Chapter 28
It pained Megan to see James’s entire face turn to stone. His jaw locked, his nostrils flared, and his eyes pierced into her like searing blades straight from the forge.
She’d never seen him this angry before. Not when he’d dealt with his ex-wife at the school. Not when her ex-husband had approached them at that bar and said some nasty things to them.
The tendons in James’s neck strained with tension as he held his shoulders rigid. She wanted to shrink away from his penetrating eyes, but she felt glued in place, helpless to escape the agony that was collecting in the pit of her stomach.
Megan had told James months ago that she planned to tell her family. He must think she’d lied to him. She honestly thought she’d have told them by now. But James wouldn’t know that.
“Why haven’t you told your family that you’re divorced?” he spat out, his tone deadly cold.
“I wanted to but—”
“But what?”
“I couldn’t find the right time.”
“You’ve had months!”
Her lips moved soundlessly. The moisture in her mouth and throat were gone, and she had to jut her neck forward to work up to swallowing. “I’d planned to tell them in person.”
“Like when you saw them over Christmas?” As he narrowed his eyes at her, his hands twisted into fists at his sides.
“I had every intention of telling them over Christmas, but the right opportunity never came. Quinn and Ewan were talking about their wedding. Sean and Darcy got engaged. I just couldn’t dump my news on them.”
He huffed a fake laugh. “Oh, right, your heartbreaking news. The news that would devastate your family and make them so disappointed in you.”
She frowned. “Don’t say it like that. And don’t invalidate my fears either.”
“News flash, sweetheart.” He leaned toward her. “You’re not the only person in this fucking world who’s ever gotten a divorce.”
She stepped away from him as if his words had teeth.
He pushed off the counter and walked into the living room, running his hand over the back of his neck. “Can you not see how this makes me feel?” He turned back toward her. “You don’t want to disappoint your family by telling them you divorced the successful, rich real estate executive who gave you everything your heart desired?”
“Not everything,” she whispered. Niall hadn’t made her half as happy as James made her. All the gowns or jewels in the world couldn’t make her feel as amazing as James did when he simply smiled at her.
James either didn’t hear her reply or ignored her. “Did it ever cross your mind to tell them about me? That you were dating a new guy?”
She took a step toward him and his whole body locked up. She halted, guilt eating away at her insides. “Of course I wanted to tell them about you.”
And she truly had. In fact, she was so excited to tell them about James and the baby that it was killing her. She wanted to go shopping for baby clothes with her mom. She wanted to see the look on her dad’s face when she told him he would be a grandpa. But first she had to tell them about Niall and her divorce. And that giant piece of news was holding everything up.
“So why didn’t you? Do you think they won’t like me? Won’t approve of me? Is that why you didn’t invite me to the wedding?”
“Of course not! They’re going to love you, James.”
Her mounting panic made her voice shriller by the second. Hurt twisted his gorgeous face and it slayed her.
“So if it’s not them, is it you?” A muscle on the side of his jaw twitched. “Are you ashamed of me…of us?”
She blew out a breath. Her mouth opened and shut, yet her vocal cords wouldn’t utter a sound. Megan was shocked to her core that James would even think such a thing. “Why would I be ashamed of you?” was all she could rush out.
He shrugged casually. “Maybe because I’m a blue-collar mechanic? Maybe because I have permanent grease-stained hands and calluses on the pads of my fingers that feel like sandpaper. Maybe because I don’t drive a Mercedes? Maybe because I’m divorced?”
She could only shake her head. Blinking angry tears away, she stood motionless and helpless at the edge of the kitchen. She couldn’t believe he could think for one minute that she would ever feel that way about him.
“Do you really think I’m that shallow?”
“I don’t know. Are you? Here you are, the woman who’s carrying my child, and you can’t find the time to tell your family that I even exist?”
“That’s ridiculous! How can you say that?” Megan cried, her voice breaking. “You sound like one of the seven-year-olds in my class. You’re using the sharpest words just so you can inflict the most pain!”
“I hear you responding to my questions with questions of your own, Megan.” His voice climbed, and she winced as he spat out her name. “They aren’t fucking answers!”
Her brain was spinning, and she desperately tried to latch onto something to say so she could stop this argument and ease his pain. But she couldn’t think fast enough. James shook his head and strode past her to the front door. He didn’t even look at her.
She was making a mess of this. He had every right to be angry at her. But it had absolutely nothing to do with him and everything to do with her and her fear of failure. Her fear of disappointing her family. And here she was disappointing the man she’d fallen head-over-heels in love with, and it hurt worse than she’d ever imagined.
“James, I promise you. This has nothing to do with you.” She gripped the edge of the kitchen island. She wanted to run after him, fling herself into his arms, but she resisted.
Grabbing his coat from the rack, he turned toward her. “When you show up in Boston in a couple weeks and everyone can see you’re pregnant, are you planning to pass the baby off as Niall’s?”
His words felt like a punch to the gut. She instinctively dropped her hands to her stomach. Leveling her gaze at James as best she could, she insisted, “I’m going to tell them everything when I’m there for the wedding.”
