29. Ashley
29
ASHLEY
C urled up in bed, I'd done nothing but stare at the wall and cry for two days straight. I took Thursday and Friday off work because I couldn't fathom the thought of seeing Jack. At this point, I was considering tendering my resignation and moving on to one of the jobs offered to me in New York. I'd be farther away from Dad and alone to raise this baby, but I wouldn’t have to see Jack at all. The way my heart felt, I didn't want to.
I had considered the idea that the entire thing had been a big misunderstanding. I knew Jack, and I knew he carried a wound from his first marriage. Learning to trust a new person could be scary. I had to learn to trust again after Sam hurt me. I wanted to give Jack the benefit of the doubt and just talk to him like a human being and find out where we went wrong, but I also knew his temper. I had no interest in being shouted at again.
So I'd shut my phone off on Wednesday and I hadn't turned it back on since. Dad knew where I was if he wanted to speak to me. I had everything I needed in my apartment to hunker down for a few more days, and not even Julie could lift my spirits right now. I just wanted solitude.
I hadn’t eaten. I'd barely slept. I kept a barf bag on my nightstand in case I had to throw up but thankfully, my morning sickness had taken some time off. Maybe baby Stewart was considerate and understood that Mommy needed some time to rest. The thought kept me company as I dozed on and off until someone knocking on my door woke me up.
From deep within sleep, I stirred and heard the sound. There was no way for me to know who it was without looking through the peephole. It could be Julie or Dad. I'd been ignoring everyone, and I knew both of them would be concerned. Or it could be Jack, ready to tear my head off again, this time for ignoring him, or with more accusations of my running to Sam.
My feet were lead as I plodded to the door and stood on tiptoes to peek through the hole. Jack stood there looking ragged and haggardly. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, hanging like hammocks above his cheeks. His hair was standing on end, sticking out at odd angles. And it looked like he'd slept in his clothing. I felt sorry for him. This must have been hitting him as hard as it was me, and my heart couldn't stay angry when I saw the sight in front of me. Maybe he was here to apologize.
He knocked again, but when I undid the deadbolt and chain, the knocking stopped. I turned the lock on the knob and pulled the door open slowly, and I could tell he was hungover. He smelled like whiskey and sweat, but that didn't deter me. It only gave me more sympathy. If I'd have been able to have a drink, I might have downed a bottle of wine and sobbed all night too.
"Jack," I said softly in greeting, and he stalked into my apartment past me. His shoulder bumped into mine, and I got the feeling he wasn't here to apologize. The angry demeanor that had been his default for days hadn't changed.
"You told him?" he growled as he started pacing. I closed the door softly and turned to watch him. His gait was awkward and clunky. He rubbed his temples like he had a headache, and I had no clue what he was talking about.
"Jack, what are you saying?" Even in all that had happened, I wanted to reach out to him and comfort him. He was a total jerk to me, and he didn't deserve my compassion, but I felt it. It was what love did, what love was. And I loved him.
"You went to your father and told him we were having an affair." It wasn't a question. It was a statement that came out sounding like an accusation. Obviously, Dad had gone to Jack, and I didn’t know what to expect now. Dad didn't know Jack was oblivious about the baby. And now I didn’t know which way this conversation would go.
"Could we sit down and talk about this?" I reached for a chair at the dining table as my belly started to rumble. I didn’t know if it was the sudden shift from lying to standing or if it was the nerves, but I thought I might throw up.
"Sit down and talk? Now you want to sit down and talk? You expect me to just pretend everything is okay when you've been lying to me?" Jack stopped on a dime and hovered over me as I lowered myself onto the chair to sit. I didn't recall ever lying to him about anything. I'd been nothing but transparent. Unless he was meaning the baby, but that wasn't a lie so much as not knowing the right time to tell him.
"Jack, please sit down and talk to me."
"You're pregnant." The dagger hit my heart and my breath caught. "You weren't even going to tell me about this?" His angry pacing continued. Feet stomping on the floor, he walked past me then back toward the counter. I could tell he'd had a lot to drink the night before and he wasn't feeling well.
"Jack, I'll get you some water. Please sit." He had to calm down or I was going to lose it, and I hated being angry enough to shout.
"No. I'm not sitting down. How do I even know if that thing is mine?" He gestured wildly with his hand, and my chest felt like it was on fire. "How do I know it's not that man's!" His nostrils flared, and he shouted so loud it startled me. "Tell me! How am I supposed to trust you didn't?—"
"Enough!" I screamed, and I shot to my feet. My chest was heaving, my stomach ready to turn inside out, and I'd had enough of this man's crap. "Sit down!" I shouted and pointed at the chair, and he angrily glared at me, but he listened.
This wasn't my personality or preference, the yelling and shouting. I preferred to be more like my father. Rational, calm discussion was always better than angry or violent communication. Screaming wasn't good for me or the baby. So I took a deep breath and started talking, and I calmed as I spoke.
"First of all, I could never—I would never—do something like that." He was staring at me with pleading eyes as I continued. "I have been in love with you for months. I told you a long time ago that you didn't have to worry about Sam at all. He left me standing at the altar. I will never, ever feel anything for him ever again except a respectful, professional relationship."
"But…” Jack's weak protest spilled out of his mouth, but I didn’t give him a chance to go on yet.
