Chapter 51
Fifty-One
We stand on opposite sides of the threshold, staring at each other so long the doors slide to close twice. Both times, Gavin wordlessly sticks his arm out to rebound them open.
Looking at him is like looking at the sun: It hurts but I can’t look away.
Finally, I step inside and stand next to him, the silence filled with our unsaid words and my ache to touch him. My trembling finger manages to find and push button thirty-two.
The door closes, and though it’s just him and me, the space is smaller than when it’s packed full of people. There’s no anchoring myself to my senses. My typical panic over being trapped in this moving box is overruled by the gravity of Gavin being here—in a tux.
We start our descent, my heart and head rioting as I stare at the floor.
“Didn’t expect you’d wear your mowing shoes to work,” he says, nodding at the nude toes of my pumps.
My amused sound lacks the gumption to grow into a full laugh. Since I’m the merciless masochist of my mental well-being, I’ve worn these shoes to work every day this week to ensure I remember to miss the very man standing next to me. Even my feet didn’t get a free pass from my misery.
Gavin’s pinky brushes against mine, his familiarity nearly smothering me, and I lift my gaze to his where it stays for two painfully silent floors.
“I didn’t expect you to wear a tux,” I finally say.
He responds by smacking the end of his fist against the emergency button, making us stumble as the elevator jolts to a halt and a dulled alarm sounds.
My eyes widen. “What the he—”
“This is Daniel with security,” a man’s voice asks through the intercom. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” Gavin says without looking away from me. “Just need a minute to find something I lost.”
There’s a pause—Daniel’s no doubt watching the security camera footage—and I look toward the camera in the corner and nod.
“Okay,” the voice finally says.
I turn back to Gavin, and before I can say anything, he says, “Come here, Reese.”
And as abruptly as we stopped, his arms open and pull me to him, and I do not fight him.
My forehead smashes against the crook of his neck and my arms slip under his jacket, hands clawing at his back until they find the perfect spot to rest. He smells like him and feels like him and holds me in a way that lets me know it’s him.
Him.
Gavin.
Here.
Holding me.
Unwanted hugs make me cringe, and hugs born out of joy with my sisters and Addie make me laugh. But now I know that some hugs—like this one—can drag hidden grief from the heart to the surface and pull tears from my eyes and a sob from my mouth.
It’s more than arms, body, and breath. Gavin’s arms around me both glue me together and shred me apart.
I weep against him. For the woman I am and the one I missed my chance to be.
“Shh,” he hushes into my hair as my body shakes. “I have you, Reese. I will always have you.”
He might repeat it a dozen times, a million, but every time it hits me like a brand-new truth. The words I’ve needed since I sat at Dr. Cantor’s office and she destroyed my dreams.
He holds me in that stopped elevator until my reality hasn’t changed but my tears run dry.
We pull apart and I wipe my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say with a snivel. “For everything I said. For leaving the way I did.”
He thumbs away my tears and his eyes dance. “I was flattered you thought I had a prayer of putting that shattered champagne flute back together.”
I don’t know how I manage a laugh, but I do. “I can’t have a baby, Gavin.”
With that truth set free, I’m crying again.
I’ve gone over the numbers nearly a million times.
The treatments and therapies are all the longest of long shots and will put my body through hell.
I reached out to my gynecologist in the city.
He reviewed the numbers, used the word grim, then said, “Maybe a reproductive endocrinologist would be better at explaining your options.” I knew what that meant and I’m far too practical for false hope.
“I know,” Gavin says, taking my hands in his and kissing my knuckles. “Banyan told me. I’m sorry.” He’s so sincere I almost laugh. He’s apologizing after I acted like a certifiable bitch. “I wish I would have known or been there. I coul—”
“This is all me.” I sniff. Keeping my eyes on his even though it burns. “I didn’t want you to miss out or—”
“Miss out?” He shakes his head with a slight laugh. “Reese, I will choose you—over and over—every day. No matter what.”
“You’d be terrible at business, you know,” I say through a watery voice. “I’m telling you I can’t give yo—”
“And I don’t care,” he cuts me off, cradling my face in his hands. “I lava you. Forever. No matter how old you are or what your body can or can’t do.” His lips twitch. “Unless you want to put posters of other men on the ceiling of the bedroom.”
I laugh again, and right there I hear Jeremy the window washer’s voice telling me to say yes.
Even though I can’t have kids. I can help give Addie a life Amanda would have wanted her to have while I love Gavin.
I’ll hold Rue’s baby when it’s born and Remy’s hand as her marriage crumbles.
I can live in a shed house surrounded by glass and watch the sky change colors over a vineyard.
I will not have biological children, but I can choose excellence—Gavin—even if it looks nothing like I planned.
“Plus,” he says softly, kissing my tears. “Lots of people don’t have kids. There are a lot of ways to have a good life.” When I think he’s done, he adds, “And we have Addie.”
Just hearing her name makes me grin. “We have Addie.” I’m awash with emotions too big for my body and my eyes refill. I laugh. “Why can’t I stop crying?”
“Because you lava me,” he says with a smirk. Then his fingers snake into my hair and his mouth is on mine, kissing me until I don’t have a single doubt we can do this. Gavin is here and choosing me despite everything, and I will damn well let him.
“You know,” he says into my mouth. “I expected the library to be the tallest building in Chicago?”
“Really?” I murmur. “Why’s that?”
He smiles against my smile. “All the stories.”
I laugh and he laughs. When we separate, I catch one of his hands in mine. He’s here and I never want to let him go—I can’t. If I had handcuffs, I’d link him to me and throw the key off the roof.
“You’re everything,” I say—I’m officially delirious.
He squeezes my hand. “So are you.”
With his push of the button, the alarm silences and the elevator resumes its downward course. I can finally drink him in. He’s freshly shaved, his hair is styled, and that tux . . . that tux.
His lips tug to one side. “See something you like, Miss Reese?”
“The tux is a bit much.”
“Yeah.” His lips lift knowingly then he drops a quick kiss on my lips. “But you like it.”
I do.
I really, really do.
He squats down to retrieve something from the floor. “You forgot this,” he says, passing it to me.
At the glass slipper in my hands, my smile is so big it’s a wonder my face has the flesh for it.
The elevator dings with a stop at my floor and he says, “And I have something else to show you.”
With one hand in his and a glass slipper in the other, he leads me off the elevator and down the hall to the occupied conference room. At my confusion, he smiles and pushes the door open.
And at the sight before my eyes, I release Gavin’s hand and drop to my knees.