Worth the Fight (Accidentally on Purpose) (13 page)

“Hey, want to do lunch today and then take Lucas to the park?” I asked her after she answered.

After the conversations I just had with Mayson and S
amantha, and worrying about the upcoming paternity testing, I needed to see her, to be close to her.

“You’re going to cut out of work early?” she asked. “Play hooky like a bad boy?”

Hell. She almost sounded flirtatious. She almost sounded like old Emmy. It was enough to give me a semi.

“It’s not hooky if I own the business,” I answered.

“Hooky is hooky. Yes, we’ll meet you for lunch and for a play date. Lucas could use a day at the park.”

“We all could use a day at the park,” I muttered.

“You okay?” she asked, though she sounded distracted. I could hear Lucas babbling in the background.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said quickly. “Text me where you want to meet for lunch. We’ll meet a little early so Lucas won’t get too cranky.”

“Eleven thirty good for you, hooky?” she teased.

“It’s not hooky!”

After rearranging some of my appointments and pushing some off on other associates, I escaped the office a few minutes before eleven-thirty. The moment I spotted Emmy and Lucas in the restaurant I started feeling better. Lucas was happy and smiling and Emmy looked gorgeous in her long, pink strapless summer dress. Anyone looking at us that didn’t know us could have guessed that we were a happy family enjoying an afternoon together. I doubted that anyone looked at Emmy and guessed that she had some deep dark secrets and was emotionally damaged and sexually stalled. I doubted that they looked at me and guessed that I felt such deep shame and regret and was absolutely terrified of losing Emmy and Lucas. I doubted that they looked at Lucas and felt sorry for him because his parents were fucked up.

After lunch, we went to the park and chased Lucas around the toddler playground and across the green grass. It was sunny and warm and every time I glimpsed Emmy smiling or laughing with the sun at her back making her shine like an angel, it caught my breath. I loved her. I really loved her. I was a fool for denying myself those feelings for so long.

“Someone is tired,” I said, as Lucas sat down on the walkway and demanded to be picked up.

“Yeah, I’m exhausted,” Emmy said.

I gave her an artificial look of disgust and then picked Lucas up as I continued with the conversation we were having before Lucas’s demands to be carried.

Smoothly, without any hesitation or proof of the appr
ehension I felt inside, I took Emmy’s hand in mine and continued to walk. Her hand was stiff in mine at first. She was distracted by it even though she tried to speak naturally, but after only a few minutes, she relaxed.

I relaxed, too, but more than that, I hoped.

Chapter Fourteen

If I were on the
Maury
show, I would have zoomed around on the stage shouting “I told you” while laughing and indulging in the roar of the crowd. Claire would have run off stage to that grungy looking couch where so many other baby mamas have cried and Maury would go back there and try to soothe her while doing his best to squeeze another show out of her so they can find the father of her unborn child.

But I wasn’t on
Maury
, and as far as I knew
Maury
didn’t do paternity testing before the baby was actually born. Half a show would be lost without an innocent child’s face on the big screen so the mother could shout about how many of the features are the accused father’s.

Instead of a victory dance, I took the document to the shredder and shredded the fucker.

I wanted to go home and hug my son and my wom – Emmy – but my schedule was pretty heavy, leaving me no wiggle room to leave early. I rarely worked late anymore. I took my work home with me and worked at the coffee table or dining room table. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with Lucas and Emmy. I even changed my schedule so that at least one day a week I only worked half a day so that I could spend more time at home. Em thought Lucas was my reason for the changes, and she would was right, he was; but I don’t think she realized that she was the only other reason.

I had not asked her about News Year’s Day yet. She was still having nightmares, and I was still sneaking in and giving her comfort in her sleep. Shamefully, I sometimes welcomed the nightmares so that I had an excuse to hold her. A couple of times I just made it out of the bed before she woke up co
mpletely. It was killing me not to be able to lay there with her every night, but I had to be patient. I had to give her a chance to find herself again before I swept in and changed everything.

As long as my work schedule permitted it, I was going to go with her and Lucas to New Jersey Labor Day week. Emmy’s cousin Tabitha and their friend Leo invited us to spend the week at Leo’s house five blocks from the beach. If I was able to go, I was going to talk to her then for sure. I wanted to take her down to the beach alone and tell her how I felt. If she rejected me, I’d at least have the option of walking into the ocean and drowning myself.

When I walked in the door that night, I tripped over one of Lucas’s toys. Emmy rushed out of the kitchen apologizing as she scooped up several toys and threw them in a toy box that seemed to dominate the living room. I couldn’t figure out how a one year old had accumulated so many damn toys.

I opened the closet to stash my umbrella and half a dozen other things fell out. I managed to stuff everything back into the closet along with my umbrella, but I had a sneaky suspicion the door was going to burst open and vomit everything onto the floor.

My frustration was mounting a little while later as I tried to find something to change into. The closet and both dressers were stuffed with clothes and what didn’t fit was stacked in baskets around the bedroom. Emmy tried to keep things as organized as possible, but there was only so much she could do in the limited space.

