Chapter 21
Despite Ashley’s protests, I got in the car.
“Fine, chase after him in your condition,” Ashley said through the Mustang’s window. “But Tyson and I are going to be right behind you.”
I nodded. Ashley lightly patted the roof of the car before jogging across the lawn of Miss Kaye’s house and telling her kids to get into Tyson’s truck.
My heart thudded as I adjusted the seat back to get my belly off the steering wheel and fumbled with the keys. Beau was probably at the manor by now. His mom and aunt had likely beaten me there since they wasted no time getting into Cheryl’s white BMW and speeding off.
I blew out a breath as I gently rolled across the lawn and dropped onto the curb below, holding my rocking belly with a wince.
Tyson said he had no idea what had gotten into Beau when he stormed out of the baby shower, but I knew.
I knew as soon as Beau looked back at me as he got into the pink Bel-Air.
He had trusted me not to hurt him and I had just blown through him like a cannonball.
Tears trickled out of the corners of my eyes as I drove, but I wiped them away and sucked up the ones that threatened to fall.
I didn’t regret announcing that Beau and I weren’t together because it was true.
I was never anything more to him than his friend and the mother of our twins, but that look he gave me before he drove away nearly tore me apart.
I didn’t want to disappoint him by staying with him and I hadn’t wanted to hurt him when I eventually left, but Beau had made that impossible. I couldn’t fucking win!
My belly twitched as Brady thumped in my belly, then Annie followed.
I gave the babies a reassuring pat. “Don’t worry, kids. We’re just going to find Daddy and…have a hard conversation.”
I turned onto the country road that led to the manor and cursed every bump I hit. No matter how slowly I drove, Annie and Brady knocked into each other at the slightest dip in the pavement.
The sun was beginning to set when the Mustang crawled up the driveway to Fontaine Manor. I parked in front behind Cheryl’s BMW and slowly heaved my body out of the car. I smashed the pad of my thumb against the front door’s sensor. As soon as the lock clicked open, I flung open the door.
“Beau?” I called as I waddled into the dark foyer.
No answer.
I hissed out a breath and headed to the elevator to see if Beau was hiding in his room when I caught a blur of white fluff in the corner of my vision.
I turned my head toward the back doors and found Titus jumping up and pawing at the glass. I met him outside and he let out a booming bark just before a crack like a gunshot echoed through the dusk.
My heart leapt into my throat. My head whipped around to the source of the noise—a copse of pecan trees down the hill. What the hell was Beau doing?
Titus pressed his wet nose into the palm of my hand and then ran off the patio toward the trees.
I furrowed my brows just as a series of cracks broke the silence, the sounds not uniform enough to have come from a gun. Cursing under my breath, I picked up the hem of my white skirt and followed Titus down the gentle slope into the trees.
Cows mooed from the distant pasture. My hands cradled my heaving belly as I struggled to keep pace with Titus. Didn’t Beau consider that I was too fucking pregnant for his nonsense?
I was damn near out of breath when I finally found him. His face and bare chest glistened with sweat as he picked up a nearby log and set it on a stump. He swung the ax in his hands and split the log in two with the same loud crack I had heard earlier.
Titus sat beside me, on guard. I leaned my shoulders against the trunk of a pecan tree as I caught up with my breath.
An unorganized pile of newly-split wood rested only a few feet away.
Amongst the grass and leaves were long scraps of fabric, like Beau had torn his shirt clean in half before deciding to play lumberjack.
Once I had enough air in my lungs, I called out, “What the fuck are you doing?”
Beau looked up right before he raised his ax again and his eyes turned steely. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m preparing for a bonfire.”
He swung the ax on another log. Crack.
I swallowed. “And…what do you intend on burning?”
Beau hissed out a tense breath and picked up the splintered half of the log. “Wood, Olivia. If you want to make up a story for your little friends about how I incinerated your clothes or the twins’ teddy bears in a fit of rage, be my fucking guest.”
I folded my arms. “How dare you think that I’d ever lie like that. I’m only concerned about you.”
“Why?” he huffed as he tossed the log into the grass. With a big swing of his arms, he stuck the ax into the stump and turned to me with his hands resting on his hips. “We aren’t together, remember?”
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. “Beau, I told you months ago that I never wanted anything serious.”
