Chapter 13 Cam #2
I drop to my knees beside the bed and reach out, resting my hand on her shoulder. The smoothness of her skin under my calloused palms makes me shiver, and the heat that seeps from her and through me warms every part that has felt so fucking cold and dead since she walked away from me that night.
Don’t.
I can’t let myself fall under this spell again.
I can’t let myself want.
“Ivy, you’re not okay…”
Her body trembles as she sobs again, turning her head further into the pillow and away from me.
Shit.
I’m making things worse by being here, and while I’m relieved that she isn’t ill and that the baby’s okay, this constant agony she’s suffering because of me isn’t healthy for her or the child she’s growing inside her.
I squeeze her shoulder and push to my feet. “I’ll go…”
Her hand slides over my hand and catches it before I can pull away. Trembling fingers curl tightly with mine. “Please, don’t leave me, Cam.”
If I ever had any hope of getting out of here with a single piece of my heart intact, it evaporates with the power of her words and the pure desperation in her voice.
This woman despises me and what I’ve done to her, but she can’t do this alone.
At least, not tonight.
Ivy tilts her head back toward me, her tear-soaked eyes meeting mine. “Please stay…”
Whatever else she might want to say is swallowed by another sob, and she clings to my hand as if she’s terrified of what might happen if I pull it away, while I’m terrified of what will happen if I don’t.
It will be something she’ll regret.
I somehow know that with every fiber of my being, but I still toe off my boots and slide into bed behind her.
The bed she shared with Drew.
The bed I swore I’d never get in.
But there are so many things I swore I’d never do, so many lines I never thought I’d cross or roads I never believed I would walk, let alone sprint down them headlong without any way of ever going back.
And this one is so warm and inviting.
Ivy pulls my hand down around her, urging me closer, and I shift until my chest presses against her back, her entire body molded to mine so perfectly. She snuggles deeper as my palm settles on the swell of her stomach over hers.
I link our fingers together and bury my face in her hair, inhaling her scent, dragging it into my lungs the way I do the smoke from my cigarettes because I need it just as badly.
Am addicted to it.
To her.
And these months apart have left me teetering on the edge of a catastrophic fall back into the person I swore I would never become again.
Because she’s everything sweet and light and good, while everything else about me and my life is so dark and bad and wrong.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have this chance again…
To be here for her in her moment of need, to give her this when I’ve taken so much from her.
Sobs rack her body as she trembles against me, giving herself over completely to the emotions she has tried to bottle up and keep hidden from Marlo, Trina, Mom, and me…
She wanted me to walk out of here without seeing her like this.
She wanted me to believe she was okay.
But she’s so far from it.
I hold her tightly, slipping my other hand under her and across her chest so I can feel her heart beating under my palm and her ribs heaving with each anguished sound she releases.
My eyes burn, and I squeeze them closed, pressing a kiss to the back of her head.
“I’m so sorry, Ivy. It’s all my fault.” The apology I’ve been choking on and holding back since that night she found me in the studio flows out uncontrolled now in a tidal wave of overwhelming emotions I can no longer contain.
“Drew should be here with you right now, holding you like this, helping you through this pregnancy. You should be planning your life together, the nursery, shopping for all the baby clothes and toys, picking names, and I’m the reason he’s not here.
” I swallow a sob, trying to push myself to say what I might never be able to again.
“But it doesn’t mean you’re alone. Please don’t ever think that. ”
Ivy heaves out another anguished sound and shakes her head. “But I am. I don’t know how to do this, Cam. I don’t know how to do it without him.”
I tighten my grip on her until her trembling makes my body start to shake, too.
Until it feels like my strong grip is the only thing holding either of us together anymore.
“You’re the strongest person I know, Ivy.
Look at what you’ve already survived. And now, you have this.
” I press my palm firmly against the swell of her belly.
“You have this gift from Drew. A son or a daughter who’s going to have all the best parts of him, all those qualities I lack that he had, all those things you loved about him, and every time you look at him or her—”
“Her.”
“What?”
She glances back at me, the corner of her lips twitching slightly. “It’s a girl. I found out last week.”
My brain short-circuits for a moment.
Everything goes blinding white, then onyx black, before the room around me starts to return.
Drew is going to have a daughter…
I’m going to have a niece…
Who’s going to grow up without her father.
Images of Drew chasing a little dark-haired girl down the beach, splashing in the waves, laughing and smiling, and so filled with joy wash through my head, so vivid. So crystal clear. As if it were a real memory instead of a fantasy that can never come true.
But that doesn’t mean Ivy and their daughter are alone.
Never alone.
“She is going to know how much her father loved her, Ivy, because you’re going to tell her every day.
So will her grandmother and everyone else who knew Drew.
And she’s going to grow up with the best mom in the world, who’s going to love her fiercely and protect her and give her everything she needs to thrive.
You’re going to do it.” I feather my lips across her temple, wanting so badly to do so much more for her than merely give her words that may mean nothing.
“You’re going to be okay. I promise you that. ”
She shakes her head almost frantically, her hair brushing my face. “You don’t know that.”
I nod, pressing my lips to the top of her head again.
“I do. Because you deserve it, Ivy. After everything you’ve suffered because of me, you deserve the world, and I wish I could give it to you.
I wish I could give him back.” That vise that wrapped around my chest the moment Drew died and has slowly tightened with each emotional blow somehow finds room to constrict even more, trying to steal my breath and words.
But I need to say them. I have to get them out.
“Every minute of every day, I think about it, Ivy. I think about that night and how differently I could have done things, how things should have gone. And how every single decision I made after that night was the wrong one. Not only for me, but for you, and for Drew. For this baby. For all of us. For the world. And now, I’m not the one really suffering the repercussions of it.
You are, and I’m so fucking sorry for that. ”
It feels more like a goodbye than an apology.
Probably because it is.
This won’t happen again.
She won’t allow me to see her this vulnerable. She won’t let me see her this weak. She will return to being the strong, stubborn Ivy who snatched that bottle from my hand and ensured I didn’t flush all my hard work down the fucking toilet in a moment of desperation.
So, I bury my face in her hair again and just hold her, letting her cry as my own tears soak into her thick, dark strands. She tightens her grip on my hand, her fingers entwined with mine over her stomach, and we lie like that for what feels like an eternity.
In the dark, neither of us say anything to break the silence, and when her sobbing finally stops, her body finally still, I press a kiss to the top of her head again and start to slip away, but she tightens her hold on my hand.
“Please stay…”
Her request seems loud even though it’s barely a whisper.
“You don’t want that, Ivy.”
She can’t want that.
But she nods without looking at me. “I do. At least, right now.”
She’ll hate me again come morning.
And that’s okay.
Right now, I have to give her what she needs, even if it kills me.
“I’d do anything for you, Ivy, give you anything you need. Anytime. Anywhere. Forever. All you have to do is ask.”
“I’m asking you to stay…”