Chapter 38
RILEY
It’s just after two in the morning when there’s a knock at the door.
I’m sitting on the bed, fully dressed, because Cayden just messaged: I talked to him. He’s coming.
Since then, I’ve been staring at the door, waiting and mentally rehearsing the speech I’ve been formulating for three days.
When the knock finally comes, I stand up with a hammering heart. Or, thinking of our baby, with two hammering hearts.
Then I open the door.
Vaughn looks terrible.
And at the same time, he looks wonderful.
He stands in the doorway looking at me with what must be uncertainty, though I’m not entirely sure, because until now, I’ve never seen Vaughn Mercer uncertain. But now he stands before the woman he abandoned, facing the answer to the question of whether she will leave him behind.
“Hi,” he says.
And that’s when I explode.
“Hi?” My voice echoes through the hotel hallway. “Hi? That’s all you have to say? Three days, Vaughn, three damn days! You bolted like some shitty cowboy riding into the sunset, and now you stand here and say Hi?”
He opens his mouth.
“No!” I raise my hand. “You don’t talk. I talk. You listen. That’s a skill you obviously still need to practice, because in the last three days, you didn’t manage to pick up the phone once, even though I called constantly. Not to mention answering a single one of my messages.”
He stares at me with an expressionless face, enduring my outburst.
“Get in here,” I say finally, because I don’t intend to have this discussion in a hotel hallway where the guy in the next room probably has his ear pressed to the wall.
Vaughn remains standing in the middle of the room, hands at his sides, like a student called to the principal’s office who knows he deserves it.
“You kidnapped me,” I say. “I forgave you. You lied to me. I forgave you. You tricked me into a marriage contract. Forgiven. You kept the fact that I’m adopted from me for weeks. Forgiven. I’ve forgiven you so much, Vaughn Mercer, that I could make a full-time job out of it.”
He looks at me. His mouth is a thin line.
“But this?” I point to the door he just walked through. “This, I don't forgive so easily. You ran away. From the parking lot. From me. From the question of whether I’m pregnant. You ran away, Vaughn, and you left me alone.”
My voice breaks on the last word. Not because I want to cry—I’ve done enough of that in the last three days.
But because the word alone carries more weight for me than for most. Twenty-seven years alone.
In the server room, behind cameras, in a life someone else planned for me.
And then came Vaughn, and for the first time, I wasn't alone, and then he left me behind in an empty hotel room in the city where it all began.
I take a breath. My hands are shaking, but my voice grows firmer.
“I’m pregnant, Vaughn. The test is positive. I’ve known for two days, and for two days I’ve been waiting for you to walk through that door so I could tell you. Not over the phone, not through Valentino, not through Cayden Miller.”
He closes his eyes as he processes this new reality.
“And now listen closely, because I’m only saying this once.”
I take a step toward him.
“I am going to have this child. Whether you’re there or not.
I’m going to move into a small house near my parents, and Loraine will show me how to make pancakes, and Howard will screw a crib together, and I will get up every single day and be there for this child.
Because I am Riley Thompson, and because in these last weeks, I’ve proven that I am stronger than anyone—including myself—ever thought possible. ”
Vaughn opens his eyes. They are wet.
“But,” I say. And this but costs me more strength than any word I’ve ever spoken.
“But I want you to be there. Not because I need you. Not because a pregnant woman has to have a man by her side. Not because it’s expected.
But because I love you, you incredibly frustrating, control-freak, emotionally stunted man who kisses like a god in an elevator and runs away from a pregnancy test like a teenager. ”
Silence. The hum of the air conditioning. The muffled roar of the city behind the windows.
Vaughn steps forward and takes me in his arms. Feeling him close to me again is the best feeling in the world, and I feel my frustration draining out of me.
“I’m afraid,” he says.
“I know.”
“I’m afraid that I carry my parents' failure within me. That everything I touch eventually breaks. That this child would be better off without a father who spent thirty years of his life filled with hate.”
“I know.”
“I walked through this city for three days trying to find a reason why I’m not the right man for you. For the child. For anything that goes beyond revenge.”
“And? Did you find one?”
He looks at me. Long and open and without a single layer of protection.
“No,” he says. “There is no reason. Cayden made that clear to me.”
I press my lips together and look at him.
“Cayden said being a father isn't a talent,” Vaughn says. “It’s a decision.”
“And? What do you decide?”
“I decide for you,” he says. “For the child. For pancakes at Loraine’s and wooden benches from Howard and a goddamn cat if you want one. I decide for everything I’ve been running from my whole life.”
“You stink,” I say.
“Three days of Vegas without sleep.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“You have to shower before you touch me.”
“Riley—”
“And you have to promise me that you’ll never run away again. No matter what happens. No matter how scared you are. You stay, Vaughn.”
“I’m staying.”
“Promise.”
He places his hands on my face. They are warm and trembling slightly. His thumb strokes my cheek, over the trail of a tear I hadn’t noticed.
“I promise,” he says. “On the lives of my parents. On Chester Street. On everything I hold sacred. I promise that I’m staying.”
I swallow, feeling how much those words mean to me.
“Now go shower,” I say. “Seriously. You smell like a polecat.”
He laughs and looks at me, but he doesn't head for the shower just yet.
“Riley,” he murmurs into my hair.
“Hm?”
“I love you. In case that wasn't clear yet.”
“It wasn't clear. You never said it.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“Then say it again.”
“I love you.”
He presses his lips to my forehead and then to my mouth, and it turns into a kiss that tastes salty because we’re both crying, and it tastes of three days of the road and air conditioning and hotel soap, and yet it’s the best kiss of my life.
Because it’s real. Because it comes from a man who has stopped fleeing from his own feelings. And because I am a woman who has learned that strength doesn't mean being alone.
Vaughn lets go of me and goes into the bathroom. I hear the shower running. I sit on the bed, place my hand on my stomach, and look out the window.
Las Vegas glows. The city that never sleeps. The city where a man with silver-streaked hair turned my life completely upside down.
Vaughn comes out of the bathroom. Wet hair, fresh T-shirt, barefoot. He sits next to me. I lean my head against his shoulder. He puts his arm around me.
“Vaughn?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re going to be terrible parents.”
“Probably.”
“The kid is going to need a therapist.”
“At least two.”
“And a cat.”
“And a cat.”
I close my eyes and smile.