“Oh my God, you have a bump.” Tears fill my eyes all over again. “It’s real. Millie was telling the truth.”

“Millie?” Jodi snaps into high alert. Clearly, this isn’t something she knew was happening. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I just . . .” I can’t stop looking at her gorgeous round belly. “This is all just a bit much.”

“A bit much for you? What about me? You don’t think this has all been too much for me?” She steps back and stares at me with a pure white face. “I’ve been trying to contact you, to talk to you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Yeah, because of my pride, but I can see that was stupid now. I didn’t mean . . .”

I don’t know what I’m even saying anymore. Words are just spilling out of my mouth. I had this whole beautiful speech planned out. I knew exactly how I was going to woo Jodi back around, but seeing her has completely stripped that away from me. I don’t know what to think anymore. That bump, her beauty—I think I forgot how intoxicating she is. I spent so long hating her that I forgot how much I love her.

“Your pride?” she spits out angrily, not as enamored as me. “Fuck your pride. This isn’t about you. Not anymore. It was at first, I’ll give you that. I was completely intoxicated by you, but now I’m done. Now I have someone else to worry about, another person who needs me. I can’t focus on petty drama.”

“No, I understand. I get that now.” I try to step inside, but she won’t let me. “Please, let me talk.”

“I’m not talking to you. Not now. This isn’t under your control. You don’t just get to walk back in whenever the hell you feel like it.” She drags her fingers through her hair, pulling strands down from the ponytail as she does. The ashy strands frame her face perfectly. “You ignored me, and now it’s my time to ignore you.”

“I thought you didn’t want to be petty. I don’t want to be petty either.” I hold out the ultrasound picture to show her so she knows I knew exactly what I was doing when I came here. “I just want to talk. For our child.”

“You thought I cheated on you, Brock, and you wouldn’t even listen to me.”

“I was stubborn. I was a pig. I know that now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

“Bad? You made me feel a million times worse than bad. Bad doesn’t even begin to cover it. You basically yelled at me like I was a school child, not even giving me a chance to explain, and then you stormed off. After firing me, by the way. You left me with no job, no money, and a whole heap of medical bills.”

I leap in quickly, spotting a solution. “I’ll pay them. Yep, I’ll pay them, and whatever other bills need covering. It’s the least I can do after everything I’ve put you through. I feel like a real jerk.”

“You’re a fucking asshole, Brock, don’t you understand that? You can’t come back and throw money at me. That doesn’t cover up all the hurt, all the pain. Couldn’t you see what you did to me?”

This isn’t going according to plan at all. I can’t seem to say anything right. I want to reach out to Jodi, to touch her, to make her see that I’m just trying to do right by her, but I can’t. She’s so blocked off to me it’s agony.

“Please, Jodi. Please just talk to me. Let me inside and let’s have a conversation about it. I don’t want to yell out here in public with the whole apartment block looking in on us.”

Those words seem to be magical. She realizes that everyone can hear us, so for that one reason alone, she steps aside and lets me in. The place is still just as bare as the first time I came here. She doesn’t even seem to have any baby stuff, which is strange considering how far along she is. Except that she doesn’t seem to have any money.

“Right, Brock, you’re in, so why don’t you just tell me what you want to say then get out.”

“I just want to talk to you, Jodi, to talk about everything. Don’t shut me out like you always do.”

“Always do? You’re the one who didn’t ever call me back. How can you say that about me?”

“Before then, you never really let me in. I wanted to get to know you, but you wouldn’t let me. That’s how I didn’t know about Lucas before, because you decided to deal with the problem yourself.”

“I . . . I . . .” She looks a bit blown away by my words. “That isn’t true. I just take a while—”

“Well, it’s been a while. It’s been a while, and it’s tearing us apart.”

“No, your issues are tearing us apart. You and your issues because of your ex-wife. Just because she cheated on you doesn’t mean everyone else in your life is going to hurt you. How do you not get that? I’m not her. I’m nothing like her. I never would have done that to you. I loved you . . .”

“Loved?” I ask softly. “Does that mean you don’t feel that way anymore?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know what I feel. I hate you for giving up on me, for not listening to me, for turning your back on me and then rejecting me over and over again.”

“I know. I understand that. I shouldn’t have acted like an asshole.”

“And you think you can come here now and just pave over the cracks? Just make things right again?”

“No, that’s not what I want to do. I want to rebuild things properly. I want to be with you.”

