Chapter Twenty
I dropped the phone on the couch and fell into my computer chair, tears pricking my eyes. I knew I shouldn’t let this get to me, but how could it not?
I just couldn’t figure out why Nate thought this was a good idea. Why he would have pulled this shit. He must have known that my father was going to blow up at me and this wasn’t exactly how I’d wanted my family to find out that we were going to have a new member before they knew it. But now it was out there and I knew that my parents (or my father, at least) were set against the choice that I’d made. I knew he would come around a little as time went on, but that had been a lot to come around from. He sounded actively angry at me, like I had betrayed him in some deep and unthinkable way.
There was a knock at the door, and for one insane second I was sure that my father had someone used his anger to power him all the way across the country to me so he could chew me out in person. I got to my feet slowly, as though I was half-expecting something to leap out on me, and peered through the peephole in the door. My heart exploded upwards when I saw who was out there waiting for me. Nate.
I pulled the door open, and the flood of feelings that hit me when I laid eyes on him properly almost knocked me off my feet – relief, anger, joy, confusion. He leaned down and pulled me into his arms and before I could think twice about it I wrapped my arms around him and let him hold me close, the two of us clinging to each other in that doorway as though we were the only things keeping each other pinned to the Earth. He pressed his face into my hair, inhaling deeply, like he was reminding himself of the parts of me he hadn’t been able to commit to memory while we’d been apart.
And then, reality came flooding back and I pulled away from him, planted my hands on my hips, and glared up at him.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing telling my father about us?” I demanded, my voice louder than I’d intended; he stepped over the threshold and pushed the door shut behind him, making it so my neighbors didn’t hear this entire confrontation. It was probably for the best – the people who lived in this place with me were gossips and I didn’t exactly want them knowing everything that was going on in my personal life right now.
“I’m sorry, I know I should have come to you first,” he shook his head. “I didn’t think he’d react as badly as he did, so I came down here as soon as I was off the phone with him-”
“Yeah, he called me as soon as he was done with you,” I raised my eyebrows at him. “He was fucking furious. He thinks that this is a terrible idea and says he wouldn’t have worked with you had he known about everything that was happening with us.”
“Yeah, that figures,” Nate winced. “Does he want to call off the deal?”
“He didn’t say anything about it,” I shrugged. “But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Nate took a deep breath and nodded.
“Okay,” he replied at last, as though it was a simple as that. “That’s okay.”
I stared up at him for a long moment, trying to make sense of the words that had just come out of his mouth.
“What do you mean, it’s okay?” I demanded. “My father pretty much thinks I’ve ruined my life and oh, already knows how pregnant I am thanks to you. None of this is alright. Why did you do it?”
He didn’t reply for a second, and I was sure for as long as it lasted that he was about to walk out on me, that he had realized how detrimental all of this was going to be to him and was going to call my father and somehow take it all back. But he didn’t move.
“You’re right,” he conceded. “I should have told you about – I should have cleared it with you before I told your family about us.”
“You think?” I raised my eyebrows at him pointedly.
“I just wanted the slate to be clear for the two of us,” he explained as best he could. It was obvious, like it had been back in that apartment, that he wasn’t used to having these kinds of intense emotional conversations with anyone. I wondered how long after his wife had left it had been since he had really told someone the truth about the way he felt. He seemed to have worked so hard at tramping down his true feelings for so long. Maybe I should have expected him to act out in some way when it came to dealing with us.
“Clear slate?” I prompted him. “What does that mean?”
“I didn’t want there to be anything else that the two of us had to hide from if we were…if we were going to be together,” he explained haltingly. “And I went back and forth on it for so long, the thought of telling your father about it, but I figured that – shit, he’s going to find out one way or another that I was the one who put that baby in you-”
“Nice turn of phrase,” I teased, but he kept going anyway, like he was on a roll.
“And I couldn’t keep it from him forever, so I should just get it out in the open early enough that you know I value you and this and what we have over any business deal I could ever make,” he finished off breathlessly, as though he’d been carrying that around for longer than he realized. I fell silent, no snarky comments this time. I didn’t have anything to say to that. For once, I was completely out of words.
All I could do was stare up at him and try to make some sense of what he’d just told me. He had done it because he wanted to be with me. That was what he was telling me. After all this time, after all this mess, it was all out in the open because Nathan Richards wanted to be with me at last. A smile slowly broke over my face, despite everything that had happened that evening. I couldn’t believe it. It felt as though I had lifted a few feet off the ground, my feet trailing behind me as I stared up at him.
“Do you still want to do this?” Nate asked, and I could hear the fear in his voice and realized that he must have been terrified that I had changed my mind and didn’t want to be with him any more. I nodded at once, still unable to dredge up the words to say it.
I leaned up and planted my lips against his, answering him in the only way I knew how to in that moment. He slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me close and for a second none of it mattered – not my furious father on the other end of the line, not the danger this posed to his company, not any of it. I could handle all of it as long as I could find myself back here in his arms at the end of it all.
I pulled back reluctantly, and pressed my forehead to his; he smelled so good, so much of him that it almost took me over. I wanted to take him straight through to my bedroom and remind myself exactly what it was about him that I had missed so badly, but I was so exhausted by everything that had happened that what I needed more than anything else was a good night’s sleep to try and deal with what had been happening the last couple of weeks.
“I’m so fucking glad you’re here,” I murmured, and he smiled.
“I’m glad you’ll let me be here,” He grinned widely in return. “I know I’ve messed you around, but I just-”
“Let’s not go over that shit again tonight, huh?” I cut him off, and he obligingly pressed a kiss to the middle of my forehead and stayed silent. I knew we would have to deal with all of that stuff tomorrow, but for the time being I just wanted to be happy that my man had finally accepted that he was, indeed, my man.
“I need to get some sleep,” I yawned, and he nodded.
“Yeah, it’s been a hell of a day,” he agreed, and he kissed me again, like he couldn’t get enough of me. I knew how he felt. After everything we’d been through, it still felt like kind of a novelty to be able to kiss him and touch him however and whenever I wanted.
“You’re not going to call up any of my other relatives and let them know about my pregnancy while I’m sleeping, are you?” I teased, but I knew he knew that I was at least a little serious.
“And there I was with the phone number of every cousin you’ve never spoken to,” he shook his head seriously. I giggled, still a little giddy from what had just happened.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he leaned down and scooped me up in his arms, pulling me against his chest firmly and making my head swim with desperate love for him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and closed my eyes, and for a moment could pretend that all of this was as perfect as it looked from the outside in.