
All that mattered was getting the hell out. She could go back to her apartment. The thought brought her up short. Just because he obviously didn’t want anything to do with her didn’t mean he’d back down from his ridiculous condition of her not living in that apartment. He couldn’t have it both ways.
Unless he calls my bluff and hauls me back here to live in the spare room and then we have to see each other on a daily basis while he holds himself apart.
No. She couldn’t do it. The pain in her chest was so sharp, she could barely breathe past it now. Seeing him and trying to function as if she wasn’t emotionally bleeding out at his feet? She’d rather actually bleed out.
Becka fumbled for her phone and dialed. Allie answered almost immediately. “Hey, girl. What’s up?”
“Are you home?” Her voice cracked in the middle of the sentence.
Instantly, all happiness was gone from Allie’s tone. “I can be there in fifteen. Is everything okay? Is it the baby?”
The baby. She pressed her hand to her stomach. The doctor said the baby was fine, but this level of stress had to be releasing all sorts of crazy hormones that couldn’t be good. She took a slow breath and tried to calm her racing heart. “It’s nothing like that. I just... Remember when you offered to let me crash at your place? Does that still stand?”
“Of course.” Allie, bless her soul, didn’t hesitate. “Meet you there?”
“Yeah, I’m getting in a cab in two minutes.” She’d have to offer an explanation, but at least her friend was willing to wait until they were face-to-face.
It took Becka forty minutes to cab it to the new apartment Roman and Allie had bought together last year. They’d compromised on location, so it was roughly an equal distance between her gym and his office. Allie buzzed her up, and she walked into an apartment smelling of peanut butter cookies.
It was too much. She dropped her bag on the floor and the burning in her eyes got the best of her. This apartment practically reeked of love and happiness from Roman and Allie living here. It was there in the little details—the table next to the door with a key bowl and a little notepad where they wrote notes to each other; the framed picture of them just down the hall, staring at each other with such love in their eyes that it made Becka want to cry. She could have had that. She almost did have that.
