The trip home was a blur. She kept her face buried in Logan’s chest, drawing comfort and strength from his firm embrace.
When they walked into the apartment, he settled her on the couch. Rhys positioned pillows around her back and tugged a blanket over her lap. They were treating her as though she was fragile, but for the first time in a long while, she finally felt strong.
Rhys sat on the edge of the couch, concern burning brightly in his eyes. Logan sat at her feet, his hand stroking her leg.
“Are you all right?” Rhys asked anxiously.
“I was so afraid,” she said, and tears flooded her eyes again. She wiped them away in irritation. Her eyes were already swollen, hot and scratchy. Her nose felt like it was twice its normal size, and her head ached.
“I mean, I know the doctor said the baby was okay, but I didn’t believe him. I was so worried that we’d get there today and do the sonogram, and they’d find out that the baby was…”
She couldn’t even complete the horrible thought.
“Oh honey,” Rhys said as he pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’ve been so stupid about everything,” she said against his chest.
He pulled away from her in shock. Logan shook his head, a deep frown engraved on his face.
“Baby, if anyone’s been stupid, it’s me and Rhys. God, when I think of what could have happened to you because we weren’t where we were supposed to be—”
He broke off, shaking his head, but she could see the residual fear in his eyes.
She wiped at her face again with her palms. “I won’t lie to you. I was—am—angry. I was hurt. But I could have told you. Yes, I planned to tell you the night of our anniversary. I had it all planned out, how I’d tell you, and I imagined your reactions. I’d hoped that you’d want to spend more time with me, that somehow we could go back and recapture the way it used to be.
“But then in Jamaica, I didn’t want to tell you until we got back because I knew it would change the entire tone of the vacation. I was selfish because I wanted it to be just us. I wanted you to want to be with me because you loved me, not because I was pregnant.”
Logan leaned forward, his entire body tense, like a coiled spring. There was urgency in his expression, a keen edge of desperation she wasn’t used to. “Baby, we do love you, and we do want to be with you, child or no child. Do I want our baby? More than you could possibly know. This was our dream. To one day have a family. To be a family. You, me, Rhys. And our child.”
“I should have told you,” she said softly. “Don’t you see? If I had told you, I don’t think you would have left even for the deal with Kingston. You would have taken me back to New York, fussed over me and made me see a doctor. I would have never gone so long until my appendix ruptured, and I wouldn’t have almost lost our child. Instead I played stupid games, wanting something from you that seems so unimportant in the face of our child’s life.”
Rhys touched her hair, and she could see love brimming in his eyes. Soft and melting. She also realized it had always been there. She just hadn’t looked. She hadn’t dug far enough, hadn’t challenged him or Logan enough.
Her meek acceptance of the status quo of their marriage put her as much at fault as it did them.
“We could play the blame game for infinity,” Rhys said gently. “What if Logan and I hadn’t been such bastards? What if we’d shown up for our anniversary dinner and you’d told us like you’d planned? What if we’d been with you when you started feeling unwell? What if we hadn’t put our business before you?”
“What if I hadn’t let you?” she challenged.
Logan’s hand tightened around her leg and she looked down at him. The same love, beautiful and untarnished, shone in his dark eyes.
“I think it’s safe to say that we all have our share of what-ifs. But baby, it won’t change the past. We can damn sure change the future, though.”
She licked her lips and drew up her courage to ask him what had weighed on her mind and heart since that last night in Jamaica.
“Logan, there’s something I need to ask you.”
He stared unflinchingly back at her. “Anything.”
His calm bolstered her, gave her such hope.
“That last day in Jamaica, when you called Kingston. I-I overheard part of your phone conversation when I was on my way to the restaurant.”
He cocked his head as though trying to remember as well.
“You said that there was nothing more important to you than the deal, that there was nothing you wouldn’t do to secure it. You said the vacation wasn’t important, that it was just downtime.”