And she really planned on it. In fact, she was excited to tell her family. For the first time in a long time, she was happy. Her first year at her new job had been amazing. So far, she’d had a healthy pregnancy. But most importantly, she was in a relationship with a man she loved and who treated her like she was important to him.
She couldn’t help the strangled whimper that escaped her throat at the thought that everything was different now. Maybe she wasn’t important to him anymore. Maybe she’d failed James too.
He smiled. It was a horrible sneering smile that had ice skating up and down her spine. “Sure you will. Just like you were going to tell them the last time you saw them.”
“I’m sorry. Please believe me,” she pleaded.
“I don’t.” His voice was cold and final.
“I swear to you—I’m going to tell them the truth about everything.”
His lips twitched as he blew out a humorless chuckle. “Make sure you mention that you fucked around and got knocked up by a blue-collar divorced nobody.”
Without another word, he left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
###
James sat at his kitchen table. The only light on was the lamp underneath the microwave. It was barely bright enough to cast shadows.
Both of his hands were wrapped around a beer bottle. It’d been empty for well over an hour, but he hadn’t bothered to get up and throw it in the recycling.
Time was a funny thing. It could go slow, or it could go fast. It could be on your side, or it could be against you. It could change the smallest details or the biggest problems. It could widen already impossible gaps or shrink the greatest divides. And it could shine clarity on a brooding, childish bastard after he couldn’t keep his shit together.
Too bad time wasn’t working for him.
His anger still seethed inside. He felt betrayed. He felt used. He felt foolish in so many ways. For thinking a woman like Megan McKenna could ever fall for a guy like him. For thinking for one second that she would want to marry him. Or that he’d ever be able to hold on to her if it weren’t for the baby growing in her belly.
She’d lied. She’d betrayed his trust, and in his book, that was the absolute worst thing anyone could do to him. Holly had done it countless times all those years ago. He should have learned his goddamn lesson.
She should have fucking told her family about her divorce. What did that say about her? That she could keep that type of secret from a family she was supposedly close to? She’d had nine months to tell them about her divorce. He didn’t care what she said about wanting to tell them in person. If she really had wanted to do it, she’d had more than enough time to come clean.
James spun the beer bottle on its side on the table. The worst part—the part that made his skin tighten over his bones—was her lack of defense against his accusations. She’d never said anything like, “I’m not ashamed of you, James. I couldn’t be happier to be having your baby, James. I don’t care that you’re a mechanic, James.”
God, he should have seen this coming down the pike for a while. She was used to the finest things that money could buy. Yeah, she’d been living without them, except for her clothes, shoes, and bags. But her fine ass was used to sitting on Italian leather, and her long, gorgeous legs were used to walking across Carrera marble.
He might not be as well off as her fucking dick-bag ex-husband, but he owned his own business and made enough money to provide well for his family. For Christ’s sake, he hadn’t realized he needed to prove that to her.
With the baby on the way, Megan would always be a part of his life and he a part of hers. If she’d needed proof that he could provide for her, he would have shown her. If she’d doubted that she could be happy with a mechanic who drove a muscle car instead of a Porsche, he would have tried to prove it to her.
He didn’t even want to think about moving on, because the woman he wanted—the woman he loved—was Megan. But if she was ashamed of him, there was no amount of love in the world that would save their relationship.
Taking a deep breath, he leaned back in the chair and watched the bottle’s rotation slow. His head was numb, and his limbs were heavy with fatigue. He felt like he’d just put in a three-hour lifting session at the gym, and all he’d done was have a major argument with the mother of his child.
He was her dirty little secret that she’d brushed under the rug.
Just the thought of it made James squeeze his eyes closed. He’d been foolishly thinking about forever with her. He wanted to put a ring on her finger, to make her his wife. He wanted to share a bed with her, a home with her. He wanted to watch her shuffle around in her pajamas and robe in the morning, hugely pregnant with their baby, while he made her breakfast. He wanted to come home from work to her every night and know that she belonged there. He’d wanted to give her his heart, and…
Sitting forward, he rested his head in his hands. Fuck, he hurt. With every heartbeat, the ache spread through his body. He felt numb and empty yet so full of anguish at the same time.
If she cared about him, she would have told her family.
He’d opened up his life to her, his family. And she was hiding him from hers. They’d created a life together—a child—and her family didn’t even know that James Foley existed. This baby and Megan were two of the most important parts of his life, and he didn’t even register enough on her radar to share his existence with her parents.
What the hell was he going to do now? How could he be with a woman who thought he was good enough to share a bed with but not good enough to share a life with?
James had told Megan once that someone who was dishonest was someone he didn’t need in his life. He’d never realized that she would ever fall into that category.
He didn’t know what hurt worse: having Holly leave him because she wanted something more than she wanted him and her family or having Megan not love him. At least with Holly, he’d known she’d loved him at some point. But with Megan, he hadn’t been enough from the very beginning.