Page 107 of Accidentally in Love

I sighed. “I thought I lost the baby.”

My dad sat up straighter. “What do you mean? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had some spotting and freaked out about it, but everything’s fine.”

“How did Nolan take the stuff with the baby?”

I frowned.

“Avery…”

I sighed. I still felt like such an asshole about that night. I apologized, but things still weren’t right with us, and I didn’t know how to fix it. Nolan said he felt like he wasn’t good enough for me, but it was the opposite. He was too good for me. I wasn’t worthy of his love, not after everything I put him through.

“We got into a huge fight and haven’t been talking,” I admitted.

“You can’t let that shit stew. If you want to make your marriage work, you gotta talk to each other. How long has it been?”

“A week,” I muttered and looked down at the floor.

“Avery,” my dad sighed and ran a hand across his jaw. “I love you, sweetheart, but I gotta be honest with you. The reason none of your other relationships worked is that you always run at the first sign of trouble.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up a hand for me to stop.

“It’s true. When your high school boyfriend went to a different college, you broke up with him even though you could have tried the long-distance thing. The guy you dated right after college who lived an hour away? You didn’t make it work because you didn’t want to.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you trying to say?”

“I love you, and I want you to be happy, but don’t run from Nolan because thinking you lost the baby scared you.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “No, if I lost the baby, we’d get a divorce.”

“Why?”

“We only got married because of the baby.”

Dad gave me a hard stare. The kind he used to give me when I was younger and did something foolish. “Why do you think that?” he asked.

“Because he’s still in love with his ex-wife!”

Dad stared at me for a couple of seconds before he replied. “How do you know that?”

“Because she’s gorgeous!”

“Sweetheart, you’re his wife. They don’t belong to each other anymore. You know what I said to him when I first met him, and you fell asleep on the couch?”

I shook my head.

“I asked him if you knew he loved you. He loved you then, Avery. He doesn’t love her anymore. He loves you. Don’t run away from him because you’re afraid. If you lose the baby, he’s going to be the shoulder you cry on. He’ll be your rock.”

Dad took a swig of his beer and turned back to the hockey game. I let his words settle on me.

My pregnancy had my emotions all over the place, so maybe I had imagined Nolan was still in love with his ex-wife. If Dad saw that Nolan loved me the first night they met, could I have been wrong? When he looked at Kath, was that the same way he looked at me? Had tensions been so high that I just saw what I wanted to see?

When I thought back to it, Nolan hadn’t looked at Kath in any particular way. If anything, he looked terrified. He put on a brave face for me while I was fretting about losing our baby, and when I saw his ex-wife, the lizard part of my brain made a connection that wasn’t there. Then I picked a fight with him and made him think he wasn’t worthy of me. When the opposite was true. Since the moment I met Nolan, I knew there was something special about him. Nolan gave me everything I ever wanted, but instead of giving him the love he deserved in return, I let my insecurities get the better of me.

God, I was such an asshole. My dad was right. I was trying to run away from my problems.

A sob bubbled up from inside me, and I pressed a hand against my mouth as I realized just how much I fucked up with Nolan.