Chapter 14
fourteen
FINN
I arrive back in Vermont with dread pooling in my stomach. My life has been a series of one-hundred-eighty degree turns in the past couple of months.
Even the long flight back didn’t settle the fact that I’m going to be a father. I know it’s the reality of my situation, but it still feels like an idea, a vague concept. Me? A dad? I blow out a breath.
I’m completely on edge. When the flight attendant stopped by my seat on the plane, for the first time since I got sober, I had the urge to order a drink.
I’m going to have to be careful how I navigate my path forward and make sure that I continue my recovery.
I won’t be any good to anyone if I start drinking again.
So, the first thing I do the next morning when I wake up is attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. When I get back in my car afterward, I feel as though I have my head on straight, and I’m ready to talk to Tamra. We already have plans for me to meet her at her place this evening.
She’s expecting me to give her the updates on what Harper and I accomplished for the wedding this past weekend. I feel like a total asshole knowing I’m going to pull the rug out from under her instead.
I spend the day going to the gym and putting in a longer-than-normal workout, then I head to the fire station to arrange for some time off. All the while, I consider my options.
If I don’t marry Tamra, the people I love will be affected. Hell, I don’t even know if Tamra will want to marry me after she hears what I have to say. Though I think that she will, given what she’s getting from our deal.
But marrying Tamra will mean living in Vermont for at least a few years, until our obligations are over, which means being away from my son or daughter.
Is that the kind of father I want to be in my child’s life? The one who flies in for birthdays and holidays and sees my kid more through a screen than in person? No, it isn’t.
Growing up, both my parents were active in my life.
I had a wonderful upbringing in a solid family unit, and I want the same for my child.
Harper and I aren’t a couple, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be great coparents.
Just look at Hudson and Palmer and how well they coparented Adley before they got together.
The idea of giving anything less to my child feels abhorrent.
I know what I have to do, but in doing so, I’m going to end up hurting some of the people I care most about.
When it’s time to head to Tamra’s, I take a deep breath before climbing in my truck. I don’t take the hurt I’ll be inflicting lightly. The only thing guiding me is that I need to be a presence in my child’s life. I’ll have to figure out another way to help my parents.
I knock twice when I reach Tamra’s house, then walk in as I always do.
“I’m in the kitchen,” she calls from the back of the house.
Her place is about four times the size of the place I rent since she comes from wealth. It’s where we planned to live after the wedding. The wedding that will no longer happen.
I walk into the kitchen to find her dishing out food from Chinese takeout containers onto a plate.
“Hey.” She looks up from what she’s doing then back down at the plate. “Figured we could talk over takeout. I’m starving.”
I couldn’t eat right now if there was a gun to my head. Not with what I have to tell her. “I’m not really hungry, but you go ahead.”
“Oh.” Tamra frowns at the plate she prepared for me. “I’ll just wrap it up and save it for tomorrow then.” She takes her plate over to the kitchen table, so I sit across from her.
As she scoops fried rice onto her fork, I watch for a minute, wondering how to go about bringing this up. It’s something I’ve pondered all day but haven’t come any closer to figuring out. Now that I’m here, it seems even more difficult.
She looks up from her plate, forehead wrinkled. “You’re quiet. What’s going on?”
I blow out a breath and push a hand through my hair. She clues in that something is going on with me because she straightens up and slides her plate to the side.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Why do I feel like I don’t want to hear whatever you have to say?” She holds my stare.
“Because you’re not going to like it.”
“Did something happen this weekend in Alaska? Did the event space at the resort fall through?”
I swallow hard. “No, everything with the wedding plans is fine.”
Her shoulders relax, and she slides her plate back in front of her. “Oh, thank God. You had me worried for a moment. If it’s something?—”
“It’s not about the wedding.”
She closes her mouth and blinks a couple times, finally seeming to get the gravity of what I have to tell her. “Go on…”
“You know when were broken up, and I went to Alaska for Hudson’s wedding?”
“Yeah.”
“I slept with Harper.” I let my words sink in for a moment before I continue. “She was the maid of honor, and as you know, I was the best man, and we spent a lot of time together and well… we ended up sleeping together.”
The disbelief on her face morphs into anger. “You slept with our wedding planner, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know she was who you hired until you mentioned her name when we got to Alaska.
And yes, I should have told you. But let’s not pretend I betrayed you in any way for sleeping with her in the first place.
We were broken up and had no plans whatsoever to get back together.
I was a single man.” I hate that I have to keep reminding people I didn’t cheat on anyone when I slept with Harper. I wasn’t committed.
She ignores my comment. “Did something happen between you two this weekend?” She leans back into her chair and crosses her arms in an accusing way, which only pisses me off. “And more importantly, if so, does anyone know? You could royally fuck our arrangement, Finn.”
I shake my head. “Nothing happened. We might not be romantically involved, but to the world, we’re engaged, Tamra. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“So, the two of you have just been keeping this little secret from me the whole time.” She throws her hands in the air. “I look like an idiot.”
Tamra’s not mad because she’s jealous. She’s pissed because she wasn’t in the know, and I don’t blame her. I should have just been honest with her from the start. Had I known then what I know now, I would have been.
“It’s not like that. I just didn’t see the point in upsetting you and making you uncomfortable when there was nothing between Harper and me. I never thought I’d see her again.”
“So why are you telling me this now?” She tilts her head, and it reminds me of a dog sussing out its prey.
“Because Harper is pregnant.”
