44
44
Liberty
Standing outside my apartment door, I stared at it. I couldn’t do this. I needed it, but I couldn’t do it. As much as having a job like this along with a place to live had changed my life, it also meant I would have to allow Wallace back into my world.
I touched my stomach. I’d wanted a good job and a safe place to live before he was born, but not at this cost. Wallace was my past. He didn’t get to control my life. If I stayed here, I might as well hand over my independence. This was just another man taking care of me.
Why Wallace was so determined to get me back I didn’t understand. One would think being pregnant with another man’s baby would be enough to send him away for good.
The only thing I could figure was that he thought of me leaving him as losing, and Wallace never liked to lose. He thought he’d won this time too. It had been all over his face today. When he stopped by my office on his way out, he told me to let him know at any time if I changed my mind about dinner. He had stood there for a moment, grinning as if he thought I was going to go with him because he’d given me all that I had wanted.
He had no idea what I wanted, and he couldn’t give it to me.
Tomorrow, I’d begin looking for somewhere else to live and another job. Pressing the code outside my door, I waited for the green light and then opened the door and walked inside. Defeat weighed down my shoulders as I dropped my purse on the table by the door, then started to walk into the living area.
My heart slammed against my chest as I opened my mouth to scream when I realized who was standing in my apartment.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, placing my hand over my stomach. “You.” I shook my head. “How are you in my apartment?”
The shock had rattled me, but the toxic mix of anger and hurt stirred together as I straightened my shoulders and looked into Liam’s eyes.
“You know what?” I said, “I don’t want to know. Just leave. Today has been a bad one, and then you show up like this. I can’t. I just can’t.”
Would it ever not hurt to look at him? Would my heart not feel as if it were breaking all over again?
“If I’d stayed outside, you’d have never let me in.” His voice was hoarse, as if he were sick.
I studied him, starting to worry about his health. No. I had to stop that. He wasn’t mine to be concerned about. Even if he had dark circles under bloodshot eyes. What if he was sick? He’d come to tell me. Panic caused my heart to escalate more than it already was from his appearance.
“Are you okay?” I blurted.
He shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’ve not been okay since I walked into our house and you were gone. I’ve not been okay since I picked up that photo of our son and realized I’d drunk so goddamn much, trying to numb the pain in my chest over how I’d treated you, that I slept through the ultrasound appointment. I’ve not been okay since I read that note and my dark, fucked-up soul was shredded.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, needing some form of protection from this. His words couldn’t be trusted. I had done that over and over again, only to be led to different levels of pain. Levels I hadn’t known about until him.
“Don’t, Liam. I can’t do this. Not anymore. I’m providing for myself. Proving to you that I’m not some charity case. Earning the respect that I want from you and our child. Today hasn’t been good for me. And you coming in here, saying these things, only rips off the Band-Aid I managed to put in place. So, please, leave.”
I stepped back so he had a straight shot to the door. I would fall apart once he was gone. But not yet. I had to get him out of here first.
He took a step, and then the agony began again. I wanted to close my eyes so I couldn’t see him go; maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much.
The second step didn’t come. He stopped and was just closer to me now.
“There is a problem with that. You wanted me, but I need you.” His thick, raspy voice cracked on the last word. “Liberty, you claimed my soul long before I realized your hold on it. When I did, it scared the fuck out of me. I believed things about you that were lies. And even then”—he slid a finger under my chin and tilted my head back so that I had to look at him—“I fell in love with you.”
My heart could not listen to this.
Shaking my head, I took his hand from me and stepped back. “No, you don’t get to come in here and say that. I know about Selena, Liam. She met me in the parking lot of the hospital after the ultrasound. She told me how you felt trapped by me. Called me names. Accused me of getting pregnant on purpose and that you resented me for it.”
Tears blurred my vision, and I wished like hell I could control my crying better. I didn’t want to ever cry in front of this man again.
Liam took two long strides, and before I could move again, his hands cupped my face. The fierce expression as he looked down at me kept me still instead of fighting to get free of his touch.
“She is a goddamn liar. I never once told her about you being pregnant. I never wanted her. Even when I was with her, I didn’t feel anything, Liberty. I’d already been ruined by this gorgeous little bartender who had rocked my world. No woman was ever going to reach me after that. I didn’t know it. Hell, I might have gone the rest of my life alone because I’d walked out of that motel room. I had no idea that a broken condom was going to be what gave me life. Gave me you.”
He wiped at my tears with his thumbs as he continued to cup my face with his hands.
I would be lying if I said his words weren’t threading through me, mending things I’d believed would be broken forever. I loved him. I was sure I’d love him until I took my last breath, but trusting him with my heart? I wasn’t ready. There was too much wreckage on the path we’d been on. I had to make a new path. One that was safe for me and our baby.
“I need time,” I finally said. Those three words had felt like I had to rip them out of my chest.
“Darlin’.” The pleading way he said that one word almost undid me. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t let my mistakes take away the life we could have. I need you, Liberty. I’m a fucking shell without you. I can’t eat. I don’t sleep. Please.”
The glassy sheen in his hazel eyes was going to crack me open. Hurting him, seeing him like this, was brutal. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be the cause of it. But loving him also meant I had to love me.
“I need time,” I repeated.
I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to say more. I was holding it together by a thread. The thinnest thread ever made. A heavy sigh could snap it in two.
Liam closed his eyes, and his shoulders sagged. The thread was unraveling. If he didn’t walk out that door soon, I knew all my resistance would be gone.
“Okay.” His husky whisper sounded so full of regret.
If I reached out and touched him, reassured him, then all of this would have been for nothing.
He lowered his head and kissed my forehead, then dropped his hands from my face. “I will do whatever you want. Not just now, but for the rest of my life. You just tell me when and where. I’ll always be there.”
I sucked in a breath, holding in my sob, and nodded.
His eyes drifted over me once more, pausing on my stomach. His throat flexed as he swallowed, and then he turned toward the door and walked away. When he didn’t open it, I had to close my eyes so I wouldn’t look at him. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t run to him, begging him to stay.
Finally, it opened, and I stayed still until I heard the lock click in place. I wrapped my arms around our baby, tucked safely inside me, and sank to the floor and let the tears go freely.
“I had to do it for me,” I whispered as I looked down at my stomach.