Chapter 12 Evie
EVIE
My heart is beating so hard that I feel like I might faint. But I have to keep it together for Keaton. And for me.
I can’t believe everything that just happened in the last ninety seconds.
I can’t believe that after everything Tanner has put me through, he’s still doing it.
Something clicks inside my head.
The disgust I feel toward him. The resentment I have for him. The anger.
It was one thing when he was only hurting me.
But now, he’s hurting the most important person in my life, and I just won’t have it anymore.
Once I see that Keaton is at a safe enough distance, I turn back to Tanner. Todd is still in my peripheral, so I know I’m okay.
“Maybe it wasn’t clear enough when I left the other night,” I say, “but don’t contact me again, Tanner.”
“Genny—” he starts, but I hold up my hand. Ick. I have always hated that nickname.
“Don’t come back here. Don’t call me. Don’t text me.”
I turn on my heel, toward the direction where Mac has now escorted Keaton, when I hear him.
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. You didn’t choose him then,” Tanner says from behind me. Fuck. “You’ll remember why soon enough. But don’t take too much time. I won’t wait around forever.”
His audacity stops me dead in my tracks.
“We’re all young and dumb at some point, Tanner.
And the truth is, I should have chosen me.
I should have chosen to be alone rather than choose someone who makes me wish I was.
And if you think a couple of frozen embryos are enough to put myself through that again, you are more delusional than I ever could have imagined. ”
I don’t even linger to see how big the blow is to his fragile ego. I just hurry along the sidewalk. But I see the black Escalade peeling out.
Keaton.
A few more hours pass as I finish up some paperwork for the day. No calls or texts from Keaton, although I do know he’s still keeping tabs on me through Todd. I want to get to him. I want to talk to him. Find out how much damage Tanner did. Find out how much hurt he dug back up.
Finally, it’s five, and Todd and I are flying out of the office like a bat out of hell.
“Where to?” he asks me when we pull out.
“Just back to the apartment, please,” I say.
But when we get back, I’m deflated when I realize he’s not here.
I look around, but the apartment is empty. I turn back to Todd.
“Keaton had a dinner event tonight,” is all he offers before disappearing back into the study.
A dinner event?
Like, with his brothers?
Like a date?
Oh, god. My stomach swirls at the thought of the latter. I nod, walking down the hall to the living room. I order some delivery, flip through the channels, and attempt to read the book I’ve been putting off for too long.
Finally, I can’t wait anymore.
Do you think you’ll be home soon? I send off, holding my breath. It’s almost eleven, but I can’t even think about sleeping right now. Not till I see him. Not till I know if he’s okay, or if Tanner just unleashed all the hurt that I caused Keaton all those years ago and never really dealt with.
But before he can answer, I hear the front door open.
I hear him kick off his shoes, and I hear the zipper on his jacket.
I swallow and sit up on the couch, turning the volume down.
He walks into the room, and my mouth drops open.
His hair is slightly out of place, his white button-down highlighting his tan skin, and his eyes as sharp gray as ever.
The stubble on his face only accentuates his perfect features.
He is fucking devastating in the best way.
“Hey,” I say as he walks into the living room. He looks surprised to see me. I swallow, holding my breath, waiting to see if he’s sober enough to have this conversation—or any conversation.
“Hey,” he says back. “You didn’t have to wait up.”
“I wanted to,” I say. “Unless you don’t feel like talking.”
He drops his phone and wallet on the table and sits down on the couch. He swipes a hand down his face, and I wait for the smell of alcohol to drift through the air, but it doesn’t. All I smell is his panty-dropping cologne.
“We can talk,” he says, but he doesn’t seem overly enthused.
“Did you…uh, did you have a nice dinner?” I ask. I want him to offer something, anything, to let me know he wasn’t with another woman. Imagine that. Me, the married woman shacking up with him because I’m otherwise homeless, jealous that he might have had a date.
“It was fine,” is all he gives me. “Did you find something to eat?”
I nod.
“I…I just wanted to talk about what happened with Tanner today,” I say nervously. He leans back against the couch. I wait to see if he says anything, but he doesn’t. “I…I’m sorry that he—”
“I don’t need you to apologize for him.”
I swallow.
“O-okay, I just…I guess I just don’t know…” my voice trails off. I know there is an elephant in the room. I know we’ve never talked about it. About the choice I made. About the way I hurt him.
