47. Jordan
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jordan
It was close to midnight by the time I made it back to the flat.
I couldn’t remember the drive from Heathrow. Couldn’t remember what I said to the cabbie or how I got through customs. Everything was white noise, and I was numb to it. There was just this single, driving force in my body that told me to get to her. Find her. Fix it.
I’d left the tour. Pulled out of the US Open without blinking. Didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. I couldn’t play. Not like this. Not while the only thing that mattered was across the ocean, hurting because of me. I’d rather torch my career than live with that reality.
I hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten since yesterday. My hands were raw from clenching them too hard on the flight, every replay of our fight digging in like barbed wire. The words I’d thrown at her wouldn’t stop looping in my skull.
But none of it mattered now. I was going to Cardiff in the morning. I was going to knock on her door, get down on my knees if I had to, and tell her I loved her. That I was sorry. That she was my everything, and I’d burn it all down before I ever let her feel like that again.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside. I stopped dead in my tracks.
The light was on.
And she was there.
She sat on the sofa in a pale sundress that looked like summer and heartbreak all at once. Her legs were tucked beneath her, arms wrapped tight around her chest, like she was holding herself together.
I thought I was hallucinating.
“Kate…” Her name scraped out of me.
She stood quickly. Her bottom lip trembled.
I dropped my bag like it meant nothing and crossed the room in three strides. My arms went around her in an instant. I held her like I’d been drowning, like she was oxygen, like my ribs might cave in from the relief of having her against me again.
Before she could even get a word out, it all spilled out of me.
“I’m sorry…I’m so fucking sorry…I didn’t mean any of it,” I said against her hair, my voice breaking. “You didn’t deserve that. I was gutted and spiralling, and I took it out on you. I should’ve shut up. I should’ve told you I loved you instead…”
“Jordan…”
“I–I love you,” I stammered. “God, I love you so much it hurts.”
“Jordan,” she said again, firmer this time. Her hands came up and cupped my face, shaking.
She looked at me like she had something to say.
And then she reached into the small bag she had on the coffee table, and placed something in my hand.
I looked down. It took a moment for my brain to register what I was looking at. Staring back at me were two vivid, pink lines.
I stopped breathing. The whole room froze.
“Is this…?”
Her voice was a whisper. “It’s real.”
I blinked again. “Kate…what…are you saying you’re…?”
She nodded. She looked fucking terrified. A tear slid down her cheek. Her voice cracked when she said it.
“I’m pregnant.”
And in that instant, everything hit me at once.
Every word I’d thrown at her. Every time I’d missed a sign. How tired she’d been. The moment on the plane. The way she’d curled into me like she was just barely holding on.
She was carrying our baby while I accused her of having nothing.
I swayed back like I’d been physically hit.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “Kate.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t understand how I hadn’t seen it. How she’d been so quick to get emotional that whole week. How I’d let her walk away with neither of us knowing about the baby inside of her.
My knees nearly gave out. I sat down hard, elbows on my thighs still clutching the test, one hand dragging through my hair like I could hold myself together by force.
I’d never hated myself more in my life.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice trembling. “We fought, and then I found out as soon as I flew home. I panicked. I thought maybe you’d think I’d done it on purpose, or that I was trying to trap you, or…”
“Stop.” My voice came out sharp. I forced myself up, closing the gap, pulling her against me again. One hand cradled her head, the other pressed over her lower stomach, over her. Over our baby.
“Don’t say sorry. Not for this. Not ever.”
I pulled back just enough to see her eyes. “You’re pregnant,” I said, firm but lovingly. “We’re having a baby?”
She let out a sob. “You’re not angry?”
I threw the test down on the sofa. “Angry?” I cupped her face in both hands, my own heart breaking apart. “Kate, I fucking love you. And you’re having my baby. Angry is the last thing I could ever feel right now.”
“Jordan…”
“Kate, I want this. You. Us. The baby. All of it. I want to spend my life making this up to you. I don’t care what it takes. You tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. No question.”
Her eyes filled, tears spilling fast.
I brushed her hair back, whispering, “You didn’t ruin anything, Kate. You gave me something I never thought I’d have. You made me believe there’s more than the game, more than winning. You make me want to be better.”
She gave a soft, disbelieving laugh through her tears. “I thought you’d panic.”
“I am panicking,” I admitted with a shaky laugh. “But not about you. Not about us. Just about whether I’ll ever be good enough for you now.”
“You already are,” she whispered.
The room went quiet.
Then she said, barely audible, “There’s something else.”
I nodded, ready for anything at this point.
“I quit my job,” she said quietly. “I’m putting my house on the market.
I made that choice before everything went to hell, I just hadn’t told you yet.
But I was never going back, Jordan. Not to that life.
