Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Fiona
The house had finally gone quiet. I sat against my headboard with my knees drawn to my chest, listening as the last sounds from downstairs faded.
No more raised voices. No dishes clattering as everyone helped Granny clean up.
No footsteps crossing the kitchen floor.
My cheeks felt tight where the tears had dried, and my throat still burned from everything I’d thrown at Georgie across the dinner table.
I gave birth to a child.
My stomach twisted all over again when I remembered saying it in front of everyone.
I’d never talked about Charlie like that before.
He wasn’t proof that I was mature or capable of making adult decisions.
He was Charlie. The little boy I loved more than anything.
I hated that I’d reached for the hardest thing I’d ever done just to make Georgie understand I wasn’t the same fifteen-year-old girl anymore.
But I’d needed him to hear me. I’d survived things he couldn’t imagine, made decisions no kid should’ve had to make, and lived with the consequences of them. I deserved the right to choose my own path now, even if that path led me straight to Jasper.
Just thinking his name tightened something beneath my ribs.
Georgie had called him a player. A man who collected women and walked away when he got bored. He’d made Romeo sound like a warning label I was too stupid to read.
That wasn’t the man I knew.
Jasper sent me flowers because he wanted me to smile. He texted every morning to make sure I was okay and remembered little things I’d forgotten I’d told him. He listened when I complained about school, asked about work, and somehow knew when something was bothering me even when I hadn’t said it.
Was that what Georgie was warning me about? Was Jasper simply that good at making women feel special?
I didn’t know, and that was what bothered me most.
When I talked to Jasper, I didn’t feel like the foster kid or the girl who got pregnant at fifteen. I didn’t feel like someone everyone needed to rescue, protect, or make decisions for. I was just Fiona.
Maybe Georgie was right to worry.
But Jasper was still my choice to make.
A soft knock on my door made me jump.
“Go away.”
“Fiona.” Georgie’s voice came through the door, quieter than I expected. “Can I come in?”
I didn’t answer, but Georgie never waited for answers—he opened the door anyway. He stepped inside and closed it softly behind him. His hands disappeared into his pockets as he stood there looking at me, shoulders slightly hunched as if he expected me to start throwing things.
I didn’t have enough energy left to throw a pillow.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally.
I blinked. “What?”
“I’m sorry.” He crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of my bed. “I shouldn’t have said those things. Not like that. Not in front of everyone.”
My throat tightened. “You meant them.”
“I did.” His eyes met mine. “But that doesn’t mean I should have said them the way I did.”
I turned my face toward the wall. “You think I’m too young to know what I want.”
“I think you’re young, despite your past experiences,” he said quietly. “And I think Romeo is a man with a much longer past and a hell of a lot more experience. And that scares the hell out of me.”
“Why?” I looked at him again. “Why does it scare you so much?”
“Because I love you.” His voice broke on the words. “Because you’re my little sister, and I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
Tears burned behind my eyes. “You don’t think I can handle it.”
“I think you can handle anything,” he said fiercely. “But I don’t want you to have to. I don’t want you to have to be strong all the time. I don’t want you to have to fight for every damn thing you get.”
I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “That’s not your choice to make.”
“I know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I know it’s not. But that doesn’t make it easier.”
“You have to let me live my life, Georgie. You have to let me make my own mistakes. Even if they hurt. Even if you don’t agree with them.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” I turned toward him completely. “Because it doesn’t feel like you do. It feels like you think I’m still that fifteen-year-old girl who gave her baby away. Like I haven’t grown up. Like I haven’t earned the right to make my own choices.”
“That’s not—” He stopped, his jaw tightening before he looked down at his hands. “You’re right.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“You’re right.” When his eyes came back to mine, they were red. “I do still see you that way sometimes. And that’s not fair to you.”
The admission hurt more than I expected.
“I know you’re strong,” he continued. “You’ve proven that a hundred times over.
You survived things that would have destroyed most people.
You gave birth alone. You made an impossible choice with Charlie, and you rebuilt yourself from nothing.
” His voice cracked. “I’m not scared you can’t handle life, Fiona. I’m scared of him.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket.