“You don’t want to be with me. That isn’t what this is. I know it. I seem to have this effect on guys where they become psychotic about me, and it’s obviously something that I’m doing wrong—”

“Are you talking about Lucas here?”

“Fucking Lucas. I don’t know. Not really. His problem isn’t really me. I’m just his meal ticket.”

“Thomas then? You never really finished that story.”

“No, I suppose I didn’t.” She blows out a giant breath. “We got distracted, didn’t we?”

“We did, and I didn’t want to push you at the time because I knew it was hard, but now . . .”

“Now you need to know?”

“Yes. Now I think I really need to know. I’m sorry, Jodi, but I do.”

“Well, I must have told you things were really bad at work?” I nod. “Okay . . . well, then it began to happen outside of work. Letters, constant gifts, him everywhere. He would turn up at my house at first, but then it got worse and worse. He was everywhere. I was scared. It’s silly because even though he never hurt me, I was scared. Really freaked out all the time. I stopped doing things, I stayed in all the time, I even quit my job just to get away from him, but that made him worse, more desperate to get to me. He got crazier and started coming into my home—he somehow got a key. It was a nightmare . . .” She shakes, and I see the tremble racing through her entire body. “I couldn’t get on a train without being scared that he’d push me. I was always afraid in the dark that he’d take what he wanted from me—he always made it very clear that he could have me if he wanted me, even if it wasn’t something that I wanted to do. He didn’t care what he did do to me as long as he had control so he could call me his own.”

“Oh my God, Jodi, that sounds horrible. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know how I can explain it to you, how bad it was. I was like a shell of my former self. I don’t even know what happened to me. I just needed to get away. I contacted the police over and over again, but they couldn’t do much because he never hurt me. He certainly couldn’t be arrested, so the best I could do was a restraining order. But that wasn’t enough. I didn’t feel safe, so I came to Las Vegas for a fresh start . . . only it hasn’t really been that because every guy I’ve met here has been just as hard to deal with as Thomas. Or maybe not that . . . I don’t know if that’s the right word, but it’s always been a battle.”

Wow . . . her walls are well and truly down now. I can see all of her. She’s perfectly imperfect, beautifully broken, damaged but strong. Surviving just like the rest of us, battling her own demons. I want to help her with that and support her, not add to her problems.

“I know what you’re thinking, that I bring all my problems on myself. I know I must somehow. I tried to be honest with Thomas, I just wanted to help Lucas, and with you—”

“No, you can’t blame yourself for me. That was all my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong there. I was a dick, and I overreacted. Also, you can’t blame yourself for Lucas either. He’s clearly an addict. Thomas is just a sick asshole, so that’s not your fault either. You’re just the unlucky recipient of his affections.”

Her shoulders soften, and her face relaxes just a little bit. I hope that I can take just a little bit of weight off her.

“Look, Jodi, things got fucked up for us somewhere along the way. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I want to make it right. We owe it to our baby to give us another chance, to just try.” Her eyes widen in shock. “But I’m not going to pressure you. I don’t want it to become something dramatic. Just because we have a baby on the way doesn’t mean that we need to dive in with both feet first.”

“What are you suggesting, Brock? Because we do have a baby on the way, so we need to be smart.”

“Let me take you on a date. Just one casual, no-pressure date. We can see then if there’s something still there that we can work on. I don’t want to give up on us just yet.”

She wanders out of the room, taking my hope with her. Her expression was closed off. I don’t know what she’s thinking, what’s she’s going to do. I honestly thought that this would be easy, that she’d fall back into my arms and we’d be happy together. We were happy once upon a time. We could be back there again.

I slide my eyes closed, remembering the good times, silently praying to anyone who’s listening that she comes back to me. I want to kiss her again, to hold her to my chest, to love her with everything I have. And I’ll really do it this time. I’ll really love her, and I won’t let my insecurities get in the way. I’ll be better for Jodi. She deserves for me to be the best man ever. We could be a real family, I could have the unit that I’ve always wanted, and I really want it to be with her. I still love Jodi, and I have through all of it. Now I need her to be mine again.

But I can’t pressure her. That’s the one thing I’ve learned. I just can’t. She’s been through too much. Even if it kills me, I’ll just have to wait it out. I can feel a deep itch running through my body, but I won’t scratch it. I’ll just sit here patiently and wait for her to come back in with her answer, whatever it may be.