I know I owe him that. I just don’t know what to say. Because I was so, so wrong. On so many levels. Even if things with Tanner had worked out, I owed it to the only honest person I had ever known not to abandon him.
“You don’t know what, Evie?” he asks, his eyes narrowed on me. His look is so direct, so focused on me that it makes me a little uncomfortable. Like I have a spotlight on me, and he’s the only person in the audience.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” I finally mutter.
His eyes stay trained on me. I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear.
“I never should have left things the way I did, Keat. I shouldn’t have left you.
And I shouldn’t have come crying back to you of all people when the consequences caught up to me.
But I did. And I’m so, so sorry. I won’t say I regret the choices I made, because I think there is some clarity in all this.
” I feel the tears stinging my eyes, but I hold them back.
He doesn’t deserve to have to dry them again.
“I just want you to know that you were the most important person in my life then. And it turns out, you still are. I don’t want this to feel cheap or like I’m only apologizing now that I’m homeless and on the brink of divorce.
But I just needed you to hear it. You are the only person in my life who has been there for me unconditionally.
And I know things may be different between us, but I just need you to know how grateful I am to you. ”
There is a long silence between us, and I can feel my heart thudding in my ears. He stands up slowly, putting his hands in his pockets. Then he finally looks at me.
“And…the uh…the embryos?” he asks quietly without looking at me.
I try to swallow back the tears, but this gets them flowing.
I can’t not be emotional about this. I’m so…
angry. I’m so angry about all I went through to still not have had a baby.
I’m so angry that my marriage is ending the way it is.
And I’m so angry that Tanner used my own infertility as a tactic to hurt Keaton without giving me the decency of bringing that up myself.
I move so that I’m sitting on the coffee table in front of him and let out a long, shaky breath.
“That part is true,” I say. “We tried for over three years. Nothing stuck, even after all the shots and harvesting and everything else. It took so much out of me. The doctors told us to keep trying, but when we couldn’t get pregnant, he started drinking more…
so I stopped my treatment without him knowing and started taking my birth control again, just in case.
” His eyes are locked on me now, and I can’t read the expression in them.
Something between despair and rage. “There are still a few embryos left,” I say, my voice quivering again, “but the truth is…I…I don’t know if I could go through all that again.
And if I did, it couldn’t be with him. I don’t want a family with him, Keat.
I don’t want a future with him.” I hold my breath after I speak.
Because while I’m confirming that I do not want a future with my husband, I’m also admitting that I don’t know if I want to try getting pregnant ever again.
There is a long silence between us for a moment as I try to calm my tears.
Finally, he scoots to the end of the couch and reaches a hand out to my face.
He swipes my last tear with his thumb, then he puts his other hand on my face and pulls me to him, leaving a long kiss on my forehead.
Then he presses his forehead against mine and holds it there for a moment.
“I’m so sorry you went through all that, Eve,” he whispers. I open my eyes, but his are closed tight, like he’s fighting off some demons. He finally comes apart from me and pushes himself to stand.
“I had dinner with my lawyer tonight,” he says.
He pulls a business card out of his pocket and drops it on the table in front of me.
“If you need him, he will be waiting for your call.” There’s another pause, and I swallow.
He takes a few steps past me then turns around.
“You didn’t need to apologize to me, Evie.
And things between us aren’t as different as you think, because if it were up to me, I’d take you to my bed right now and make you forget you were ever his. ”
I look for a smile or a wink, anything that resembles a joke or an attempt to lighten the mood. But there is nothing. Just a stone-cold expression on his face. And then he turns, walks down the hallway, and shuts his bedroom door behind him.
I lie back on the couch, my mouth still open like a dog salivating for a treat.
Holy fuck.
I swipe the card off the coffee table and twirl it around in my fingers while I walk down the hall to the guest room. I plop down on the cushy bed and look at it.
J.G. Krieger, Esq.
I try thinking about the lawyer. About the severity of the situation. About what going through with a lawyer actually means. New life. New name. New living situation.
But all I can focus on are his words and that pretty mouth that spoke them.
I’d take you to my bed right now and make you forget you were ever his.
I close my eyes and try to picture my life without Tanner.
But instead, all I can picture is Keaton.
Those stormy eyes. That sandy hair out of place from me running my fingers through it. That body hanging over top of me.
Fuck.
I toss the card on the nightstand and slide my hand down under my waistband.
I picture his eyes trained on me again. I imagine his scent covering me. And then my eyes roll back.