Cherrie Lynn - Take Me On

As for the second impulse, well…it was beneath her, even if it would be damn funny.

“Well, lo and behold,” she said loudly, making sure he found her glaring at him when his head snapped up. “Mark Easton finally shows up.”

That might’ve been somewhat beneath her too, but…whatever.

If she’d expected a sheepish reaction from him, she was disappointed—if anything, his expression became even smoother and more remote.

Gabby proceeded to the door of her car as if he weren’t standing there, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of moving.

“Gabriella, please,” he said, blocking her way. “Give me five minutes.”

“I remember you not giving me that same courtesy a few months ago. That was all I needed, you know, about five minutes of your time.” She dodged to the right a bit, trying to get a grip on the door handle. His hand gently caught her arm.

“I know you’re pregnant.”

Freezing in his light grip, she let her gaze climb up to his familiar, once-beloved face. The distinguished features, laugh lines, bright blue eyes. Seeing them this close again was a jolt to her senses, but it couldn’t compete with the face that haunted her dreams every night now.

“And how in the hell do you know that?” she asked, though she figured she already knew. Her mother was going to get a very angry phone call later, once Gabby cooled off enough that she thought she could get through it without flinging mindless curse words.

“That isn’t important.”

“It’s not? Did you call her, or did she call you?”

Sighing, he dropped his hand and looked away. “If you must know, I called her. I wanted to make sure you were coming back.”

“Checking to see if you completely crushed all my dreams, or just the one?”

“It was never my intention to crush your dreams. Any of them. I only thought we needed more time.”

“You thought you needed more time. I knew exactly what I needed.”

“You had become so obsessed with the wedding, Gabby, that it was no longer about the marriage .”

Look at that, a shiny new excuse pulled right out of his ass. How long had it taken him to come up with that one? “Oh, bull shit , Mark!”

“Please lower your voice—”

“That doesn’t even make any sense. Yeah, I wanted the show. I wanted the whole princess-for-a-day thing. But my heart was always set on you . On our future together. If the whole thing wigged you out that badly, you could have spoken up, you know. You said nothing to me about any of it.”

“I realize that, and I take full responsibility for my lack of communication. It seemed easier to let you handle all the details because of my schedule, and you wanted to do it. You became so immersed in it, though. When the time came, I couldn’t go through with it. It didn’t even seem to be about us anymore.”

“Mark, it’s two hundred and eighty-nine degrees right now. I’m not going to stand here in this oven and retread the same ground we’ve been over and over already. There’s no point in it, and I’m about to pass out. You’re not going to wear me down. I’ll never forgive you for what you did. Ever. End of.”

“Let me take you to dinner.”

“I’m in a relationship …” Her voice choked off into pathetic, heartbroken silence. Because the relationship she was in, apparently, was only in her head. She missed Ian so much, so desperately, that her throat had closed up, and she realized her hands had gone reflexively to her stomach at the thought of him. Her belly had the slightest little pooch now, and she wanted Ian to see it so badly, where their child grew bigger and stronger every day. This was killing her.

“Honey, I know you’re working yourself to death, and I can’t even imagine how worried you are about being pregnant. And alone. Where is he now, by the way?”

“Back home,” she said dully, in place of none of your freaking business .

He must’ve surmised from her tone it was a touchy subject. “Getting away for an evening and having a nice meal will do you good. I know how you are when you’re stressed, so I doubt you’re eating well. We don’t have to argue. We don’t have to talk much at all if you don’t want to.”

I know how you are. He’d said a lot, but her brain was stuck on that. There was so much comfort in those words: someone who knew what she needed when she needed it. For the most part, Mark had—except for the one thing she’d needed from him more than anything else. To show up and commit to her.

What could it hurt to go to dinner? If she’d thought for a moment that he still wanted her, she’d turn him down cold, but there was no way he could now.

Then again…what the hell was he doing here?

“I care about you, Gabby,” he said, as if sensing the turn her thoughts were taking. “You might not believe it, but I do. Very much. I want more than anything to know you’re going to be okay.” Frowning at her, he reached forward and swept a strand of hair from her damp forehead. “You’re not anemic, are you?”

“No.”

“Are you taking vitamins?”

“What are you, my doctor now? I think it’s only a case of being thirty-six and pregnant in three-thousand-degree heat.”

He retracted his arm, still looking at her in that too-assessing, doctor way he had. “All right, then. My offer stands. What do you think?”

If nothing else, it would be a night away from her apartment—and away from much-needed reading, unfortunately—but it would be a night in someone else’s company besides her own. She was practically sick of herself, sick of festering in her lonely, chaotic thoughts.

But in the end…

“I can’t,” she said softly. “Thank you for caring. I just can’t.” She attempted to reach around him again. And again, his hand caught her before she could.

“Gabby…”

“What, Mark, what now?”

“I love you.”

“I loved you. Past tense.”

“I don’t think so. If you truly wanted to spend the rest of your life with me, and I believe you did, you wouldn’t be able to walk away so fast.”

“Here’s the thing. I can’t love without respect. And I can’t respect someone who doesn’t respect me in return. What you did…it’s pretty damn far from respect, you know?”

“This summer without you… It’s been hell on me, and it crushes me to think what it’s been for like for you. That you’re pregnant with another man’s child—I’ll deal with it, Gabby. We’ll make it work. I’ll raise this baby as if it’s my own. It’s a part of you, and that’s enough for me. I swear to you, honey, I wasn’t there before, but I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll always be here for you and this baby.”

She could only stare at him in stunned silence.

“I didn’t want to do this here,” he went on, casting a glance around and taking both her hands, “but you aren’t giving me much choice. I still have your ring. You can have it back, or I’ll buy you a brand-new one. We can start all over. I miss you.” He gazed searchingly into her eyes, his own like a clear autumn morning. Not the hazy, sweltering late-summer sky outside the building…and not the warm spring of Ian’s that she longed for. “I do want to marry you. Come back to me.”

Gabby jerked her hands from his, all but slapping them away. Whether it was fury at him or horror at how much she wanted to go with him, not only to dinner, but home ... She couldn’t even analyze it right now. Wouldn’t. Didn’t have the strength to. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I have to go.”

Those autumn-blue eyes clouded with desperation. “At least give some thought to it. I promise you, I see what I’ve lost now, Gabby, and I’m sorry it took me this long to—”