20. CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mark’s emotions run so hot and cold, I don’t know what to think anymore.
No one in my life has ever cared for me the way Mark has. No one’s ever reached me like he can. No one’s ever been there for me as much as he has, through things most people can’t even imagine. The depth of emotion between us, even before we tried “more”, was like nothing I’ve ever seen between two other people. The closest is maybe what Tucker and Lila have, but they’re married, and in some ways, I think Mark and I were closer than they were.
But that was before.
Things have been off since his surgery, and I know it’s because of his poor body image, but I can’t fix that, no matter how much I want to. I can’t force him to see himself clearly. I’ve talked to Stubbs three more times, including once after Mark’s fall. He keeps telling me to stay the course, to keep beating my dead horse. He says I’m the best shot at getting through to him, because Mark still hasn’t answered a single one of his calls or texts since surgery.
Since Lila’s emergency surgery culminating in a likelihood of infertility, things between Mark and I have been even worse. It’s so much worse, it’s got me wondering if Lila’s failed pregnancy has Mark thinking about a family. About kids of his own.
About the babies I can never give him.
He’s never mentioned children before, but he’d be a great dad, the kind who wrestles in the floor with little boys and loses on purpose at hide and seek. The kind who has tea parties in the floor with his daughter and her stuffed animals, who hires a manicurist to come over and give her and all her friends pedicures for her fifth birthday. The kind who stays up late on Christmas Eve assembling a bicycle from Santa and makes love to his wife in the wee hours after the little ones are asleep.
The kind of man I’d love to have kids with.
No… The man I’d love to have kids with.
Except, of course, I can’t.
And maybe that’s why he’s been so distant. Because he wants and deserves something he’ll never be able to have with me.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape my brokenness.
The pain is unbearable.
Not the physical pain – I’ve dealt with much worse than this.
It’s the emotional pain stabbing my heart, twisting, slicing, ripping me open from the inside out. My chances of conceiving are virtually impossible now.
Tucker deserves a woman who can have his babies.
I look at him beside me on the sofa, his golden brown hair touched by the afternoon sun, the light playing across his strong features. He’s sitting with me, just sitting, the way he’s done for the past several days. I’ve seen the haunted look in his dark blue eyes. He wants more. He needs more.
He needs a family.
And that’s the one thing I can’t give him, no matter how much I want to.
“I’ll understand if you want to divorce me. I won’t contest it. We’ll split everything evenly. You keep your business, and I’ll keep my part of the clinic. We can sell the house and land and divide the profits down the middle.”
My words are quiet and unemotional, so I’m stunned when Tucker whips toward me, his face furious. “I don’t care about a damn baby!” he explodes. I shrink away from him, but he grips my arms and pulls me forward, making me look into his eyes, at the intensity in them. “I love you, Lila. All I care about is you. I don’t need kids. I just need you.” He hauls me to him and kisses me fiercely, desperately, his pain palpable. “All I need is you.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back, and my tears blend with his as we cry and hold each other. “I’m sorry,” I say, but he silences me with his kiss.
“No apologies.”
We kiss for long moments, then hold each other even longer. “I love you, Lila,” he says, his voice rough.
My heart swells at the emotion behind his words. “I love you, too.” He pulls me tighter against him, and I nestle my head into his muscled chest. A minute later, still wrapped in his strong arms, I smile. “How do you feel about baby goats? Like, a lot of them?”
The laughter deep in his chest rumbles against my cheek, and he kisses my head. “Anything for you, Sweetness. Anything at all.”
All day Sunday, I’m completely on edge. Mark and I have no plans, and when we’re alone lately, things don’t go well. We don’t fight, but he withdraws and becomes silent, and it hurts me, and we both know it. Knowing we’re facing an entire afternoon and evening together has me dreading the inevitable pain.
I decide to break out the wine after a nearly silent dinner. We both have some, and for a change, he relaxes with me on the couch while music plays quietly in the background. His hands trace my spine lightly, and I lay my head on his chest.
I feel him drag in a shuddering breath beneath my cheek just before long fingers tilt my face up to his. “Charlie,” he whispers, his voice a sigh. He moves toward me, hesitating just above my lips, and I hold my breath, terrified he’ll change his mind and pull back.
