Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
JADE
Devon runs down the stairs so fast I whirl around, my eyes wide and my heart racing.
“Fucking hell, what now?!” I yelp.
"She was at the bar," he says. "Last night. Watching you."
The words don't click at first. They float somewhere above my head like a cloud.
"What?"
"She left me a voicemail. Said she saw you working, and called you—" He stops, his jaw clenching so hard I can see the muscle jump.
"Called me what?"
Devon shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. What matters is that she's escalating. Officer Gray is pushing the order through today, but—"
"What did she call me, Devon?"
Why do I even want to know? I’m a sucker for punishment.
He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they're wet.
"Fat and tired. The same shit she always spouts—but you’re fucking beautiful, Jade.”
The words land where they always do—right in the center of me, the place I've been trying to protect my entire life. It’s like Devon’s compliments don’t matter when her words are around.
Right. I need to breathe.
"Jade—"
"She was there—at my work? Watching me pour drinks and wipe down tables and—" I’m yelling at him now. "She was watching me, Devon, and I didn't even know. Do you know how fucking violating that is?!”
I think about last night. Samuel at the bar, then the comments flooding my phone. How tired I felt. How sick of everything I was. When Devon came and picked me up because I was a wreck on the floor.
And Mila was there somewhere, taking notes.
Fat and tired.
She's not wrong, is she? I am tired. I'm so fucking tired I can barely stand. And my body—
I look down at myself, already detesting what I see.
"Hey." Devon's hands find my shoulders. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Go wherever you're going right now. In your head."
But I'm already there. I'm eighteen again, standing in the locker room while Mila's laugh echoes off the tiles.
I'm standing in front of our bathroom mirror at three AM, listing every flaw like a grocery receipt.
I'm watching pregnant women in supermarkets and pressing my hand against my empty stomach, yearning for a family.
"Jade. Look at me."
I can't. If I look at him, I'll fall apart completely.
"She's pregnant," I whisper.
Devon's grip on my shoulders tightens. "Baby—"
"Don't." The word comes out harsher than I mean it to.
But fucking hell—everything is falling apart around us.
How much I wanted a baby, and now Mila—Mila who made my life hell, who wanted my husband, who kissed him on our anniversary—she gets the one thing I've been desperate for, and says it’s Devon’s!
The sob that tears out of me is ugly, but then it matches my looks, doesn’t it?
I sink to the kitchen floor, and Devon follows me down. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me against his chest, and I let myself break.
"I wanted it so badly," I choke out. "A baby. Our baby. I've wanted it for so long, and I couldn't tell you because you kept saying we needed to wait, we needed to be stable, and I was scared you didn't want it at all—"
"Jade—"
"And now she's using it against me. She knows, and I don’t know how she does, but she does. She knows what it would do to me, hearing that she's pregnant with your child, and she's doing it on purpose because she's always known exactly how to hurt me—"
The words pour out of me and won’t stop.
"I always imagine what our baby would look like," I confess, my face pressed against Devon's shirt. "Your blue eyes. Your smile. I'd lie awake at night picturing it, thinking about our future children, us as a family, and I'd feel so stupid for hoping—"
"You're not stupid." Devon's voice is rough. "You're not stupid for wanting that."
I pull back to look at him, and his face blurs through my tears. "Why does she get to be pregnant?”
"She's lying." Devon cups my face in both hands, his thumbs swiping at my tears. "About everything. The baby isn't mine. It can't be, because I never touched her. Not like that. There probably isn’t a fucking baby at all, Jade.”
Hope swells inside me but then I wonder—what if she’s not lying, and she is pregnant? I don’t give a fuck who by—how can she be a mother?
Devon is crying now, too. Tears stream down his face, dripping onto his shirt.
"Listen to me," he says. "Are you listening?"
I can’t lift my head to nod.
"You are enough. Do you hear me? Baby or no baby. Pregnant or not. You, exactly as you are, have always been enough for me."
"Devon—"
"I fell in love with you when we were eighteen years old," he continues, his voice cracking. "You were wearing that blue shirt, trying to disappear into the background, and all I could see was you. Not Mila. Not any of those other girls. You."
I shake my head. "You could have had anyone—"
"I didn't want anyone. I wanted the girl who made me laugh. The girl who listened to me ramble about my dreams for hours. The girl who saw past all my bullshit and loved me, anyway. The most beautiful girl in the world.” His forehead presses against mine. "That's you, Jade. That's always been you."
"I'm so scared," I whisper.
"Of what?"
"That you'll realize she's right. That I'm not—that I'm too—"
“Fuck that. You could gain a hundred pounds or lose a hundred pounds or never have children or have ten children, and I would still want you. I would still choose you. Every single day for the rest of my life. Mila is nasty and lonely—so how perfect is she again?”
I search his face. I love him so damn much. My heart twists like it wants to snuggle against his, and all of a sudden, I just want my husband.
"I love you," I say.
"I love you too." Devon kisses my forehead, my wet cheeks, the corner of my mouth. "And we're going to get through this, I swear.”
I don't know how long we sit on the kitchen floor, holding each other. My eyes burn and my throat is raw, and my body aches from crying.
But something feels different.
We’re not healed—not yet. The wounds are still there, still bleeding. But I don't feel alone with them.
Devon's fingers interlock with mine like they were made to fit there. Maybe they were.
"Whatever happens next," he whispers, "we face it together. No more secrets or lies. No more trying to protect each other from the truth."
I squeeze his hand.
We have no other choice.