CHAPTER FOURTEEN
DON’T WANNA LOSE YOU NOW
“If I sign another sheet of paper, my fingers will fall off,” Arabella complained to the empty room. The last few days had flown by in a flurry of legal documents. But on the plus side, Hip, Hop, Health would live on with her continued involvement. Arabella rolled her head from side to side, thinking she’d have to entice Grady into giving her a much-needed full-body massage. The last several days had passed by in a blur of activity. In addition to running the Heartbeat rehearsals, she’d terminated her lease on her apartment and sold the furniture to the current tenant. Because her personal items were already in storage, Jenna had set up a moving pod to send her stuff to Florida. After doing some research, Arabella had found an auto-transport company to deliver her little VW Beetle. She couldn’t wait to have her cute car back.
With a long-suffering sigh, she scooted back from her desk in the small office connected to the bedroom. After a hands-over-her-head stretch, she headed into the kitchen to try to scrounge up something to eat. Last-minute details with Devin, press conferences, and interviews had kept Grady so busy that she’d barely seen him all week. And it was making her seriously grumpy. “I need a Grady fix and I need it now,” she said while staring at the meager contents of the fridge. And tacos. Tacos would be amazing right about now. But unlike LA, Sea Breeze didn’t have delivery for much of anything, so Arabella stood there and pouted. She spotted a bag of salad greens, some sliced ham, and some leftover Buffalo-chicken pizza, but nothing sounded as good as tacos. “And it’s not even Tuesday.” She shut the door with a bit of irritation and her stomach growled in protest. She put a hand over her tummy. “I know, but I want tacos!” In fact, she’d been craving Mexican food all week long.
“Oh . . . God!” Her knees went weak and she slid to the floor. When she’d been pregnant, she’d craved Mexican food. She counted back and then pulled herself up to locate her phone. She opened her period tracker.
She was late.
Arabella’s heart pounded. “How could I be so careless?” she whispered, but then again, a part of her would welcome a baby . . . Grady’s baby. But how would he react? She closed her eyes, remembering a couple of times when she’d known she’d been rolling the dice and passion had overruled caution. But maybe deep down she didn’t want to be cautious.
Desperate to know for sure, she slipped on her shoes, grabbed her purse, and headed out the door. She slid behind the wheel of the MINI Cooper that Grady had loaned her to replace her rental. She drove out of town, not wanting to be spotted in the local drugstore buying a pregnancy test, so by the time she arrived back at the beach house, she was frantic with wanting to know the results.
Dropping everything but the box, Arabella raced into the bathroom. Her fingers shook so hard that it was nearly impossible to follow the simple directions, and yet she finally managed. When she saw the results, she burst into tears.
Still in the bathroom, she heard Grady arrive. “Arabella?”
Her heart hammered and she couldn’t stand up, couldn’t find words.
“Bella?”
She heard him walking around, and he finally knocked on the door.
“Babe, are you in there?”
“Yes.” She tried for a light response but her voice sounded like a croak.
“Are you okay?”
Arabella cleared her throat and tried to pull herself together.
“Can I come in?”
“No!” she nearly shouted.
“You’re scaring me. I don’t care what you’re doing, I’m coming in.”
Arabella looked up from where she sat on the tile floor. The instructions, the box, and the results were scattered around her. His eyes widened as what she was doing registered. Another tear slipped out and she tried to speak.
“Are we going to have a baby?” Grady asked in a voice laced with emotion.
“No,” she answered softly, and then squeezed her eyes shut.
“Oh, Bella.” Grady sat down beside her and took her hand. “I guess I should feel relieved, but I kinda feel disappointed.”
“Really?” Arabella looked at him, loving him even more than she already did. She gave him a wobbly smile.
Grady raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. “Were you worried that I’d be upset?”
Arabella shrugged, trying to rein in her emotion. “I don’t know.”
“How about you?” He tilted his head, waiting for her response.
“I guess, truly, I’m a little bit disappointed too.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Not that I was trying to get pregnant! I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I know that.” He squeezed her hand. “So, you’re sure?”
