Chapter 18
Eighteen
Before he’d even hit the end of the street, Brax had fired off a voice text to Jonah and Holt asking one or both of them to come watch the house. He couldn’t be here right now, but neither could he leave Mia alone. Leno was there. Luca was there. But he’d already failed her once. There wasn’t a chance in hell Brax could get his head on straight without knowing she was okay.
Less than a mile up the road, the return text came in saying they were en route. Brax let out a shuddering breath. She’d be covered. She’d be safe. That was priority one. Now he could absorb the rest of what had just been thrown at him. Somehow.
But not just yet.
Ten minutes later, he found himself knocking on a familiar door before he could think better of it.
Shit. He shouldn’t be here. The sun hadn’t even peeked over the horizon. It was beyond rude to bother anyone at this ungodly hour. But before he could retreat to his truck, the door opened.
Rebecca stood there in her long flannel robe, eyes heavy from sleep. “Brax?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”
Face creasing in concern, she tugged him inside and straight into a fierce hug. He wrapped his arms around her, aware he was shaking. He felt as if his world was being ripped apart.
Rebecca stroked his back. “Is this about the shooting?”
Good God. For a little bit, he’d forgotten about that. “No. It’s Mia.”
“Is she all right? Jonah said she wasn’t hurt.”
“No… she’s okay… I…” He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t even know why he was here, except that she’d offered him comfort before, and her presence was calming. He needed all the help he could get in that department just now.
On another squeeze, Rebecca eased back. “Come on back to the kitchen and sit. I just put on coffee.”
She took his hand and pulled him. He let her nudge him into a chair at the table. Her fussing was the only thing keeping him from flying apart.
Once she’d poured coffee for them both, she settled beside him at the table. “Now. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
Brax wrapped his hands around the mug, letting the warmth soak into his chilled skin. “I have to leave out some bits. They aren’t my story to tell.”
“Okay. Tell me what you can.”
“Mia’s got this… friend. Luca.” He laid it out for her, explaining what he knew of their relationship and how he and Luca had been at loggerheads from the beginning. She listened patiently as he talked about their reluctant truce in the name of protecting Mia. Then he told her about the fight and everything Luca had spilled out in his tirade. Rebecca laid a hand on his arm in comfort before he’d finished. Her face twisted in sympathy.
“Oh, honey.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “She tried to commit suicide because of me. Because I was too fucking angry and selfish to listen. To even give her a chance.” His voice broke as he imagined the pain she must’ve been in to get to that point.
Rebecca’s hand tightened on his arm. “You can’t take the blame for that. You didn’t know.”
“How could she not tell me?”
“Well, sweetheart, I imagine to stop you from feeling like you’re feeling right now. From everything you’ve said about her, it sounds like she forgave you a long time ago. She wouldn’t have wanted to punish you with something like this.”
“What about the baby? We had a child . And he… she… died.” He didn’t even know how to sort through all the layers of shock and grief tied up with that. To find out that they’d made a life and lost it all in one breath was gutting him. “And she didn’t tell me. ”
“I’m sure the whole thing was extremely traumatic for her. Probably still is to talk about. I’m not saying she should have kept it from you. I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re feeling about that. It’s a hard thing, losing a child, under any circumstances. To find out like this…” She shook her head. “Had you been trying for a baby?”
“No. No, we weren’t in any place financially where that wouldn’t have been a major disaster. We were still so young. But I thought, when we got back together, that we’d get around to kids. And now… she can’t have them. We’ll never have another child.” How could he feel such loss at something he didn’t even realize he’d wanted?
“There are options if you both really want to be parents. Surrogacy if you’re set on a child of your blood. Adoption if you’re not. With both of you having been foster kids yourselves, I expect you’d both make wonderful parents for a child in need. You know what they’re coming from. But that’s rather getting ahead of things. Have you talked to Mia about any of this?”
“No. She was sleeping when I left.” Or was she? They’d been shouting by the end. What if she’d woken up and heard? The idea of it left him feeling even sicker.
