Chapter Six Ford
I’m an idiot.
I already came to that conclusion over the course of the last week, as I tried to force myself to adjust to life without Zoey. I told myself that I could do it, could just go back to being the man I was before we started dating.
But that man didn’t exist anymore. Zoey had imprinted herself onto me in such a way that I was completely lost without her. I needed to hear her voice to feel like the world was spinning the right way.
The night I ruined everything, I felt like someone reached inside my body and scooped everything out, leaving me hollow and numb.
I should’ve never broken up with her. I was foolish and overwhelmed and clearly not thinking straight. That day, I was hit with an uncomfortable truth about the price we could pay for our relationship, and I convinced myself that the best thing to do was to end it.
Zoey didn’t fully understand my reasons, and that was another misstep on my part.
I already didn’t treat her like an equal partner when I spent half a year hiding her in the shadows of my life.
Choosing to end our relationship without talking to her about my doubts was just another way I disrespected her.
I knew I had a lot to make up for, and I’d been thinking about how to do it for days. I didn’t want to approach her at the hospital. We’d already blurred the line between our personal and professional lives, and I could tell that working with me wasn’t easy for her after that terrible night.
I knew how important Zoey’s job was to her.
She didn’t do it because she needed the money.
She had a trust fund that she could live off of if she wanted to.
She chose to work, and her compassion led her to nursing.
It meant something to her. She wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, and she chose the emergency department because she thrived on the intensity of it.
In the past week, she’d been as professional as ever at the hospital, doing her job well and speaking to me only when necessary.
She wouldn’t even look at me. But she didn’t have to in order for me to see the hurt that lingered in her eyes.
The way that she tried to avoid me as much as possible was killing me.
And I deserved it.
I’d made a stupid, rash decision when I ended our relationship, so I was determined to make things right. That was why I waited until we were here on the island.
I knew it would be a perfect, romantic getaway and even with friends and family surrounding us, I was sure I could get time alone with her to make up for my mistake.
But I didn’t realize just how massive that mistake was until I picked up this bottle of prenatal vitamins. There was only one reason that Zoey would be taking these.
She stared at me with wide eyes, not saying a word.
“Are you pregnant?” I asked, my throat tight.
I didn’t move—didn’t breathe—as I waited for her answer. Zoey’s eyes shifted to the ground, and she let out a long shuddering breath.
“Yes.”
That one word changed my center of gravity. She was pregnant. My woman was carrying my child. The reality of that was too huge to fully comprehend. At the moment, all I could process was a primal rush of satisfaction.
I surged to my feet, the pill bottle still in my hand as I wrapped my arms around her. Something tight that had lived in my chest for a week loosened as I inhaled the scent of her floral perfume. God, I missed this so much.
What the fuck was I thinking, breaking up with her?
I was so relieved to be close to her again that I didn’t immediately realize that she was stiff against me.
It was when she shoved against my chest that it hit me that she wasn’t hugging me back.
She wasn’t really strong enough to push me away, but I stepped back anyway, my hands running down her arms and grasping her hands.
My thumbs ran over her knuckles as I searched her face.
She was frowning, but it was the anger in her eyes that made my heart drop.
“What are you doing?” she asked furiously, yanking her hands free from my hold.
I blinked. “Zoey… I’m sorry. I never should’ve tried to end things between us…”
“Tried?” She scoffed and reached for the handle of her suitcase. “You didn’t try to end things. You succeeded. Me being pregnant doesn’t change that.”
She shoved open the door to her bungalow and dragged her suitcase in behind her. I followed before she could shut the door in my face.
I quickly took in the fact that we were standing in a small living room area with white furniture and beachy decor. There was a kitchen to the right, a closed door to the left, and across the room, sliding doors led out to a deck facing the ocean.
It was nice, but I didn’t like that she was staying here alone, away from everyone else. Away from me.
“It’s not just about the baby,” I said.
Oh my God. We’re going to have a baby.
“I knew I screwed up days ago.”
Her eyes narrowed, and I had the feeling that I just made things worse. “How many days ago? Was it last Tuesday, when I had to listen to other nurses gossiping about you and Delilah looking cozy at dinner?”
“What?”
“The picture she shared the night you dumped me.” I flinched at the reminder. “Everyone in the hospital has seen it, and I’ve had to listen to all sorts of speculation about the two of you together.”
“Delilah doesn’t mean anything to me-”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever believe that, considering that you went from dinner with her to breaking up with me so quickly.”
“It was dinner with the board and she just happened to be-”
“Or did you realize that you made a mistake on Thursday, when I called my father to ask for a bungalow because the idea of spending a whole week in the room next to you sounded like torture?”
Ouch.
I realized that I was getting a well-deserved verbal lashing, but I didn’t like how flushed she looked in this moment. I was upsetting her.
“Or how about Friday?” She stepped closer to me, poking me in the chest with the tip of her finger. “That’s when I went to my first OB appointment alone.”
“You went to the doctor already? What did he say? Are you doing okay?”
She shook her head and turned away, throwing her arms out at her sides and letting out a frustrated groan that I would have found pretty cute under different circumstances.
“She said that I’m fine.”
I smiled again, even though I knew it was dangerous while she was this upset. Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at me.
“Good. That’s… really good.”
But she was right. I should’ve been with her at that appointment.
“I can’t believe we’re having a baby. I swear, I won’t miss anything else. I’ll be by your side every step of the way.”
Zoey looked at me with something that might’ve been pity. “Ford… it’s not that easy. Things have changed.”
“Don’t do this, Zo…”
“You did this. First, you insisted that we keep our relationship a secret. I never liked it, but I agreed because I wanted to be with you that badly. Until you suddenly decided I wasn’t worth it.”
