Chapter 17

Hound

“You look like shit,” I spit when I settle in behind the steering wheel.

Fun fact, she actually looks gorgeous. Her long brown hair is more radiant than I remember, and her blue eyes, although not as bright as before, shine.

“Nice talk,” she says and reaches for the door handle.

I growl before I even realize I want to. My hand clamps on her thigh, squeezing until she yelps from the unintentional pain.

“Why are you here?”

I angle my head toward the women’s clinic.

“You know exactly why I’m here.”

She huffs a humorless laugh. “This is a Cerberus SUV.”

Small talk isn’t her style, and since neither is keeping her thoughts bottled up, I wait for her to get to the point she wants to make.

“I have to say,” she begins looking away from me and out the window. “I’m surprised you’re still working for him. Figured you would’ve tried to fuck my mom by now.”

“I’m sure my employment will end today,” I say not taking her bait and getting riled up at the mother comment.

“Why are you here?” she asks again. “To stop me?”

I look out the window, the battle in my heart and head telling me to beg her to walk away from this place raging like a literal fire.

“I’m here to hold your hand or—”

“You’re here to make sure I follow through with what you said in the alley.”

“I don’t rem—”

She lowers her voice, trying, and failing, to sound more masculine.

“That money is for the abortion if my stupid ass put that shit into motion…”

Chills race over my skin, leaving behind the sting of regret.

She pats her pocket. “I still have the money, so thanks for that.”

I bite my bottom lip until I taste tangy copper on my tongue.

“You don’t have to go in with me.” Her lack of bravery is betrayed by the crack of her voice. She’s trying so hard to make me think she’s strong, all I want to do is wrap my arms around her and promise her the world. “I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”

I reach out and clamp her thigh again when she tries to open the door.

“Georgia.”

Her tear-streaked face turns, telling me she’s listening, but she’s looking past me, not directly in my eye.

“You didn’t let me finish. I’m here to hold your hand in that clinic if that’s what you want.”

She nods.

“Or to hold that baby when it’s born and help you raise him.” Her eyes finally meet mine. “I’m not here to convince you one way or the other, but I’m here for you—whichever direction you go.”

“You’re not here to stop me?”

I shake my head, but her eyes trail to my throat where I work on the dry lump that has formed there.

“You’re lying,” she whispers. “You do have an opinion about what I should do.”

I follow her eyes when they look down at the hand gripping her thigh, the hand that’s keeping her from getting out of the SUV.

“It’s your body. It’s your choice.” I shake my head, fingers flexing against her jeans as I resist the urge to cup her cheek.

She looks out the window, staring at the entrance to the clinic, and I sit in silence with my heart pounding in my chest.

“You want to marry me and raise this baby together?”

I can’t stop the laughter that bubbles up my throat. “Fat fucking chance.”

I can see mirth in her eyes when she looks back at me. The reaction on my part was natural, but the smile on her face tells me it’s exactly what she wanted to hear.

“No happily ever after for us?” She gives me a weak smile. “No handful of kids and white picket fence in our future?”

“That’s not what you want either,” I add.

“You said you’re unemployed after today. Why would you think that?”

Shaking my head with a quick chuckle, I look back over at her. “Fucking you is one thing. I don’t imagine your dad is going to be happy that I knocked you up.”

It’s her turn to laugh. “I’m a grown woman, Jameson.”

God, I love the sound of my given name on her lips, the breathy way it falls off of her tongue.

“You are,” I agree.

“We can just not tell him,” she suggests.

“A baby is kind of hard to hide,” I reason with her, but the fact that she’s considering keeping the child makes my heart soar.

When she looks up at me, a small smile playing on her lips, the brightness she lacked in her eyes is there once again. She’s breathtakingly beautiful.

“We don’t have to go back.” She shifts in her seat, anxious for the future she’s imagining. “We can stay here in Vegas. Get a three-bedroom house or apartment.”

My brow furrows.

“One for me, one for you, and a nursery.”

I told her there’s no happily ever after for us, and I meant it, but for some reason, the thought of us living together sounds perfect until she specifies that it’ll be in separate rooms. As if I would have the ability to stay out of her bed. Out of her.

I can’t live in Vegas. It’s too far from Izzy. I’ve spent years too far from her. When I discharged from the Corps, I told myself, I promised her, I’d never be more than a few hours away.

“I’m not living in Vegas,” I mutter. “And I’m sure as fuck not getting a three-bedroom apartment and hiding a grandchild from your dad.”

Her mood changes the second the words are out of my mouth.

“Why do you keep running? What’s so bad about New Mexico?”

She clears her throat past the emotion that’s playing in her tear-filled eyes.

“I hate it there.”

“Not good enough.” I cup her cheek like I wanted to earlier.

“They want me to be Ivy.”

The twin. The one that looks so much like the woman sitting in this SUV, but amazingly different at the same time.

“You’re nothing like your sister.”

“Much to my parents’ disappointment,” she mutters.

“You’re not a disappointment.”

She gives me an incredulous look before turning her eyes back to the clinic.

“My appointment is in five minutes.”

“Okay.”

What else could I possibly say to her?

Silence fills the inside of the SUV, thick and full of unsaid things.

Five minutes tick by, then another ten.

“Are you going in?”

Her head shakes, and relief fills my heart.

“Not today,” she whispers.

I put the SUV in drive and pull away before she can change her mind.

“We have to tell your dad.”

“And he’s the deciding factor?” I can’t ignore the bitterness in her voice.

“It’s your choice. I won’t force you to make a decision one way or the other, and I sure as fuck won’t let anyone else either.”

“You’d go against my dad?”

“For you?” I ask. “For that baby? For your right to choose what happens to your body? How you want to live your life? Any day. Every day for the rest of my life.”

“Careful, Jameson. You’re making me want things I know I can never have.”

She refuses something to eat, so we head back to the hotel I checked into late last night. It’s better than the one back in Dallas, and I know I got the upgrade hoping she’d come back here with me at some point. I wanted her in comfort if she followed through with the procedure, all the time praying she’d be here under different circumstances.

“You seem way more okay with knocking me up than I ever expected,” she says as I open the door for her and let her walk in first.

“I feel guilty,” I confess as I toss the keys on the table in the corner. “I should’ve taken the time to wrap up that night.”

She winces and turns so I can’t see her face.

“You regret hooking up with me.”

I don’t even try to stop the laugh that bubbles from my throat.

“Regret? Not a fucking chance.” Her shoulders tense, but she doesn’t turn around. “I don’t know that I’d change a damn thing, even considering exactly where we are right now.”

That’s the fucked-up truth to this entire situation. Even risking losing my job, even the different scenarios of how Dallas could’ve ended, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.

“I’m tired,” she says in a soft voice. “Can I take a nap?”

“Of course. Bed is yours.”

I watch, my mouth going dry when she pulls off her t-shirt and jeans. Crawling between sheets I tossed and turned in last night, she sighs heavily before settling into the comfort I know she isn’t afforded in whatever shithole she’s been staying in.

I don’t ignore the text I get from Shadow. I don’t pretend like we’re living on borrowed time in some bubble like I did before. I don’t know how much Cerberus knows, but it won’t be long before the cavalry shows up and tries to sweep her away. I imagine they’ve done it so many times; it’s just become part of their routine.

I send Shadow the name of the hotel and room number, then I spend hours trying to figure out a way to make this entire fucked-up situation work for all involved.