Chapter Sixteen

Ruby wouldn’t answer his texts.

Wouldn’t answer his calls.

Wouldn’t let him through the gate when he arrived at her townhouse complex.

For days, he had no contact with her and wondered what the fuck had happened to her. All he got, her last communication to him, had been a text while he was still in the meeting with Sports Armour. He’d asked if everything was okay at the doctor, to which she’d replied: Fine. Leave me alone for a while. Need time.

Time for what?

Had she sat in that meeting hearing them talk about babies and having a family in the future, and she’d suddenly decided she didn’t want to be with him anymore? A wake-up call of sorts? She’d started feeling sick in the car after leaving his mother’s house. Had it been too soon to bring her to meet Mom?

Ruby was skittish about them being together, but now he wondered if maybe he’d pushed all this on her too soon. Insisting they date, insisting she let him make her happy, insisting she come to meet his mother. Yes, something must’ve clicked in her mind and now he was paying the price.

He hadn’t signed the contract, just like she’d said. He’d spoken to Phil, Ruby’s dad, who advised him to do exactly what Ruby had said and to give her a few days, because she was more than likely sick and needed time alone. Alec had conceded, but now after practice two days later, he had to see her.

If something was wrong with Ruby, he had to make it right. Correct his fuck-up, whatever it was. Getting into his car after practice, Alec drove by a local bakery to pick up some soup and bread before driving over to Ruby’s. He didn’t care if she didn’t want to see him. Tough—he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight.

Whatever it was, they could talk this through.

Besides, if he waited too long, she might accuse him of not caring about her, and only the opposite was true—he did care, deeply. But he also didn’t want to be pushy, if that was the case. If that had been the root of this problem to begin with. If he examined his feelings too closely, he’d discover things he wasn’t ready to accept quite yet—just how deeply that care and concern for Ruby went. But one thing was for certain: he was determined to get her back.

At the townhouse gate, he marked her number but nobody replied. He picked up her phone to call her. The call went to voicemail. He decided to text her instead. “Ruby, I have your laptop bag that you left in the meeting. You can’t avoid me forever,” he spoke into the dictation field. “Please let me in. I have soup.”

Those must’ve been the magic words, because the gate buzzed open suddenly.

“Thank you,” he dictated into the text. Alec blew out a breath and drove in, curving around the bend to reach her townhouse near the back.

When he saw her car in her driveway, he let out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been sure she really was sick and had imagined her driving off, away from Savannah, far, far from him. He got out of the car, hauling her laptop bag, soup, and the bread all in one hand, his keys and things in the other.

Be ready for anything, he told himself.

Whatever it was, he’d fix it.

When she finally opened the door after his second knock, he immediately felt guilty for thinking she might not be sick. The woman looked practically green, which clashed with her fiery red hair, now a tangled mess around her face. Without any makeup and dressed in oversized flannel pajamas, she didn’t look anything like the perfectly assembled woman he knew so well. But this version of Ruby was just as beautiful to him—maybe more so. It was a side of her she didn’t show other people.

“What are you doing here?” she croaked. She didn’t move to let him inside.

“I brought you soup.” He held up the offering. “And your laptop bag.” He turned to show her the bag splayed across his back. “Let me inside for a little while. I promise I won’t harass you.”

She hesitated, but with a sigh, she opened the door to let him in. He instantly made her go sit down while he poured the soup into a bowl and brought it to her, along with a slice of bread and a spoon. Although she insisted that she wasn’t hungry, he told her he wouldn’t leave until she ate something.

With a scowl, she finally started eating the soup.

“What do you have? The flu?” He scooted his chair close to the table, watching her with utmost concern. “You never told me what the doctor at the urgent care center said.”

“Because it doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter, Ruby?”

She looked like she would engage in discussion with him, but she only shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry about it. I’m worried about you, Red. About us.” He laid his hand on top of hers. “What’s going on?”

