She nodded and burrowed her head into the crook of his shoulder, and although holding her in his arms soothed some of the tension he was feeling, it wasn’t enough.
“How did you get in?” she asked, lifting her swollen eyes to his.
“I could hear you crying through the front door, babe. I knocked, but nothing. You left your car in the driveway, unlocked, so I used the garage door opener and came in through the garage.”
She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and tunneled back into his chest.
“Talk to me, babe. I can’t fix it if you don’t talk to me.”
“You can’t fix this, Rafe.”
Like hell. He’d find a way. Whatever the hell it was, he would find a way to fix it for her. Grasping her chin, he lifted her face to his. “Let me try,” he implored.
She shut her eyes, inhaling a deep breath and releasing through her mouth. Coaxing her strength. “When I was seventeen, I got pregnant.”
Shit.
Of all the possible reasons for her tears that had trudged through his mind, this wasn’t one of them.
“I was so afraid to tell my parents. I knew they would be furious. Their prim daughter—their prima ballerina—knocked up at seventeen. They wouldn’t accept it. So I went to my boyfriend first, even though I was just as terrified to tell him. We were young, Rafe. And I’ll admit I cared about him, but never in the way that felt true. We were thrust together as kids. Basically married off while we were in diapers by our families, whose ambitions in life were to join our two prestigious families together after I graduated fine arts school and after Curt graduated West Point. It was all mapped out and going according to their well-designed plan—until I got pregnant.”
Rafe’s newfound hatred for her parents was growing by the second. Bringing the inside of her wrist to his lips, he kissed her gently. He didn’t know what else to do but be there. No words he could give her right now would ease her pain. So he listened.
“If I thought that Curt would’ve handled the news better than my parents, I was wrong—very wrong. He blamed me, said I was trying to ruin his chance at West Point. I forgot I was capable of creating a child on my own,” she seethed, her anger creeping into the volume of her words.
“But when it came down to it, I was the one carrying the child. I was the girl ruining the hopes and dreams of two families. Two families who wanted nothing to do with me or the baby inside me. We threatened their names, their reputations, and their positions, and they couldn’t have that. My parents, of course, sided with Curt’s and I was out on my ass before I could even comprehend the idea that I was going to be a mother. A single mother, with no one. No family, no father for my baby, no money, no home . . .”
“Babe,” Rafe whispered, tightening his arms around her, kissing her lips, her jaw, her tear-streaked eyes. “God, I’m so sorry.”
“I gave her up, Rafe,” she said, answering his unspoken question.
Fuck.
“I gave life to someone so small and so beautiful and so perfect. And I loved her more than I’d ever even known was possible—and then I gave her up.”
What could a man say to a woman who was shattering in his arms? Rafe wanted to shield her from this pain that was eating away at her, but he couldn’t. She was right—he couldn’t fix this. And feeling the woman he loved hurting, and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it, ripped him open from the inside out. All he could do was hold her in his arms. But he knew even that wouldn’t be enough.
“I wanted so badly to free myself from their world devoid of joy and love and life. I wanted to find love—experience what it felt to be wanted, needed. And I’d found it, wrapped up in my daughter, who wanted me, her mother. Who needed me, her mother. She loved me.
“I turned my back on her, Rafe. Just like they did to me. She needed me and I turned my back on her. I never wanted to be like them. Turned out, I already was.”
I don’t know how to love.
I don’t know how to love you . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mornings with Rafe were better. Always better.
But as the late-morning sun rolled in through the windows of her bedroom, Fallon wished it hadn’t risen yet. That it was still night so she could stay tucked away in the safety of Rafe’s strong arms for just a little longer.
She rolled over to face him, the weight of his arms tangled around her heavy and limp as his sleep-induced breaths continued to come in slow, even exhales.
She gently traced the scar on his lip with her thumb before kissing it lightly. He stirred and his arms tightened around her, pulling the front of her body flush against his naked chest. She absorbed the warmth of his skin as he held her, tucking her head into the crook of his arm.