Arabella showed him the stick. “Yep.”
Grady nodded. “What made you think that you could be?”
“Well, I had this super craving for tacos and because of the last time . . .” she said, and then stopped. She felt him stiffen beside her.
“Wait, the last time?”
“Oh, Grady . . .” Arabella said, trying not to tremble. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, trying to maintain her composure and failing miserably.
“Arabella, were you pregnant before?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Yes,” she replied, and heard his sharp intake of breath. “The . . . the . . . night I found you with that girl.”
“You were coming in to tell me you were pregnant?”
Unable to look at him, she nodded. “I’m so sorry.”
Silence filled the room.
Finally she said, “Try to understand. I was so emotionally strung out already. You were in the middle of the tour and I wasn’t sure how you would react . . . and well, then you know what I walked into.”
“Except I was innocent,” he said flatly.
“I freaked out.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“So, do I have a child?” he asked hesitantly.
“Oh, Grady.” Arabella started to cry. “I . . . I . . . miscarried,” she said in a broken tone. “Only eight weeks into the pregnancy.” Sobs shook her whole body. She needed him to hug her but he didn’t.
“Were you going to tell me?”
“Back then?”
“Yes.”
Arabella gazed up at the ceiling and then mustered up the courage to look at Grady through a veil of tears. “I wouldn’t have kept your child from you.”
He nodded but looked stricken, and she felt a flash of fear.
“Granny York was the only person who knew.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was so young. Scared. And when I miscarried, I was . . . so destroyed for a long time.” She swiped at tears with the sleeve of her shirt. “I wondered if there was something I’d done wrong. Something to cause . . .” she said, and then started crying harder. “And I was so mad at you.”
“But I didn’t deserve it.”
“Don’t you see? I didn’t know that then. I thought that if you hadn’t been with that girl and I hadn’t been so upset . . .”
Grady frowned, and to Arabella’s horror he brushed away his own tears. “God, you placed blame on me?”
“I placed blame on everything. I was an emotional hot mess. And of course I missed you. Needed you.”
“You refused my calls,” he said in a weary tone. “But you were able to grieve. And now I have to deal with . . . a loss I never knew I had. It was my baby too.”
“I’m so sorry. But then you seemed to be with another girl at every turn.” She shrugged. “And so I didn’t see the point.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I’ve wanted to. Started to. But then I told myself, what good would it do?”
“It was something I had the right to know. We can’t have secrets like that between us, Arabella. Secrets will always come out and undermine trust.”
“I’m sorry. All I can ask is for you to put yourself in my shoes and try to understand what I was going through at the time.” She looked at him through a blur of tears. “And right this minute.”
Grady nodded and put his arm around her, pulling her close. She leaned her head on his shoulder, letting her tears flow. “This is so hard, but I’m glad that you know now, Grady.” She felt his intake of breath. He reached over to the toilet-paper roll and gave her a long piece. Thankful, she blew her nose and blotted at her eyes.
“Funny, if not for this concert, you would never have found out the truth. You would have gone through the rest of your life thinking the worst of me. God, that would have been such a tragedy.” His voice sounded distant, as if he were trying to process everything all at once.
“You’re right,” she admitted, and felt him tense up. “But at least you know what I was going through at the time.”
“I can only imagine.” He nodded absently, making her heart constrict. For the first time, everything in her life seemed to be coming together. And in one afternoon, their bubble of happiness had burst like a giant balloon, raining like tears all around them. Arabella swallowed hard, wishing she’d had the courage to tell him sooner.
“I have an interview to do in less than an hour. I just hadn’t seen you all day and wanted to stop by for a few minutes,” he said. While there wasn’t any anger in his tone, Arabella felt him pull away and it scared her to the bone. But she knew he needed time to digest the loss of the baby.
Grady kissed her on top of her head and stood up, offering his hand for assistance. “I’ll give you a call later,” he said, but made no mention of coming over.
Arabella nodded. “Okay.” She followed him to the door, and when he drove away she felt a sense of loss. She put a hand to her chest, wondering if anything could ever be the same.