She wouldn’t look at him, instead seemed focused on the bowl of soup in front of her. “It’s not the flu. And don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”

“Not that I’d care. Do you have a fever? Nausea, vomiting?” He leaned over and placed his hand over her forehead, but she pulled away. Something was definitely wrong besides just being sick. “You seem warm. Want me to go find a thermometer?”

She sighed in exasperation. “No. Look, I appreciate you coming out here, Alec, but you didn’t need to. I’ll be okay.”

Alec wanted to ask, What about us? Are we okay?

She looked so pathetic that he didn’t have the heart to upset her. Right as he was about to get up to leave, though, she paled and, jumping up, ran from the room. Concerned, he followed her, only to hear the bathroom door slam before the unmistakable sounds of vomiting echoed from the bathroom.

“Ruby? Are you all right?” He knocked lightly on the door.

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “Go away. Please.”

He wasn’t about to go anywhere when she was this sick, but he went back downstairs to give her privacy. After a bit, she returned, glass of water in her hand. She sat down gingerly, and he couldn’t help but notice that she seemed thinner, gaunt, and definitely going through something.

“How long have you been vomiting?” Alec asked, sitting on the opposite end of the couch from her.

“It’s nothing.”

“That doesn’t seem like nothing to me.”

“It is nothing.” She shot him a glare. “I usually only vomit in the morning…”

The way she said it…morning…vomiting. Her face paled again, and it was then that Alec knew what was wrong. “Wait. Are you pregnant?” His eyes narrowed. She looked like she was going to faint. He instantly rushed to her side and gripped her by her upper arms. “Ruby, are you? Pregnant?” He could barely get the word out.

Her bottom lip trembled, and she finally nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Holy shit. How long have you known?” He held her close, but she pushed away. Now that he knew her secret, they could talk about it, work this out. So, why was she pushing him away?

Ruby kept her eyes down in her lap. “Since the urgent care,” she whispered. “I thought I was going to faint during the meeting. God, I feel so stupid, Alec. I’m so sorry I left you all alone in there.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” He tried not to sound too upset, but she wasn’t making any sense. “You were sick. You’re pregnant. It was totally justified. Oh, my God.” Suddenly, he had to stand and pace the room. It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone else might be the father, but just to be sure…

“Ruby, the father…”

“It’s you, Alec.” She full-on started to cry.

“Okay, listen.” He ran his hands through his hair. Holy fuck. First, Colleen and now Ruby. Except Colleen’s wasn’t real, but still, getting the news twice that he was going to be a father was particularly straining. “We’ll figure this out.”

Although part of him wanted to demand why she hadn’t told him the moment she knew, another part of him could barely wrap his head around this news. Ruby was pregnant. With his child. How had this happened, though? She said she was on the pill. An insidious inner voice wondered if she was telling the truth, but he knew that was only trauma speaking. Ruby would never lie to him like Colleen had, and besides, she definitely wasn’t faking her nausea and morning sickness.

“There’s nothing to figure out, Alec. You don’t want kids, and now I’ve ruined your life again.”

“What are you talking about? I love kids. What makes you think I don’t?”

A fresh round of tears burst from her eyes. “In the meeting, you said you weren’t ready for kids. In the future, maybe, but not now. I should’ve known at that moment, it was a sign I was pregnant. Everything was going too smoothly for us.”

He knew he should be freaking out, but to his surprise, the only emotion he felt was joy. Joy, because he was really going to have the chance to be a father, and this time not with a woman he didn’t love either. But with a woman he adored.

This meant Ruby could never run from him again. He would always be a part of her life, and she would be a part of his. They had to make this work. “We’re getting married, then.” At her shocked look, Alec knew he should’ve phrased that better. Asked her maybe, not ordered her.

But at the moment, he just needed to convince her.

She shook her head. “Are you crazy? This is exactly what I was worried about, why I didn’t want you coming around here. You felt you had to marry Colleen, and now you feel you have to marry me. Alec, I know you’re a good guy, but this won’t ruin your life, I promise.”

“Ruin my life? Ruby, marrying you would be a fucking dream come true. Don’t you get it? It’s like the universe took that problem away from me—”

“And gave you another. I know.” She squeezed tears from her eyes and sobbed into a couch pillow.