“I don’t know how to talk to her about this. I thought she’d told me everything. But if she left out stuff this big, what else is she keeping from me?” What did he have to do in order to be let inside all those carefully constructed compartments she’d made of her life?
“The only way to find that out is to go back and ask.” Sitting back, Rebecca took up her coffee, studying him over the rim of the mug. “The question you need to answer right now is whether you want to fight for the chance to go back and ask. Or is there a part of you that thinks Luca is right, and you don’t deserve her?”
Brax sat with that for a minute. “He’s not entirely wrong. I’ve hurt her so badly.”
Rebecca inclined her head in acknowledgment. “But she took you back. She wanted to try again. It seems to me that whatever hurts you dealt her, she’s made peace with. You have to decide if you can make peace with the hurts she’s dealt you.”
Could he get past this? He was tired of secrets. Tired of having all these hidden pieces of her past rearing up to stab him when he least expected it. If they were going to make their marriage work, he needed all of her. Full disclosure. And that was going to take a conversation.
“I have to go back.”
“Good man. Whatever happens, running is seldom the answer.”
“Thank you for listening. I… didn’t have a good mother. I’d really like it if I could maybe adopt you as an honorary one.”
Rebecca smiled and leaned over to press a smacking kiss to his cheek. “I’d be insulted if you didn’t. Now, go fix things with your wife, my boy.”
Brax shoved back from the table. “Can I borrow your printer?”
“I tried. I really did. But in the end, she knew I wasn’t in love with her. Not the way I should have been. So, she left me.”
Mia shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“I didn’t lie. She did turn around within a week and go out with the investment banker, so I’m not entirely sure she hadn’t been looking before she ended things.” Luca jerked his shoulders. “The fact that I wasn’t more upset about it was a pretty clear sign. As for the rest, I wasn’t going to dump that on you. Certainly not over the phone or in a text. Then you invited me to come out here, and I thought, maybe, you’d finally reached a place where you wanted to move on with your life.”
She thought back over all their interactions. Had she misled him somehow? Done something to give him false hope? Or had he just seen what he wanted to see? And why the hell was she feeling guilty about this when he’d just betrayed her?
“I meant exactly what I said when I asked you out here. I thought you could use a change, and I did miss you. We’ve been friends for a long time. But nothing had changed. I was still married to Brax.”
Luca snorted. “Right. The absentee husband who thought you were already divorced. Suddenly, he’s back in your life, and you just welcomed him with open arms and pushed me away.” There was no disguising the bitterness in his voice.
She had done that. Knowing how much antagonism Luca held toward even the idea of Brax, she’d kept her distance, not having the bandwidth to handle them both at once. “I’m sorry if I haven’t made time for you since Brax and I found each other again. And I’m sorry I pulled the boss card to do it. That was a shitty way for me to handle it. But I won’t apologize for putting my focus on my relationship with him. I’ve been waiting for ten years for a second chance to save my marriage.”
“The marriage he just walked away from again?”
Mia gasped as the barb slid home. Leno jerked his head up, woofing softly, as if to show his own objection.
Luca’s voice was soft. “I’m not saying that to hurt you. Truly. Hurting you is the last thing I’ve ever wanted to do. But I want you to take a good hard look at what you’ve been clinging to so stubbornly all this time. Whatever history you have with Brax, at the first sign of trouble between you, he walks away. You deserve better than that. You deserve someone who stays. Who will stick it out, no matter what. I’ve stuck. I’ve always stuck. And I know you’re upset. I know I’ve fucked up. But I love you, and I just wish you’d give me a chance to show you.”
Mia swallowed. She’d brought this on herself, in a way. If she hadn’t been so conflict averse, hadn’t been so afraid of losing him as a friend, she would have addressed this years ago. And even though she understood it likely meant losing him entirely, she was going to address it now.
“You aren’t entitled to me, Luca. I’m not some prize that can be won if you just stick around long enough. Your friendship doesn’t earn you anything more than my friendship and loyalty in return. And that’s certainly not what you showed me today.”