“No.” The word came out choked, but I pushed through it. “You’re worth everything. I’ll show you, okay? We’ll go public with our relationship.”
That would cause problems at the hospital, but I’d figure out how to deal with that later. All I could focus on at this moment was getting Zoey back.
“It’s too late for that. There’s no relationship anymore.”
She’d moved away from me while we talked, and I took a step toward her, desperate to pull her into my arms again. She stopped me by raising a hand in front of her.
“I’m too tired to continue this conversation right now,” she said. “I want to rest before the bonfire.”
The last thing I wanted to do was walk out of this bungalow, but how could I argue with that? She was pregnant with my child, and I knew that most women needed more sleep in the first trimester.
“I’ll go so you can take a nap,” I said, fighting the urge to kiss her before I left. She definitely wasn’t going to go for that. “I’ll see you tonight. Text me if you need anything, okay?”
She didn’t agree or disagree as she watched me walk out of the bungalow, and the distance I’d created between us felt impossible to overcome.
But I wasn’t going to give up. I’d already decided to do whatever I could to get her back, and now that I knew about the baby, I was even more determined.
My mind lingered on Zoey as I walked back to the resort.
This place was beautiful. White sandy beaches and crystal-clear water and palm trees that swayed in the breeze. I strolled past an infinity pool surrounded by bright tropical flowers and through the glass doors into the tall building.
My room was at the end of the hallway on the third floor, and I felt a pang in my chest as I glanced at the door next to mine. That was where Zoey was supposed to stay…
No.
She should’ve been planning to stay with me all along. That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Zoey wasn’t just upset that I made the colossally stupid decision to break up with her. She was always unhappy about the secret nature of our relationship.
I knew it, and I was never happy about it either, but I convinced myself that it was a sacrifice worth making to reach a career goal of mine.
It wasn’t. Not if it made her think that she wasn’t important to me.
I had two hours to kill until the bonfire on the beach, and I spent all of that time reading about pregnancy.
I already knew more than the average man, of course.
As an ER doctor, I needed to have a broad range of knowledge about any condition affecting the human body, but pregnancy-related issues weren’t something I saw often in the emergency room.
There was plenty I needed to learn if I wanted to make sure that Zoey had a safe and healthy pregnancy.
And that was what I wanted more than anything. Zoey and our baby were at the top of my list, whether she’d believe that or not.
The sun had just set when I left my room. I was staring at my phone as I waited for the elevator, willing Zoey to respond to the message I’d sent asking how she was feeling.
“You okay, Ford?”
I looked up and realized the doors had opened and Ryan was standing there with Leanne. They were holding hands and looking at me expectantly.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, stepping onto the elevator as I shoved my phone into my pocket.
“I can’t believe this is finally happening,” Leanne said while bouncing on the balls of her feet as we rode down to the first floor. She turned a blinding smile on Ryan. “We’re going to be married at the end of the week!”
Ryan chuckled indulgently and brushed his lips against hers. The open display of affection made regret rush through me.
Zoey and I could have been like this all along. I wanted that.
I wanted to take her out on dates. I wanted the nurses in the hospital to talk about how sickeningly cute we were together instead of speculating about my feelings for my ex. I wanted to go to her at the bonfire and wrap my arms around her in front of all these people that we knew.
I wanted to open my mouth right now and tell Ryan that I was nuts about his sister.
But I bit my tongue because I was positive that Zoey would be furious if I did that. The time to tell everyone what she meant to me would have been before.
The bonfire was already lit by the time we stepped onto the beach.
Flames stretched out toward the dark sky, casting a dancing circle of light onto the crowd gathered on the sand.
Music played from speakers that looked like rocks and people in polo shirts were bringing drinks to the guests from a tiki bar by the outdoor pool.
I spotted Zoey just as someone handed her a bottle of water. The dress she wore wasn’t especially revealing, just light blue cotton that hugged her chest and flowed loosely down to her knees.
But she was beautiful.
She’d pulled her brown hair into a messy bun at the top of her head and loose tendrils fell around her face. Even from thirty feet away, my fingers itched to brush them back behind her ear.
Ryan and Leanne were pulled into a conversation with Damien, the best man, and I headed toward Zoey.
She was chatting with someone I didn’t know, a woman that looked like she might be in her early twenties.
As I got close, Zoey laughed at something the other woman said, and the way the sound slid under my ribs was pleasant and torturous at the same time.
Then, she saw me coming.
Something hardened in her eyes. Turning to the other woman, she said something and walked away before I could reach her.
Damn it.
Before I could follow her, the woman she was speaking with moved to stand in front of me.
“You’re Ford, right?”
My eyes had been locked on Zoey’s retreating form, but I shifted my eyes to the young woman. Now that I was closer, I saw that she had the same nose as Zoey.
“Yeah,” I said. “And you are?”
“Kirsten. I’m Zoey’s cousin.” This wasn’t exactly a friendly introduction. Her eyes studied me and there was a slight frown on her face. “Funny how she rushed away when she saw you coming.”
There wasn’t a question in there, but she was obviously trying to figure out what was going on between us. She wasn’t going to get the answer from me.
“What can I say? I have a winning personality.”
Kirsten didn’t look amused but before she could say anything else, one of the bridesmaids stumbled into her, creating the perfect opportunity for me to slip away. I passed Damien heading toward the clumsy woman, laughing.
“I swear, Kels, I can’t take you anywhere…”
For the next hour, I tried to get close enough to Zoey to have a conversation, mostly just to check that she was feeling okay. I didn’t know if she was having morning sickness or any other unpleasant early pregnancy symptoms. But she was skilled at avoiding me.
By the time the party came to an end, I was frustrated, but if she thought I was going to give up, she was wrong.
Zoey was meant to be with me, and I had a whole week on this tropical island to remind her of that.