“I know men like him—men who collect women like trophies, who get bored and move on. Men who say all the right things until they get what they want.” Georgie’s hands curled into fists.
“And I’ve watched you change over these past months.
The way you light up when your phone buzzes.
How you disappear into conversations with him.
How he’s becoming the center of everything, and you’re letting it happen. ”
I opened my mouth, but he kept going.
“I’m terrified,” he said, his voice breaking.
“I’m terrified he’s going to hurt you in ways you won’t see coming.
That he’ll make you feel like you’re the only woman in the world until he’s done with you.
That he’ll take everything you are and leave you empty.
” He wiped roughly at his eyes. “And I can’t protect you from that.
I can’t stop you from choosing him. And that’s what scares me most—that you’ll give him everything, and he’ll destroy you, and there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it. ”
Hearing the fear in his voice took some of the anger out of me. Knowing he wasn’t trying to control me because he thought I was stupid helped me understand why he was scared.
“We’re just friends.”
Georgie rolled his eyes, and I smacked his arm.
“We are.” I couldn’t help giggling at the look he gave me. “I like talking to him. He listens to what I say. Really listens. He doesn’t say inappropriate things. He’s not sexual.”
Georgie groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
“What?”
“Nothing. Please continue telling me all about Romeo not being sexual. This is exactly the conversation every brother dreams of having.”
I smiled, then felt it fade as I looked down at my knees. “I feel like I can be myself.” I hesitated before adding the part I wasn’t sure he would understand. “He doesn’t know about Charlie.”
Georgie’s eyes widened.
“I’m not ashamed of Charlie. I meant what I said downstairs.
I love that little boy with everything inside of me, and of all my nieces and nephews, he holds a special place the others can’t.
” I stared at the blanket beneath my hands.
“But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being judged by my past.”
Just saying it made my chest ache.
“Romeo doesn’t do that.”
Georgie’s expression softened. “I get it, Fiona. I do.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “I just need to make sure you’re okay.”
“I am okay.”
He nodded, but the sadness in his face didn’t disappear. “But letting you go, letting you make your own choices, even when I don’t agree with them—that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks again. “I’m not going anywhere, Georgie.”
“Aren’t you?” His voice turned rough. “Because it feels like Romeo’s already taking you away from us. From me.”
“He’s not.” I tightened my fingers around his. “I’m still here. I’m still your sister. That doesn’t change just because I care about someone.”
“You care about him.”
It wasn’t a question. I could’ve denied it, and a few weeks ago, I probably would have.
“I do.”
Georgie closed his eyes and exhaled. “I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have to. You just have to trust me.”
He stayed quiet for so long that I wondered whether he could do that. Then he finally looked at me again, and there was so much fear mixed with the love in his eyes that my anger disappeared completely.
“I’m trying,” he said. “I’m trying to trust you. But it’s hard.”
“I know.”
“If he hurts you—”
“Then I’ll deal with it,” I interrupted. “And you’ll be here to help me pick up the pieces. But you have to let me make that choice, Georgie. You have to let me decide if he’s worth the risk.”
He stared at me for another long moment before giving me a slow, reluctant nod.
“Okay.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Okay?”
“I’ll try harder.” He squeezed my hand. “I’ll try to let you live your life. Even if it kills me.”
A watery laugh slipped out. “It won’t kill you.”
“You don’t know that.” A tiny smile finally appeared. “You’re my baby sister. Watching you grow up might actually kill me.”
I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around him. “You better get used to it, because Jasmine won’t be eight years old forever.”
Georgie groaned as his arms closed around me. “Why would you say something that horrible to me right now?”
I laughed against his chest, and some of the tension that had been sitting between us since dinner finally eased.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too. So damn much.”
When he pulled away, his eyes were wet. He wiped them quickly and cleared his throat as he stood.
“You should get some rest.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He reached the door before stopping. “Fiona?”
“Yeah?”
“If Romeo ever does anything, anything, that makes you uncomfortable, you’ll tell me?”
I smiled. “You’ll be first in line.”
He gave me one last nod before leaving and closing the door softly behind him.