"I haven't told you about the baby because you made it very clear to me and my whole family that you weren't interested in a relationship. You didn't have time for one." I felt like I could finally get things off my chest for the first time in this relationship, and it felt good. "It hurt me, but I was willing to try to work through that, and hopefully, you’d change your mind.
"But then you were constantly moody and irrational. You'd be greedy for my body and attention one day, and the next day, you'd be angry and going off on me. You were possessive, telling me I was yours and you didn’t share, but you had no intention of committing. You’re too afraid of what Dad will think. I can't do that, Jack. When I knew I was pregnant, I knew I needed stability, and you're out of control."
"Ashley, I?—”
"You don't own me, Jack. But even still, I would never have done the things you accused me of." Tears welled up, and I managed to swallow the bile in the back of my throat instead of throwing up. Getting all of that off my chest lightened the weight on my shoulders.
"But you were sneaking around with him behind my back. You held his hand, hugged him. He had your phone." The look in his eyes was questioning now, but not in rage. He looked confused.
"He had my phone because he was putting the 12-digit code into my notes app so I could log on to the hospital system." I pulled my chair closer to his and sat down. "I might have touched his hand, but it was a friendly gesture. And I hugged him in the hallway outside the boardroom because you weren't around and I needed comfort. When Sam told me he wasn't going to tell the board about our relationship, it was a natural response. But it meant nothing, Jack. I'm in love with you. Not him."
I reached for his hand, and he let me take it, and now he was calm. He looked sad, not angry, which was how I felt too. He and I had something special, or I thought we did. I didn't even know what had made things go so horribly wrong. But suddenly, it didn't feel like such a stretch that with the right amount of time, communication, and effort, we could still have a future.
"Ashley, I…” Jack's words hung in the air and he shook his head. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. When I saw you with him every single time, the only thing I could think about was Barbra and that man." His eyes narrowed, and pain lengthened the already dark circles.
The lightbulb inside my head went off and I realized why Jack had been so insanely angry and jealous. I knew Barbra had cheated on him, but I hadn't realized how badly that had hurt him or how deep the trauma went. Jack wasn't mistrusting me. He was reliving his worst nightmare, and my sneaking around to get Sam to help me hadn't helped him feel any better.
Jack pulled on my hand, and I sat on his lap and wrapped my arms around him. "You're really pregnant?" he asked, burying his face in my chest and breathing me in.
"I'm really pregnant."
He looked up at me, confused. "But how? We've used protection except for that once, and that was less than a week ago." I could see the doubt in his eyes, as if he were searching for an answer, and anxiety was mounting again. I wanted to put his mind at ease.
"I promise you, Jack, I could never hurt you like that. If we had a problem, I'd never go somewhere else for comfort. I would talk to you about it and we'd work it out." I kissed his forehead. "That night on Dad's boat. You just pulled out, but you didn't do it in time. Remember?"
The confusion in his eyes abated and emotion washed over him. It was like he wasn't allowing himself to believe it at first, that perhaps I'd been lying and that trauma tried to tell him not to trust it, that he'd get hurt. But slowly, the fog lifted and tears welled up in his eyes. He smiled and whispered, "I'm gonna be a dad?"
I nodded again, and that same giddy warmth I felt when I first took the test returned. It made my heart swell up with pride and happiness. I leaned down to kiss him, and he responded with hunger I hadn't yet seen out of him.
"And you were never seeing Sam at all? Not once did you think of that?" His question came at a pause to breathe, but his hands gruffly pulled my face against his again. I kissed him harder, searching his mouth with mine in a feverish dance as I repositioned my body on his lap to straddle him.
"Are you kidding? When I have an Alpha like you to wake up to?"
My hands found the top buttons of his work shirt and started undoing them, and his hands gripped the backs of my thighs and pulled me more firmly onto his lap. My uncertainty about whether this would work out had been pushed to the farthest corner of my mind and my hunger to be closer to Jack took over. His hands found my hips, and he sat up, grabbed the shirt I was wearing, and pulled it over my head. My nipples were almost painfully hard against his chest, and his mouth left mine to find one of the buds.
"Jack," I moaned, my back arching into his head.
He looked up at me with that same raw hunger in his eyes. Desire and determination and love were all intertwined in one breathtaking look. "You really love me?” he growled before returning to my breast with a vengeance, his teeth grazing my nipple before lapping at it fiercely. I whimpered and wrapped my hands in his soft hair, guiding him closer as the need to be closer to him took over any reservations I had left.
“Mmm, yes. Yes, I love you.” I shuddered and ground my hips across his lap. We had way too many clothes on and this kitchen chair wasn’t the most comfortable place for this.
As if reading my mind, he growled and stood up with me in his arms and carried me to the bedroom. He didn’t break contact with my lips once as he kicked the door shut behind us, nor did he bother turning off the light, and I was glad for it. I wanted to see the fire reflected in his eyes as he devoured me the way he did the first time.
His hands gently caressed every inch of my skin as he kissed a trail down my jawline to my neck, trailing lower and lower until his scalding mouth closed over my nipple. I gasped at the contrast between his rough hands and soft mouth, arching into his touch as he licked and sucked at the sensitive nub. The fire inside me blazed hotter than before, as if it had never been extinguished. I was risking my heart for this, and I prayed it wasn’t another bad choice.