TWENTY-THREE
I’m sorry. The words hit him like a battering ram to the gut.
The way she’d been looking at him. The way it had been with them the past week. The past months. He’d been sure.
Even now, as he looked into the eyes that had been staring up at him the night before like he was...everything, he couldn’t believe it.
He wouldn’t.
“Darcy, let’s talk about this.”
“No, Jeff,” she said, pulling her hand from his to hold it trembling against the exaggerated rise and fall of her chest. “Not this time. We agreed.”
She was panicking, her eyes darting around like she was searching for escape.
“Okay, slow down, sweetheart. Relax. Yeah, this isn’t what we’d agreed on, but I think if we sit a minute and talk it through, you’ll see—”
“What will I see? How quickly you can work your magic again?” she asked with a short laugh as the tears he didn’t understand began to leak from the corners of her eyes. “How quickly you can figure out some way to tell me just exactly what I need to hear to justify another exception, to get me to bend my rules one more time, to convince me I won’t regret it? Here’s the problem, Jeff.” She jerked back from him, nearly losing her balance and, when he reached to steady her, pushing at his hand. “I keep believing you. Through one mistake after another. And now my regrets? I’m trapped behind a wall of them piled so high, I can’t even see the life I could have had anymore. The life I wanted. And the worst of it is I only have myself to blame...because I knew better!”
* * *
They’d driven back to Jeff’s apartment in silence. Both absorbing what the other had said. Both wishing, Darcy was certain, they could have taken back their words before they’d been spoken. Taken back the other’s, as well.
But if there was one lesson she’d learned, it was there were no take backs.
Once something was done, it couldn’t be undone.
All she could do was move forward from there. And her first step, a sorely needed apology.
Jeff was in the living room, his laptop open though he didn’t seem to be working on it when she sat opposite him on the couch.
“I shouldn’t have said those things to you, Jeff. All you’ve done from the minute you found out about this baby was try to make things better for me. For us. You’ve been generous beyond belief. You’ve been supportive. You’ve been more than anyone could hope for.”
“Don’t apologize. You were right. Every time you gave me an inch, I’ve taken a mile. It wasn’t what we agreed to and—hell, I don’t know, as the delivery gets closer, I just thought maybe there was a way to make this work.”
She shook her head. “It’s not you, Jeff.”
“No?” He let out a short laugh. “I got the feeling it was.”
How could he not. She’d been angry. But more at herself than him. She’d finally seen through all the lies she’d been telling herself about what was happening between them. About how she felt about it and what she could handle. She’d fallen in love. And worse, she’d started to believe Jeff could give her the fairy tale she’d never expected to want.