Chapter 16
ETHAN
The past month without Natalie forced me to face a few realities.
I always believed if I was persistent enough, I could get what I wanted. And what I wanted was Natalie.
It seemed simple, but I realized in these past four weeks without her that I might be a reminder of the trauma she faced. And that made me feel sick to my stomach.
I had a choice. I could either force her back to my side, or I could have a proper conversation with her and put all my cards on the table. And I’m not a man who puts his cards on the table for the opponent to see.
But then Natalie isn’t an opponent.
My mother asked me if I loved her. I couldn’t give her an exact answer because I don’t look at Natalie and think of the word love.
When I look at her, I know I can breathe.
When my eyes land on her, this knot inside my chest loosens.
She’s the only person who makes me want to put my work aside and focus on her .
When she speaks, I could listen to her talk all day and never get tired.
When she gets angry, I want to rile her up, and then I want to ravish her. I want her smiles and her laughter, all directed towards me.
I want her in every aspect of my life.
She is my obsession. She’s my most twisted desire.
She’s become everything to me.
I don’t think the word love begins to even cover this terrifying obsession I have when it comes to this woman.
But the one thing I cannot tolerate is her pain.
When I discovered what Lucas did to her, the rage that consumed me was never-ending. He will pay for putting his hands on her. I will hit him where it hurts, and I know exactly where to aim.
But I never thought I could be a reminder to Natalie of the worst times of her life. What if that never changes? What if I put the world at her feet, and she still looks at me and is reminded of the night her brother nearly killed her every time she looks at me?
Was this something I was willing to put her through?
This was something I struggled with until I saw her.
My brave, beautiful girl looks like she has been through hell and back.
The vulnerability in her gaze, the way her hands trembled when talking to me, even when her voice was sharp, had me facing what I ultimately knew.
If she wanted me out of her life for her own sanity, then that is what I would do for her.
“What if I don’t want that?”
Her words pierce me through the heart.
Was I wrong?
It seems Natalie has been holding on to her own secrets this past month.
“I hate morning sickness. ”
I was sure she had a stomach bug. Maybe food poisoning. But those four words that she uttered sent me reeling.
“Are you pregnant?”
Natalie freezes at my question, and then slowly lifts her head to look at me. There’s guilt in her eyes, guilt that does not belong there.
“Natalie?” I kneel before her on the worn bench, forcing her to look at me. The late September weather wraps around us like a blanket. “Tell me.”
“I found out last week,” she whispers. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to think—I didn’t want you to think the worst.”
“The worst?” I breathe, trying to process this piece of information.
“We should have used protection.” She closes her eyes, burying her face in her hands. “This wasn’t planned.”
“No, I don’t believe it was,” I murmur, watching her, my heart soaring. “A child. You’re carrying my child. I’m going to be a father.”
She peeks at me through her fingers. “Are you okay?”
I give her a dazed look. “I don’t think so.”
Getting up, I sit down beside her, staring at her stomach. After a moment, I look at her. “I don’t know how to change a diaper.”
I see the way her cheeks crease in a bewildered laugh. “Neither do I. And why is that the first thought to pop into your head?”
“Babies wear diapers, don’t they? I’ll have to learn.”
Natalie looks incredulous. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before. It’s just a baby.”
“It’s our baby,” I correct her. “We have to buy a crib and—What things do babies need?”
“For now, we don’t need anything. And your mother already got some baby clothes. ”
“My mother?”
She gives me a sheepish look. “She was the one who took me to the gynecologist. She suspected I might be pregnant.”
Baffled, I try to connect the dots. “You’ve been meeting my mother?”
Natalie leans back against the park bench. “I have a feeling she tracked me down. I was helping out with Sarah’s parents at their cafe. They’ve been letting me stay there.”
“I heard your mother visited you. Your friend was quite vocal about it.”
I see the faint red lines on her left cheek, and I tilt her chin, touching them. She doesn’t stop me, a dark look forming in her eyes. “I guess she left a parting gift.”
Natalie’s cheeks flush red, and she pushes my hand away. The cold, hard anger that burns inside me needs some place to go. “Are you still going to continue paying off her debts? This was just her reaction to seeing our photographs, wasn’t it?”