“I was going to say, and gave me a brand-new start with a woman I love.”

She looked up at him through tears to gauge his response, his eyes. She loved to scan his eyes and make sure he wasn’t lying. Yes, there he said it—he loved her. Because it was true, goddammit. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“You’ve ruined nothing.” He sat next to her, one arm around her. She didn’t push him away. “It’s the perfect time to talk about it. You’re pregnant, and I’m the father. I’m assuming you don’t want to raise this baby alone. Right?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we need to get married. It’s not like I’ll have to wear a scarlet letter if I have a baby out of wedlock,” she pointed out wryly. “You can still have your freedom. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t want freedom, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. What I do care about is doing the right thing.” He took her hands and pressed her fingers.

“I don’t want you to marry me because you feel it’s the right thing. You wouldn’t have asked me to marry you if it weren’t for me being pregnant, so I don’t want you asking me to marry you now. Get it? This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Ruby bawled into her pillow, and Alec knew enough about pregnant women to know he shouldn’t push the issue.

For a long while, he said nothing, only rubbed her back until the sobbing ebbed away. “Ruby, I get what you’re saying, and I respect your feelings. I’m not going to push this issue right now because you’re going through a lot. But I want you to know…that I may not have proposed to you this very week, but I’d already been doing a lot of thinking. We’re good together. We should be together. And us having this baby does not scare the shit out of me the way it did when Colleen told me. Okay?”

She coughed out a small laugh.

There it was, that smile. Even as tiny as it was, he loved it. “I’m serious. I’m feeling happy right now. I’m just worried about you. Ruby, this may make things happen sooner than expected, but I love you, girl. You hear me? And we’re good together.”

“This isn’t the way to do things. Getting married because of a baby is one of the worst reasons to get married. A surefire recipe for divorce.”

“You don’t know that. I know people who got married because of a baby and they’re still together.”

“Who, Alec? Who do you know?”

“I can’t think of them right this second, but I know there have to be some people.” Ugh, his argument was sucking. But it was true. Plenty of people in the world got married because of a pregnancy and made it work. Offhand, he couldn’t think of any, but they had to exist!

She made a frustrated sound. “Look, if I promised you that you could be as involved with the baby as possible without having to marry me, would that satisfy you? Because I want you to know, Alec, that it’s fine by me. I never meant to ruin your life.”

The tears were unstoppable. Like a fountain at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

“Stop saying that. You’re not ruining my life. Ruby…babe…I want to live with you as my wife. I want us to raise our child. Together.” He lowered his voice, trying to make her understand. “Colleen promised me a family and then when I found she’d lied, it did something to me.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked away. He wasn’t sure what he meant. “I guess…I didn’t know how much I wanted to be a father until she took it from me.” He looked up at her. “This is my chance to do things right. To fix my life. To marry the woman I want. Please. Let me do this. It’ll be the best for everyone.”

She gazed at him a long while, and he thought she would give in. But suddenly, she rose from the couch, like she couldn’t bear his touch. His heart sank. “Me, me, I, I,” she said. “That’s all I hear. I know you think I came into your life just to fix you, Alec. I know I represent change for you. But what about me? What about what I want?”

Of course. How could he be so stupid to phrase his words that way? He just wanted to make sure she understood that he was good, he was happy with all this. Instead, he’d come across sounding like a selfish idiot. “Of course what you want matters,” he said, standing to follow her.

But she held out a hand. “Then don’t follow me. And don’t come back here. I’m going to get some rest. I’ll call you soon to figure out the logistics. You know the way out.” His eyes followed her up the stairs until she was out of sight.

His heart ached like someone had stabbed it with a butter knife. This couldn’t be the end. It couldn’t have been so short-lived. Even his mother said it, she was the one. No, she just needs space, he told himself. Time to think. He could do that. He could give her space and all the time in the world.

But one way or another, he had to make her understand, make her believe he’d always loved her. From the moment he met her. And not just because of the baby either. But because she was the most wonderful woman in the world.

And now, the mother of his child.