“When?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
Mia didn’t sleep for forty-eight hours. Not for one minute. Her head ached from crying and the constant straining to hear a knock at her door or a buzz on her phone. Neither came. And so eventually, she’d moved on. Maybe not very well, at least for a while, but for ten years she’d moved.
She looked at him now, lying in her bed, his beautiful face just an inch from hers, and tried not to see the man who’d broken her heart.
“I thought you were done with me, Mia,” Nick finally said. “I know I would have been. You left. I don’t blame you, but you left, and I thought that was it.”
“You left me long before that in every way that mattered.”
“I know.”
“You never came after me.”
He sighed and rolled until he was staring at the ceiling. “I wasn’t sure things could be any different. That I could be different.”
“Did you want to come after me?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.” He looked over at her. “And I knew I was. Hurting you. Us. I couldn’t come after you because you were right. Not that I didn’t want you there exactly, but in a way, I didn’t even want myself there.”
She couldn’t believe he remembered those words. Hadn’t thought he’d really been listening even then.
“I wanted to turn off like Hannah had turned off, but I couldn’t, so I dialed myself down to the lowest possible setting and still be breathing. There was nothing left for you.”
“I could have helped dial you back.”
“Maybe, but…” He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t want to be brought back. There was no love inside me. I couldn’t love you. I couldn’t feel anything. Without the anger and the guilt, I was empty inside. Maybe I closed myself off just to survive. I didn’t blame you for what happened. I swear I didn’t.” He rolled back to her and gathered her to his chest. “I don’t.”
“I know,” she whispered. But she had been late, even if just a few minutes. He’d opened the door for the truth. She forced herself to step through. “I was late, though. I blamed myself for that.”
His arms tightened. “Mia—”
“No, I was. Just a few minutes. Enough to think, ‘what if?’ I wasn’t waiting there at four, like I usually was. I’d been coming from a doctor appointment. I was running late. I’d…” It hurt that what should have been so easy to say, so happy to say, was so very hard. She swallowed. “I’d just found out I was pregnant.”
Everything in Nick stilled. She felt the shock bounce through him for a moment before he pulled back to meet her eyes.
“I was pregnant, Nick.” She smiled through fresh tears. “I was so excited to tell you, my mind wasn’t where it should have been. It was on us and our baby. I was so happy, sitting there, waiting for Hannah, imagining how I would tell you. And then…”
“You never told me.” His voice was soft, shocked, and sorry.
“No.” She touched his face. “I couldn’t. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t. I kept thinking any day Hannah would come home, and everything would be okay. Then I’d tell you, and we could be happy again.”
“But it wasn’t. We weren’t.”
“No.”
He covered her hand that lay on his cheek with his own, held it there.
“So I waited. Every day I thought, ‘This will be the day. Hannah will be back, and all this will end,’ but then…”
“What?”
“A few weeks later…” She took a deep breath to get out the words she’d never wanted to say. “I lost the baby. I lost our baby.”
He sucked in a breath, and the muscles in his jaw twitched. He swallowed and took another breath before he spoke. “You didn’t tell me?”
“And add to what you were already going through?” She bit her bottom lip, shook her head, praying he would understand. “I couldn’t. It happened at work, at the hospital. I thought maybe I’d been working too much, being on my feet. Or the stress of everything, but the doctor said no. She said it happens and we could try again.”
Nick stared at her until her lips trembled. Please, God don’t let him be angry. I can’t take him being angry with me on top of everything else.
Finally, he trailed his fingertips over her face, her hair, then touched his forehead to hers. “And I was so deep inside myself, I didn’t even notice.”
“I didn’t make it easy for you to notice,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, like his. She closed her eyes, absorbing his gentle touch as silent tears gathered. “I didn’t want you to know.”