She lets out a gust of air. “You know, your mother was so excited. She was making all these plans, talking about schools and nurseries. I was scared she was going to buy the whole shop when she took me shopping for baby clothes. She got me some prenatal vitamins. She even wanted to give me her credit card so I could order food from a select few places she considered healthy for the baby. And me.”
Natalie’s smile is defeated, and I see the sheen of tears in her eyes.
It wrenches my heart.
“She was trying to take care of me. And it wasn’t just the baby she was concerned about. It was me. I-I would have given anything for my mother to have reacted that way, you know.”
She turns to look at me, weariness in her eyes.
“But the more time I spent with your mother, Ethan, the more I began to realize that my mother will only hate this child because it is an extension of me. I don’t want my child growing up knowing that it is disliked.
I don’t want him or her to hear the things I spent my whole childhood listening to.
I don’t want our child to be told that they don’t deserve love. ”
Natalie has only ever talked about her mother once. Everything else I found out through Jake. But to hear her tell me what her life was like fills me with a fury I have difficulty controlling.
“I want my mother’s love, but I also want to protect this baby. And I can’t have both.”
She gives me a serious look. “I’m planning to move out of my apartment.
My building is co-op, so I’m going to sell it and look for another place.
She found out where I live. I can’t have her coming by again.
Since you seem to know everything already, you should also know my finances aren’t the best. But I’ll build them back up.
I’ve done it once. I can do it again. And I don’t need your money. ”
Her voice is firm now, her eyes steady. “I don’t want anything from you. Not your money, and not your help.”
“You’re forgetting that this is our baby.” I take her hand in mine and kiss her palm, holding her gaze. “I want to take care of my child, and right now, the only way to do it is to take care of its mother. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink. “I don’t want your money, Ethan.”
“Fine. Then come stay with me.”
“I-I can’t do that!” She looks horrified.
“Why not?”
Flustered, she looks away. “I can’t. I just—I can find my own place.”
“I’m sure you can,” I say agreeably. “You can do a lot of things. I’m sure you will even be able to raise this child without my help.”
She stiffens, and I continue, “But that doesn’t mean you have to. I was willing to let you go because I thought I might remind you of what Lucas did to you. I thought you might blame me. ”
“No.” Her voice is rough. “I’m not that blind to my brother’s actions. I never blamed you, Ethan. Not even back then. No matter what you did, I was also an adult. I went along with it willingly.”
I wind my fingers with hers. “I don’t like hearing that. You did nothing to deserve what he did, and he will pay for it. Even if you choose not to be with me, I will make him pay for what he did to you.”
Her expression tenses. “Ethan?—”
“Is that why you’ve been changing locations so quickly?”
She hesitates. “I—He wanted to kill me. He said he would finish the job. I believed him. It was only when I saw him once, a few months before I moved back to New York, and we exchanged looks that I realized he had washed his hands of me.”
“Because you were living quietly as a mouse,” I say grimly. “But now you’re pregnant, and you’ve been photographed with me. How do you think he’s going to react?”
She frowns at me. “Why’d you have to kiss me?”
“Because I like kissing you.”
I lean forward and brush my lips against hers. I expect her to pull away, but she doesn’t.
The kiss is sweet and chaste, and it ignites a burning hunger within me. But now is not the time. I’m walking on very fragile eggshells, and given how vulnerable she is right now, I have to convince her to choose me.
Her eyes flutter shut, and the small whine that escapes from her lips makes me rock hard in an instant.
When I pull away, her eyes are dazed, and I grin. “I really like kissing you.”
Her eyes dart down, and the red that fills her cheek makes me want to chuckle. I shrug off my jacket and cover my lap with it.
However, the brief moment is broken when I think back to the topic at hand .
Lucas.
“I want you to come back to work,” I say, my voice serious. “Frankly, the company still needs you. I don’t want you finding another job. You don’t have to. We can revise your contract if it makes you feel comfortable.”
“You do know that everybody in the office has probably seen our photographs. They’re going to assume the worst of me.” She looks stressed. “And once I start showing?—”
“You can work from home, if that’s what you want. But you built this career with a lot of hard work, Natalie. I’m not going to have you ruin it, not when I know how much pride you take in it.”