Chapter Twelve #3
He nods. “I made arrangements to get back to Dallas the same day I found out. Got out two months later. Imagine my surprise when I found out I’d inherited everything.” He shakes his head as though still in disbelief by that piece of information.
“So you’d been in Texas for four months and didn’t think to at least call?
“Until I got a call about the show, I was still trying to figure out how to approach you without a door slamming in my face, much less you blocking my number if I called.”
I stand up, anger flaring. “You could spend ten years of your life as a Marine, but you couldn’t find the courage to at least call me for four months once you knew he was dead?”
He crosses his arms. “I didn’t think it’d be exactly romantic for our first time in ten years seeing each other to be over FaceTime.”
“Everything I’ve done, from the moment I left, was to get back to you.” His voice is low, rough. “You think I wanted to do that? You think I wanted to leave you for ten years just to reunite with you on some fucking reality show?”
“Regardless, you chose the outcome of our relationship for me.” Even as I ache to touch him, this fact is something I can’t deny.
“There were so many times I wanted to come back, consequences be damned. But I knew I couldn’t.
If it’s any consolation, I’d found ways over the years to at least know what you were up to.
I was so proud of you when you graduated college and started Clark Events.
The boys even made fun of me for throwing a small party.
And when I got back into Dallas, I did what I could to make sure you were taken care of.
” His eyes meet mine—raw, open. “But then I also realized that you’d built a life.
A business. Friends. I didn’t want you thinking I just wanted to drag the past back in and ruin everything. ”
“You spied on me?” The words taste bitter. “That’s sick.”
His expression turns blank. Clearly, he hadn’t thought through telling me that fact.
“I didn’t do it for any kind of perversion. I did it because it was never over for me. And as far as I’m concerned, it still isn’t.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. Not from anger this time, but from the sheer weight of everything he’s telling me, everything he’s carried alone for my sake.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out at first. Then, small and broken, I blurt out the words I never thought I’d get to tell him as I place a hand on my stomach.
“I was pregnant.”
Scott goes stone still at my words.
“I’d found out three weeks after you left.
I was terrified. Stupidly hopeful that you’d come back and we could be a family.
But still terrified. I was young and desperate for your disappearance to make sense.
A baby felt like proof that what we had was real, that you didn’t just disappear because you got bored of me and were too spineless to tell me it was over. ”
He makes a sound—half pain, half disbelief. His hand lifts like he wants to touch me, then drops it.
I continue. “I miscarried at twenty weeks. I was alone. I thought if I could make it to the hospital, I could save it. Save our baby.” More tears fall from my eyes. “But when I got there, it was too late. No one knew. Not even my parents.”
Scott’s eyes are glassy. His throat works hard. When he speaks, his voice is wrecked. “Our baby?”
All I can manage is a nod.
He closes the distance in one step, pulling me against him in a warm, tight embrace.
I don’t hug him back right away. But I don’t pull away either. My tears become two waterfalls against his chest.
“I’m so sorry,” he rasps into my hair. “I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”
He’s quiet for a long moment as he holds me tightly in one hand, while rubbing my back with the other.
He then lifts his hand from my back and cups my face. His thumb brushes away my tears.
“Tell me,” he says, voice wrecked. “Please, tell me about our baby.”
The words crack something open inside me.
“The doctor was kind after it was over. Said it wasn’t my fault. Let me hold him before they took him away.”
Scott’s thumb stills against my cheek. His expression turns even more crushed.
“Him?”
I try to smile through the fresh tears forming and blurring my vision. “I wanted to name him Michael, after your middle name. I kept thinking”—my voice breaks—“what if the stress of losing you did it? What if I carried all that grief and shame and it poisoned him?”
“No.” The word is fierce, almost violent. He shakes his head, both his hands now frame my face. “Don’t do that to yourself. None of it was your fault. It was mine.”
I shake my head. “I should’ve—”
“Stop.” His voice cracks on the word. “It’s mine. For leaving. For not being there. For every single day you carried him alone.”
I swallow hard. The candlelight flickers across his face, catching the sheen in his eyes.
“He would’ve been perfect.” His voice is hoarse. “Just like his mother.”
“Don’t.” I turn my gaze away. “Don’t romanticize me. I’m not perfect. I’m broken. I spent ten years hating you.”
