Chapter 14 Nick
NICK
She lied to me.
I have to be somewhere. I promised Tasha I'd have lunch with her today.
I knew it wasn't true the moment I read the words.
Some animal instinct recognized her deception even before my mind caught up.
We've been through too much, survived too many lies—including my own—and rebuilt our relationship on too much hard-won truth for me not to know when something's wrong where she's concerned.
No more secrets. That's what we promised each other after we got back together more than a year ago. No more lies.
And yet there's no denying the fact that Avery was not where she told me she would be.
Why would she lie to me now?
I’ve been at the penthouse twenty-five minutes waiting for her to come home. I’m too unhinged to pace, so I stand at the tall window in the living area, staring out at the Manhattan skyline but seeing none of it. All I can think about is Avery’s text message.
Can't cancel on her. I should be home in a couple hours.
My right hand flexes at my side, scar tissue pulling tight across damaged tendons. The old wound aches the way it always does when I'm fighting to hold myself still. Each minute stretches into the next, an exercise in restraint while something volcanic builds beneath my ribs.
Where the fuck is she?
Finally, the private elevator chimes.
Every muscle in my body locks. I don't turn from the window yet. I’m not sure I’m ready to pivot around and watch her lie to my face once I confront her.
Instead, I watch her reflection materialize in the glass in front of me.
The quiet, mechanical slide of doors opening.
The soft fall of her footsteps on the marble of the foyer as she steps into our home.
Despite everything churning inside me, my body responds to her presence the way it always does. All my senses lock on to her, instantly alert and electric. My chest tightens with want even as my jaw hardens with hurt.
I turn slowly.
She sees me and stops. Guilt flickers across her face—there and gone, but not fast enough. She's surprised I'm home. And something else hovers behind those green eyes, something I can't name. Another secret. Another wall going up between us.
I don't move toward her. At this moment, I hardly trust myself to breathe.
"How was your lunch with Tasha?"
My voice comes out shockingly level. The boardroom mask I wear at work, now deployed against the woman I love because anything rawer would shatter the control I'm barely holding.
She hesitates. Just a fraction of a second, but I catch it. The slight tension in her shoulders, the way her lips part and close again. She's calculating. Deciding how to answer.
The thought cracks something inside me.
I stuff my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for her. "I went by Vendange before I came home. Tasha was surprised to see me. Said she hadn't heard from you all day."
The color drains from her cheeks. Her breath catches almost imperceptibly. Something that looks like resignation settles into her features.
She swallows. "You checked up on me?"
I nod and take a single step closer. "I got home and you weren’t here, so I called your studio too. No answer. The place was empty."
"Nick…"
"Where were you, Avery?" The roughness in my voice betrays me now. "Why did you lie to me?"
She holds my gaze with a courage that's so essentially her. Other than last night, she's never cowered from me, not even when perhaps she should have.
"It's not what you think." She moves toward me, closing some of the distance I can't make myself cross.
She can't possibly know everything I've been thinking. The scenarios that have torn through my mind in the agonizing time since I received her text earlier today. But underneath my anger, something darker writhes. A thought I can barely let myself form.
What if I drove her away?
The possibility takes shape with teeth. She wouldn’t be reconsidering us because there's someone else. I know that. It would be because of me. Because I showed her last night that I'm exactly the kind of man she should run from.
What if my behavior last night—the raised voice, the fury she shrank back from—was the final fracture? What if she woke up this morning and realized she can't do this? Can't marry a man who carries his father's rage coiled inside him like a loaded weapon.
I can’t help wondering if she might have realized, finally, that she deserves someone better than me.
Someone who deserves her in all the ways I never will.
If she tells me the wedding is off, if she's decided she needs space, real space, the kind that doesn't end, I don't know what I'll do. The thought empties me out, leaves me cold as I watch her expression shift into one of quiet remorse.
"You're right," she admits softly. Her voice is calm. Calmer than anything I'm feeling. She takes another few steps forward, close enough now that I can see the faint shadows beneath her eyes, evidence of a night as sleepless as my own. "I did lie. I'm sorry. I didn't meet Tasha today."
