Page 151 of On the Double

“Then you can get off my fucking property.”

He tried to slam the door, but I blocked it, refusing to give in justyet. I came here to talk to her and I wasn’t leaving until I had. “Just because I fucked up big time doesn’t mean I can’t talk to her.”

“In my book, it does.”

He tried once again to shut the door, but I shoved it open. “Oliver, I really need to talk to her. I won’t do anything more to hurt her. I just want to—to offer her some money. She shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

He nodded at me, his lips pulled in a tight line. “And you think offering her money will make everything better.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“No, what would be better is if the man who knocked her up actually cared enough to help her. You know, be a father. Instead, your kid is gonna grow up with a single mother. How do you think that’ll feel for him? Imagine him on a baseball field and the coach asks where his father is. How do you think that’ll make him feel?”

I hadn’t considered that. But that was beside the point right now. “If I can’t talk to her, I can’t fucking fix it, can I?”

“Oh, have you suddenly changed your mind? Are you going to stick around and be the husband and father they need?”

I wanted to. I desperately wanted to, but everything inside me screamed that I would be ruining their lives.

“That’s what I thought.”

He tried for a third time to shut the door. “Listen. One time. I just need one time with her. And if she doesn’t want to see me, I’ll throw myself out.”

“Too bad. You can’t. She’s not here.”

My shoulders slumped. “I should have realized she would be at work. What time does she get off?”

“Don’t know. She doesn’t live here anymore.”

My shoulders tensed at his words, and I could feel the tension slipping through every muscle, worming its way into the deepest parts of my body until I couldn’t even fucking move.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, she moved out the night you called her a whore. She’s gone. Packed a bag and stormed out of here. Took my car too.”

I swallowed hard, shaking my head at the image of her behind the wheel. “But, she hates to drive.”

“I guess she would have done anything to get away from you.”

Anything to get away from you. That was how much she hated me. I had a woman who absolutely adored me, and in one night, I blew it all to hell because of my own issues. I didn’t even try to look past them and listen to what she was saying. I accused her of everything in the book and then some. When in reality, it was just as much my fault as hers. She didn’t get pregnant on her own. I should have been wearing a condom, but I liked the feel of her pussy around my cock too much.

And then she’d been in the accident. Hell, any of the medicine she was taking could have interfered with her birth control. But I didn’t stop to think about that. All I wanted was more of her. I wanted her with a desperation I felt clawing at my skin. Why had I not seen it sooner? Why had I refused to open my eyes as to what she meant to me?

I ignored all the warning signs and now she was gone because I was an asshole. And as I stood here, wondering where she could be and if she was okay, another feeling filled me up. Love. I was fucking in love with her. I never wanted to admit it. I was too wrapped up in my own fucked up issues to really recognize the feelings rushing through me. And I might have continued to ignore them if I hadn’t shown up on the doorstep today. I might have buried them deep in my gut and refused to acknowledge them. But I had now, and I knew there was no going back.

I couldn’t live without her. Hell, the past two weeks had been one drunken night after another where all I saw was her walking out on me. She didn’t even put up a fight when she left, and now I realized why. Because I was a foregone conclusion. She knew I would have that reaction, so she steeled herself to the fact that I wouldn’t want her. And then she walked out of there with her head held high.

God, I was such an asshole. She was pregnant with my kid.

My kid.

What if something happened to her and I couldn’t get to her in time? Was anyone there to help her out? What if she was overdoing it? What if the accident made the whole pregnancy harder or moredangerous? Fuck, why had I not thought of any of that when my brain went on the fritz?

She was out there all alone, and it was all my fault.

My eyes flicked to his. “You have to tell me where she is.”

“I don’t know. She said she wanted to do this on her own, to prove that she wasn’t what our mother thought of her.”