His forehead rests against mine. Our breaths mingle—ragged, uneven. The storm shrieks louder outside, but in here, the only sound is our hearts trying to find the same rhythm again.
He wraps his arms around me. Arms lock around my back, pulling me impossibly closer. For a long moment, we continue to just breathe, tasting of salt, rain, and grief.
Then his mouth finds mine.
The kiss isn’t careful. It isn’t possessive. It’s pure, aching need. Like ten years of hunger and regret are compressed into this one all-consuming kiss. I taste the salt of our tears and the faint edge of wine still on his breath.
One of his hands fists in my hair, tilting my head back.
I rest my arms around his torso.
When his mouth travels down my jaw and his teeth graze the pulse at my throat, a moan rips out of me that’s quickly swallowed by thunder.
“Scott—” I breathe.
“Tell me to stop,” he rasps against my skin. His lips brush the spot he just bit. “Say the word, and I’ll stop.”
I can’t.
I don’t want to.
“Don’t,” I whisper, fingers now having traveled to his shoulder, digging into his skin. “Please don’t stop.”
His growl hits low against my throat—rough, frayed, like he’s been holding himself together too long and the thread has finally snapped.
One hand slides down my back, bunching the soaked sundress until the hem clears my thighs, and cool air hits skin that’s been burning since he popped back into my life. The other hand cups my jaw, thumb dragging through the mess of rain and tears he still can’t wipe away. Then he lifts me.
My legs lock around his waist like they never forgot the shape of him.
He carries me three steps to the bed. The mattress dips under our weight. Scott settles above and surrounding me—solid heat, wet skin, rainwater dripping from his hair onto my collarbone, mixing with the salt already there.
For one long moment, we just breathe. He holds me tight against his chest. He leans his forehead to mine. I can feel his heart slamming against my ribs like it’s trying to reach mine through bone and ten years of silence.
“I need to see you,” he rasps, voice cracked open. “All of you. Please.”
That please slices me open wider than any knife ever could.
I nod—shaking, tears still leaking—and lift my arms. His thumbs hook under the thin straps of my sundress—slow, reverent, like he’s afraid the fabric might dissolve if he moves too fast. Rainwater has turned it nearly transparent; every inch of me is already on display, but he wants the last veil gone.
The dress slides up, over my head, and lands somewhere behind us with a wet slap.
My bra and panties cling uselessly, translucent from rain.
His fingers tremble at the edges as he unhooks the bra, slides the straps down my arms, and lets it fall.
My skin is all goose bumped and flushed.
My nipples are tight from cold and want and the way his eyes devour me like he’s starving.
“Jesus, Lyla.” His voice is gravel. He sits back on his heels between my thighs, palms skating up my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. “You’re more beautiful than I remembered. And I remembered every fucking detail.”
I swallow hard. “You had ten years to forget.”
“Never.” He leans down, mouth hovering over one nipple, breath hot. “Every deployment. Every night I couldn’t sleep. It was always your face. Your laugh. The way you tasted.” His tongue flicks out—once, testing the nub. Then he sucks hard, drawing a gasp from me that echoes in the room.
My fingers dig into his wet hair. “Scott—”
He switches to the other side, delivers the same rough worship, same growl vibrating through me. One hand slides down, cupping me through soaked panties. Not pushing yet. Just holding. Feeling how drenched I am for him.
“How many others?” The question slips out before I can stop it—quiet, cracked. I hate that it still matters.
He freezes. Lifts his head. Eyes dark, pained. “A handful. None lasted longer than a night or two.” His thumb hovers over the cotton covering my clit. “None of them were you. I’d close my eyes and picture you instead of them. Every time.”
My throat burns. “I tried, too. A few times. Always ended with me crying in the shower afterward, wishing it was you touching me.” I arch into his hand, begging him to circle his thumb there. “It never stopped hurting.”
He exhales like I’ve punched him. “I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there when you lost him.” His forehead drops to my stomach—right over the place our baby once was. “I should’ve been holding you. Telling you it wasn’t your fault. Begging you to let me stay.”
Tears slip hot down my temples. “You can hold me now.”
He does. Both arms band around my waist, face pressed to my skin like he’s trying to crawl inside me and rewrite history. Then he kisses lower—open-mouthed, desperate—trailing fire down my ribs, over the soft curve of my belly.