“A bit late for that, isn’t it?” He scoffed. “Having babies together is pretty serious. So is living together, and sleeping together every night, and taking you to every doctor’s appointment.”
My eyes popped open. “Don’t you twist our circumstances—as if any of it was my idea! You inserted yourself into every aspect of my life because you said it was for the good of the twins, not because you wanted a relationship with me!”
Pecan shells crunched under his feet as he took a few slow steps toward me and leveled my glare. “And you didn’t have to keep fucking me, but you did. You can’t stand here and say that was for the good of the twins.”
An imaginary fist wrapped around my heart and squeezed. My lower lip twitched once, the only hint of emotion I dared to let show. “That was a mistake.”
“You don’t have to remind me.” He turned away and walked toward the stump. “I’m the biggest mistake of your life—that’s what you said at Christmas. The pregnancy was like prison and your only crime was me.”
He yanked the ax out of the stump and flashed me a cruel smirk. “Well, good news, sugar. Your sentence is almost up.”
He picked up one of the split halves and set it atop the stump.
I rested my head against the bark of the pecan tree as another crack shot through the air. “Beau…you aren’t a mistake. I don’t want a relationship, but it has nothing to do with you.”
He ignored me, tossing the split pieces of wood into his pile and picking up another half of the log.
I chewed on my lower lip. How could I possibly get him to understand? I didn’t want to hurt him—not by leaving him and not by being with him either.
“I j-just…” I stammered, my eyes falling to Titus as if he could help me. “I promised myself I would never commit to anyone after my dad left.”
Crack.
“For fuck’s sake, Olivia,” Beau huffed as he tossed the ax aside and stomped through the grass toward me. “Really? You’re going to blame your dad?”
I furrowed my brows. “It’s the truth!”
“It’s pathetic.” He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at me. “You’re going to deny yourself a potential lifetime of happiness with another person because of what some asshole did more than twenty years ago?”
“It’s a lot more complicated than that!”
“It’s a bullshit excuse and you know it. What if I blamed my dad for all my fucked up choices?”
“You do.”
He flung out his arms. “And look where that got me! I’m practically a hermit. I have no friends and no real accomplishments. The only bright spot in my life was you, but that crashed and burned too.”
Beau pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a long sigh.
“At Christmas, we had that conversation about trying.” His hand fell from his face and he looked at me with softer eyes.
“I tried, Olivia. Everything you needed, I provided. Everything you wanted, I gave you. And…I’ll keep trying.
Every day. If it’s for you, nothing is too much. ”
I took quick breaths as I squeezed my arms into my chest, forcing myself not to cry. I couldn’t crumble now, not when I was drawing the line in the sand that I should have made long ago.
But I was a weak, foolish woman, and I had to know.
“Why?” I asked breathlessly. “We wouldn’t have picked each other if circumstances were different, so why do you keep trying for me?”
“If circumstances were—?” His brows furrowed for a moment before he let out a short, exasperated sigh. “Damnit, Olivia, you’re so focused on how we got here that you can’t even see where we are.”
“And where are we?”
His brows stayed pinched as his eyes bored into me. “How can you not see—?”
Beau held his breath and his strong frame shook like he struggled under an invisible weight.
Though in that moment he was Atlas with his whole world on his shoulders, his brows softened and his fists loosened at his sides.
A gentle breeze brushed the strands of sweat-soaked hair off his forehead.
His throat bobbed with a slow swallow, like he was preparing to announce a verdict.
I suffocated at the sight of him, realizing with paralyzing horror exactly what he was about to say.
My head shook as I whispered, “Beau, don’t.”
“Too late,” he replied softly, a wan smile on his face. “I’m in love with you, Olivia.”
I clenched my teeth to stop the tears that threatened to fall. My poor Beau Fontaine, what had I done to you? How could I have let you spiral this far?
I had to stop this, for his own good.
My lip trembled, but I lifted myself off the bark and straightened my spine. “Beau, I…I tried too. You gave me everything I could have ever wanted, but I can’t go where you want to lead me.”
His face fell as I turned away and my heart nearly split in two.
I clutched my arms as I forced out my next words. “I’m…I’m going to stay with Ashley until the twins are born.”
The air crumpled around us as I walked away from him, each of my steps heavier than the last. I was nearly back to the manor before I heard grass crunching beneath boots.