I want to be with you. I want to come with you.
” She looked down and placed a hand over her stomach. “We want to come with you.”
We. I closed my eyes and felt my heart splinter open. “I don’t deserve you,” I whispered against her forehead.
“Yes, you do,” she said softly. “But you better never fuck it up again.”
A wet, shaky laugh broke out of me as I crushed her to me, holding her like she was my whole world. Because she was.
“I love you,” I murmured. “So fucking much.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “And you’re going to be such a good dad.”
I kissed her like I believed her. Like maybe I could become the man she already saw in me.
And for the first time since she walked out that door, I let myself hope again.
*******
She’d worn herself out with worry. I could hear her breathing slowing and getting deeper as she was draped across my chest, one hand curled tight against my ribs like she was holding on in her dreams. Like if she let go, it might all vanish. And I still hadn’t let her go.
Not since she looked up at me with those tear-filled eyes and said, “We want to come with you.”
Not since the word pregnant passed her lips and hit me like a freight train.
I couldn’t believe she was here. That she’d driven the whole way to London the minute she knew I was on that plane.
Her lips trembled when she told me she’d been sitting in the flat for hours before I walked in, trying to figure out how she was going to tell me.
I couldn’t believe she thought I’d be angry.
At her. It probably didn’t help that the last time she saw me I was tearing her apart in that stupid hotel room.
But Christ…I could never be angry at her about this.
I was still holding her like I might wake up and realize it was just some jet-lagged hallucination.
But she was here, and she was real. Curled next to me, carrying our child.
Jesus.
We were having a baby. I was going to be a dad.
We hadn’t been together long. A couple months. By all accounts, this should’ve felt mad. Too fast. Too much.
But somehow it didn’t. It felt inevitable, like the only thing that had ever made sense. Maybe because it was her. Because losing her, even just for a couple days, had nearly gutted me. I wasn’t making that mistake again. Not now. Not ever.
I ran a slow hand down her back. The sheet had slipped to her waist. Her sundress was somewhere on the floor. My hoodie was probably hanging off a kitchen chair. We’d barely even made it to the bedroom.
The second she told me, I couldn’t stop.
Couldn’t think. I’d needed to touch her, to hold her.
To make her feel what I couldn’t put into words.
I’d poured it all into her. Every breath, every heartbeat, every desperate second I thought I’d lost her.
I made love to her like a man who’d been drowning and finally hit shore.
Knowing she was pregnant did something to me. Something primal, like my body was overwhelmed with the need to feel her, protect her, worship her.
I’d kissed her belly. Whispered to it like an idiot. Didn’t care that she laughed at me through her tears. She looked at me like she was trying to memorise the moment, and fuck, I knew then. I’d never be the same.
It almost broke me when she kept apologising. She kept saying it wasn’t planned. That she truly forgot her pill until she realised it on the plane. That she hadn’t meant for this to happen.
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t her fault.
I’d been dragging her around the world like a man possessed.
Barely giving her space to breathe, let alone track what her body was doing.
I’d barely thought anything of it when she left her pill behind, thought it was an easy fix.
Hell, she was probably already pregnant at that point because, Jesus, I’d been all over her.
Every time she walked into a room, I lost my mind.
I couldn’t keep my hands off her. So no, I wasn’t blameless.
I should have helped her more. Should have been more attuned to what she needed.
But I didn’t give a single fuck how it happened. I cared that it was her. That this sharp, beautiful, whip-smart, strong-as-hell woman was carrying my child, and I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. I think I’d known that a while. Fuck, I’d even pictured it.
She shifted in her sleep, cheek brushing against my chest. I ran a hand through her hair, gently brushing it from her face. God, she was beautiful.
I’d told her, way back when we first got together, that all I’d ever wanted was someone who got me. Someone to share this life with. A wife, a kid in the stands, watching with pride. And now…she was here. They were.
There was no plan. No perfect timing. But it didn’t scare me. It was firing me up. I always knew I’d be a dad someday.
I didn’t know how the hell we’d tell her parents. Christ, that was going to be a conversation. But mine? My mum would be buying baby clothes before Kate even hit her second trimester. I couldn’t wait to tell her.
She murmured something, deep in sleep, then curled tighter into me. Like she was tucking herself beneath my skin. Like she finally felt safe.
I smiled as I pressed a soft kiss to her temple. “Good night, baby,” I whispered. “Both of you.”
And as the reality set in, I kept picturing it.
The future. Her watching from the stands with a bump.
Her lying on a hotel bed, a baby on her chest, sun spilling through the window.
Bleary-eyed mornings. Quiet feeds in the dark.
Long-haul flights with our child asleep between us. My family. Our family.
I was all in. Every beat of me. We just had to plan our next move.