But he doesn’t.
He kisses me tenderly. Gently. His mouth is almost reverent as his lips claim mine over and over, his fingers lightly touching my face, slipping into my hair.
“Come to bed with me,” he murmurs.
He undresses me like it’s the first time, his eyes memorizing my body, his hands mapping my curves. It’s exquisite. Slow, deep kisses, cupping my face like he can’t get enough of me, but at the same time, there’s no rush to his touch. We lose track of time as he lingers over my body, tasting and caressing, making love to me in every sense of the word. It’s the most tender, most gentle, most loving he’s ever been. He says with his touch the words he won’t utter, and I feel them in my heart, hear them in my soul.
I’ve never felt so cared for, so worshiped, so loved in my entire life.
I’m curled against his chest, my arm snaked around his neck and my fingers twined in his hair. I’m fully sated, physically and emotionally. His arms hold me close, his lips in my hair. That’s the last thing I remember before I drift off to sleep in his arms.
I’m lying there in the afterglow with Charlie, staggered by the perfection of the chemistry we have. She’s nestled with her face against my chest, utterly spent. Her breathing slows and becomes more even. I smile and brush my lips across her forehead lightly. “Love you, Baby Girl,” I murmur, not sure my words will even register.
She stirs lightly and mumbles, “I love you, Mark.”
I freeze and glance down at her. Her breathing is slow and steady. She’s half-asleep.
And she said she loved me.
There was no hesitation, and she didn’t use her nickname for me – Big Guy. She called me Mark. And half-asleep – that wasn’t the usual “love you” we’ve exchanged for years.
Panic rises in my chest. Has Charlie fallen for me?
No. She can’t.
This was just supposed to be adding a physical aspect to our relationship. We agreed not to go into this looking for any romantic entanglements. The plan was to keep our friendship, and add – well, it turned out to be sex, though originally, it was just to see what developed between us.
Sex is not the same as love.
What the hell is she thinking?
What the hell was I thinking?
I run my hand through my hair in frustration. I should have known better than to go down this path. Intimacy for Charlie is so much more involved because of everything she went through. It isn’t something she could achieve with just anyone – it took trust, deep trust, the kind built over decades. How could I have thought we could work through her past without her falling for me?
Jesus. This can’t be happening!
I lay there, trying to quell the overwhelming anxiety building in my chest. It seems like ages before she rolls to her side and I’m able to slip out of the bed without waking her. I jump up, desperately needing to pace, to expel some energy. Back and forth across the room I march on my crutches, from the door around the foot of the bed to the chaise, over and over.
This can’t happen.
Charlie can’t fall for me. She can’t spend her life saddled with a fucking cripple, a guy with a metal rod sticking out of his stump like a skewer and a body as scarred as a patchwork quilt. She deserves someone strong. Someone virile.
Someone whole.
Back and forth I pace, growing more agitated with each passing hour.
By morning, I’m resolved. I know what I have to do.
I have to let her go.
I’ve known it since my surgery, but I resisted when the only one getting hurt by my inaction was me. If she’s falling in love with me, the clock’s run out.
Charlie needs to be free to find someone as perfect as she is, someone beautiful and caring and whole, another pure soul. That sure as hell isn’t me. But she’ll never listen. She insists on seeing me through rose-colored glasses. I know if I tell her I’m letting her go because she deserves someone better, she’ll buck me. She’s downright mulish at times.
Charlie needs to think it’s what I want for me. She needs to believe I don’t want her.
I just have no idea how to pull that off.
When she stirs in the morning, I lean over and kiss her swiftly on the head, my eyes burning as I realize this is the last time I’ll be able to do that. “I’m getting in the shower,” I murmur.
Her green eyes fly open. “Want some company?” she asks, but I shake my head.
“Not this morning. I have a few things I need to take care of. What time is your last massage today?”
Her face scrunches as she tries to think, still half asleep. “At two, I think.”
I nod. “I’ll see you then.” I can’t stop myself from pressing my lips gently to hers for a split second before heading to the bathroom.
Thankfully, she doesn’t follow.