She bolts up out of her seat, presses her hands to the table, and leans toward me. “Pregnant?” Her face is filled with horror, no doubt already knowing what this means for us. “Are you serious, Finn? You got her pregnant? Jesus, didn’t you use a fucking condom? How stupid are you?”
“We did use protection, but no protection is fail-safe,” I snipe back at her, sounding like my freshman health class teacher, Mrs. Barnes.
“I can’t believe this.” She walks away from the table, hands threading through her hair. “I can’t believe this.” Tamra keeps saying the sentence over and over as she paces beside the table. After a minute or so, she whips around to stare me down. “How long have you known?”
“I just found out this weekend when Harper told me.” I leave out the part where I found out accidentally. I believe Harper when she said she planned to tell me.
Tamra rolls her eyes. “How nice. The minute I’m not around, you two cuddle up to play happy little family.”
I stand from the table. “It’s not like that, Tamra.”
“Sure, it’s not.” She crosses her arms.
It’s understandable why Tamra is upset. I’m throwing all her plans into a lurch.
But if I’m honest, I feel worse for Harper.
I cringe when I think of her, secretly pregnant with my baby, watching Tamra and me trying to sell that we’re a loving, engaged couple.
What the hell must she have thought? How must she have felt watching and knowing she had to somehow tell me her news?
“I’m sorry, Tamra. I had no idea it was even a possibility.”
“Newsflash, Finn, it’s a possibility when you fuck her!” Her voice is irate, and her face is red.
I step forward. “I didn’t do anything wrong in doing so. We weren’t together, and we had zero plans on ever being together again. You’re upset because I’m fucking up your plans, I get it. But let’s not pretend it’s because we have any romantic interest in each other. I didn’t scorn you, Tamra.”
She huffs and tears her gaze away from me. “So, what does this mean?”
“I can’t marry you.” The words drop like a lead weight between us.
She whips her head back around to look at me, eyes wide before they soften.
The scary thing about Tamra is how fast her demeanor can change when something she wants is in jeopardy.
“No. We can still make this work, Finn. We’ll just tell people it happened while you were on a break. That you didn’t cheat.”
“I didn’t cheat.” My voice grows louder. I’m so damn sick of sticking up for myself.
She waves off my words as if they’re of minor consequence, and my anger grows hotter.
“People will judge us, but that doesn’t matter. As long as we still look like a loving, committed couple, we’ll both get what we want.”
Money. She means we both get our money.
Tamra needs funds for her company to finish building out the app she’s been developing for years. She doesn’t want to take on any investors because she’s convinced it’s going to be a success and wants full control and all of the profits.
When her grandfather passed a couple months back, she found out at the reading of the will that she’d been left a trust, but it would only be dispersed once she was happily married.
Apparently, he was an eccentric man who was married to his wife for more than fifty years before she passed away a year before him.
When she came to me with the idea of pretending to get back together for the sake of the trust, she sold me on the idea by offering me enough money to give my parents.
They own a small ski resort that has fallen on hard times.
Climate change means each ski season gets shorter and shorter, and you have to have the resources to be able to make an abundance of snow to keep the runs open when Mother Nature isn’t cooperating.
The market became more and more competitive as the decades rolled on and huge conglomerates gobbled up all the small resorts and invested heavily in making them over.
The money Tamra was going to give me would have allowed them to upgrade the lifts and purchase more snow-making equipment as well as overhaul the lobby and add on to the small family restaurant at the resort so it could be a real après-ski destination.
My parents have refused to sell over the years whenever they’ve been approached, but each year, the margins get tighter. I’m afraid that if they don’t do any upgrades, they won’t be able to compete, and they’ll lose the resort.
“Say something,” Tamra demands.
I shake my head. “That’s not going to work.”
“What do you mean it’s not going to work?” She grips my shirt. “You made a promise, Finn. We can still make it work. Think of your parents. Think of all their employees losing their jobs.”
She’s so fucking good it’s scary. I reach for her wrists and pull them away from me so that she lets go of my shirt. The desperation in her eyes makes me feel bad for her, but I refuse to let her ambition keep me from being a great father.
And if my parents had any idea what I had planned and the real reason I was going to marry Tamra, they’d agree.
“I’m sorry, Tamra. I am. But if I marry you, I’ll be forced to stay in Vermont. My child is going to grow up in Alaska. So, that’s where I need to be.”
Her face contorts, and she glares at me. “So, now you’re going to up and move to Alaska and play the role of baby daddy?”
I inhale a cleansing breath, grabbing for any ounce of my patience. I understand why she’s upset, but I don’t like the way she keeps referring to my unborn child or me as a father. Hell, the baby probably isn’t the size of a peanut yet, and I already feel protective.
“I’m going to do what’s right. And marrying you is no longer it.”
My words hang between us for a minute.
She must see the resolve in my face because her anger shifts to cold indifference. “Fine. The only thing I ask is that you let me announce our breakup and that you don’t tell anyone about our arrangement. I’d rather people look at me with pity than think I’m desperate.”
I inwardly roll my eyes. This is the reason it never worked out with Tamra and me—her consistent need to make sure the narrative was her own. “Fine. Whatever.”
I don’t really care what people will think or say about me when they find out our engagement is off. But I’m going to have to bring my parents up to speed before I return to Alaska so that they’re not blindsided at the one-eighty my life just took.
“I hope someday you find someone to marry for the right reasons.”
She huffs and rolls her eyes, so I see myself out.
I can handle disappointing Tamra. And my parents. But I don’t think I could live with feeling as though I disappointed my child, which is why I know I’m making the right decision.