He opened his mouth to protest but she just held up a hand to stop him.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear. Despite everything you’ve said and done lately, I do love you. But as a friend. A brother. I’m not in love with you. And that’s never going to change because I’m in love with Brax. I always have been. Always will be.”
“And if he doesn’t come back?”
She closed her eyes, accepting the very real possibility of that.
“Except I did.”
Mia whipped her head toward the voice to find Brax standing in the doorway from the kitchen. Her battered heart began to drum with hope, and she shoved to her feet. Then she spotted the sheaf of papers in his hand.
“Are those the divorce papers?” Oh God. Were the last pieces of herself she’d kept from him going to be the thing that truly broke them?
“Yes.”
She struggled to keep standing as she absorbed that.
He stepped into the room. “I wanted to print off a copy for this conversation. My preference is that we burn them, but that’ll be your choice. Because I need the truth from you. All of it. Everything you’ve been holding back. I understand why you’ve had to live your life with everybody in different boxes and nobody knowing everything. But I need to know. I need to be in that box with you.” With every word, he closed the distance between them, finally stopping within arm’s reach.
Mia understood that this was truly her last chance with him. She had to lay everything bare or risk losing him for good. Swallowing against the thickness in her throat, she nodded.
Brax tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering over the tiny semi-colon tattoo there. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
She took much-needed strength from the touch. “I didn’t know how. You already blamed yourself for so much, and I know you. I knew no matter what I said, you’d take that on, too. What good would that do?” She reached up, skimming her fingers over his cheek. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t drive me to that point of desperation. I did that to myself with my poor choices.”
His face spasmed. “And the baby?”
“That’s… harder.” Her breath shuddered out. “I had no idea I was pregnant when I left that day. I want to say it would have made a difference, but I honestly don’t know. I didn’t see going to meet him as the risk it truly was.” That was so hard to admit. But she’d promised him honesty.
“I should have bled out at the scene, the same as my father. The only reason I survived was because my body had more blood to lose. Even with that, it was a very near thing. I had so many transfusions.”
Taking another breath, she pushed herself to finish. “I didn’t even know there’d been a baby until I woke up days later and the doctor was apologizing. And everything that happened with you after felt like my punishment for being careless and making the wrong choice.”
“Mia.” Brax cupped her nape, pulling her close, his own eyes wet.
“I destroyed everything because I couldn’t let go of the past. I lost you and our baby, and I…” Her voice hitched as fresh tears spilled over. “I didn’t know how to tell you so you wouldn’t hate me.”
He wrapped his arms tight around her. “Oh Baby, I don’t hate you. And I’m so fucking sorry you had to deal with that alone. It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
She’d been told the same by therapists over the years. But none of them had been in a position to grant her absolution. The long-awaited relief of it washed over her, and she pressed her face against his chest, soaking his shirt.
“Is there anything else?” Brax murmured.
“I can’t have children.” It came out as a whisper, though it was no longer a secret. Luca had blurted that, too. But it still felt like some kind of failure.
With gentle fingers, Brax wiped the tears from her face. “It’s you I want. You I love. If you want kids, we can adopt or get a surrogate. There are options.”
She’d given up on the idea of a family when she’d believed she’d lost him for good, and she hadn’t allowed herself to even consider the possibility since he’d come back into her life. For the first time in more years than she cared to count, she had hope that she might truly get back the life she wanted.
“That’s everything. All the broken and ugly pieces of me. No one but you has ever held all of them.”
He lowered his brow to hers. “I love you, Mia. There’s nothing about you that’s broken or ugly to me.”
And this was why he’d always been her person. Why she hoped he always would be. Taking a breath, she tipped her head back to look up at him. “Do you still want to burn the divorce agreement?”
His stormy eyes burned into hers. “Hell yes. You’re my wife. I don’t ever want to let you go again.”
“Thank God.”
He kissed her long and deep. A renewal. A claiming. A new beginning. And as her heart soared with fresh joy, she heard the quiet click of a door closing and knew it was an end as well.