That catches me off guard. I expected defense. Deflection. Not this steady advance, her chin lifting as she stops in front of me. She holds my gaze, unflinching.
"I went to the doctor today, Nick."
Everything stops. My suspicion. My anger. My hurt. All of it dries up in an instant.
Doctor. The word hangs in the air, foreign and wrong. The fear that floods me now is entirely different. Colder. Sharper. Dread where before there was only fire.
"A doctor?" I hear the sound of my own voice, stripped of anger and now raw with sudden terror. "Why? What's wrong? Are you sick—"
"I'm fine." She reaches for my hand, her fingers wrapping around mine, and even now the contact spreads warmth up my arm. "Nick, I'm fine."
She takes my scarred right hand in her light grasp and guides my palm to her stomach. Low. Below her navel. Her hand presses mine flat against the soft cotton of her blouse, against the warmth of her body beneath.
"I'm pregnant."
The word detonates in my chest.
Pregnant.
I stare at her, my hand pressed to her belly, feeling the slight give of her flesh beneath my palm, the heat of her skin through thin fabric.
My brain refuses to process what she's just said.
The idea of Avery—my Avery, the woman who's about to become my wife—carrying my child hits me so hard I can't find breath to respond.
She searches my face, and I watch uncertainty creep into her expression. After last night. After the chasm I carved between us with my own hands.
"It's still early," she continues, her voice steady but her eyes unsure.
"Dr. Wilson says I'm about five weeks along.
" She pauses, and when I still can't find words, she fills the silence.
"I woke up sick this morning. It wasn't the first time I've felt nauseated lately, but today was different. More intense."
I'm hearing every word, processing everything she's saying, yet I can't seem to make my throat work.
She wets her lips, her gaze still searching mine.
"I had a home test—one Tasha gave me as a joke in my engagement gift basket. We’ve been careful, so I didn’t think I’d need to use it, but this morning.
.." She shakes her head slightly. "Two pink lines.
Positive. I wanted to be sure before I told you, so I called Dr. Wilson and she made time to see me. "
A watery smile crosses her face, emotion threatening to overwhelm her too.
"I know we never really talked about timing, or even whether—" Her voice wavers for the first time. Cracks at the edges. "Nick, please. Say something."
She's scared. She needs me to speak, and I'm standing here mute while she waits for a single word in response.
"Pregnant." Not an eloquent response, but it's all I've got. I've gone from imagining the worst to hearing the most incredible thing she could have ever told me.
I reach for her and pull her into me, my arms wrapping around her so tightly I worry I'm crushing her.
She makes a startled sound—half-laugh, half-sob—and I release her only to cup her face in my hands and kiss her.
Her mouth is soft and warm and tastes faintly of tears, and somewhere between kisses I hear myself talking, words spilling out in a rush I can't control.
"A baby. Christ, Avery. We’re having a baby?"
"Yes." She's laughing now, or crying, or both. "I was terrified when I found out this morning. And excited. I didn't know how you'd react, especially after last night, and I needed to be sure before—"
"You should have called me." I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, the corner of her eye where tears have gathered. "The second you suspected, you should have called me. I would have been there. I would have held your hand while we waited for those two pink lines together."
"I know." Her fingers curl into my shirt. "I know. But I was scared, and I wasn’t sure we were okay, and I didn't want to tell you over the phone—"
"We're okay." I rest my forehead against hers, breathing her in. "We're more than okay. God, Avery. A baby."
"You really want this?" The question is small, vulnerable. "You're happy?"
"Happy doesn't come close." I pull back enough to hold her gaze, needing her to see the truth in my eyes. "I can't think of anything I could ever want more than watching you grow round with my child. All I want is you. This. Us. The family we're building."
My hand returns to her belly, reverent now as I try to comprehend the impossible. That there's a tiny life beneath my palm. A heartbeat I can't hear yet but I know exists because of what we've made together.
She covers my hand with hers, holding me there, and for a moment we just breathe.
Then her smile falters.
"After last night, the way we left things... I woke up this morning and you were gone, and I didn't know—" She trails off, but I hear what she doesn't say. All the uncertainty and fears that I planted in her.
The reminder hits me like a blow.