After dinner I tried to work at the dining room table, but the table was too small. Like everything else in the apartment. Frustrated and aggravated, I told Emmy we needed to move. I thought I heard some apprehension in her one word answer, but a few of my papers fell off of the table and I was too busy fuming to address it. Besides, it was possible there was no appr
ehension at all. What could she possibly be apprehensive about? She didn’t think we’d stay in this small apartment forever, did she?

“I’ll call an agent tomorrow,” I said.

“Can I get you something before I go to bed?” she asked, lingering beside me. I wanted to reach out and pull her into my lap and bury my face in her hair and kiss her neck and ease my frustration.

“No, I'm fine,” I said instead.  “If I need anything, I can get it. Thanks.”

She started towards the bedroom but stopped half way there.

“Luke, why don't you sleep in the bed tonight? You've been working your ass off and sleeping on a blow-up bed. It hardly seems fair.”

I stared at her. She was inviting me into the bed? With her?

“Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Grayne?” I asked teasingly while praying she’d say yes.

She snickered and rolled her eyes. “I'm pretty sure my girly parts have withered up and turned to dust by now. I'm serious, though. Just come to bed when you're ready. I can come out here.”

The little bit of hope she had given me she quickly stole away. I tried not to visually deflate.

“I'll think about it,” I said with a slow nod. “Goodnight.” I walked over to her and kissed her cheek as I did every night.

“Lata.” She threw me the peace sign.

I smiled at her corniness and watched her until the bedroom door closed. I stood there for a long time staring at the door. I wanted to walk in there, knowing she was in there changing out of her clothes, and grab her semi clad body and pull it to mine. I wanted to catch her off guard and take her mouth with mine. I wanted to lift her in my arms and lay her down on the bed and run my hand over her smooth skin while my tongue searched her mouth.

I walked to the door and put my hand on the knob. With my chest warm with anticipation, my lips burning to touch hers and my cock rising quickly in my pants I found the strength of a thousand men to pull myself away from that door. I palmed my forehead in frustration and made my feet carry me back to the dining room table.

I worked hard for the next several hours, trying not to think of Emmy laying there in bed, expecting me. I had to remind myself that she was also expecting to get up and go sleep on the couch.

“Not happening,” I muttered to myself as I started sho
ving files back into my briefcase. “She’s going to sleep in that bed with me if I have to tie her down.”

I walked through the apartment turning off lights before easing into the bedroom. The bed was illuminated by the moo
nlight. Emmy lay in the lit bed like an offering from the gods. Who was I to turn down an offering from the gods?

I eased into the bed behind her. She immediately stirred and blinked her eyes open. I bit back my frustration. She slept like the dead when she had her nightmares, never even knowing I was there. Now the one time I was actually invited back to my own bed, she decided to be a light sleeper.

“I’ll go to the couch,” she mumbled and started to move away, but I put a hand on her hip, restraining her. The hell if I was going to just let her get up and go so easily. Never again.

“Does it bother you to sleep in the same bed as me?” I asked her.

She looked over her shoulder at me and her mouth fell open. She stared at me for so long I wasn’t sure if she had heard me. Why the hell was she staring at me like that? A nervous tension eased into my chest as I began to believe that maybe she was remembering all of the nights I held her through her nightmares.

“What did you say again?” she asked.

“Does it bother you to sleep in the same bed as me?” I asked again, convinced that she was just too tired to focus.

“No,” she sighed.  “I thought it bothered you.”

“Maybe in the beginning,” I admitted. “But not for the reasons you would think.” Like even when I thought I hated her she still had the ability to make my dick hard.

She settled back on her pillow. “I didn't put much thought into it.”

We lay there in silence for some time. Emmy seemed to be drifting back off to sleep, but I was wide awake. I wanted to settle in and pull her body to mine. I wanted to sleep with her in my arms without having to sneak out later, but I couldn’t shut my mind off.

“I want to ask you something, and I want you to be straight with me,” I told her.

She rolled over on her back to give me her full attention. I smoothed my hand over her belly and propped myself up on my other hand.

“What is it?” she asked.

It was now or never.

“Did Kyle hit you?”

I heard her breath hitch and even as the clouds began to block the light of the moon, I couldn’t miss her wide eyes.

“Why are you asking me that?” she asked in a harsh whisper.

“You alluded to it months ago. You said something about being used and abused, and then when I asked you about your last day in Philly, you said you didn't want to talk about it.”

“That doesn't mean anything,” she said with panic in her voice.

Now that I opened that door, I was going to have to push her a little. I needed to put a dent in one of the many walls she had carefully erected.

“Yeah, I knew you would react this way, so I talked to your mom and Mayson.”

“What the fuck,” she muttered.

She rolled out of the bed and made a beeline for the li
ving room. I was right on her ass. I was going to make her hear me.

“Mayson said you came back from a trip to Miami with a broken wrist, and the day after the cast was off you were wal
king around with that fancy bracelet. You told her you fell while you were drunk, but she didn't believe you, and she especially didn't believe you after you started wearing the bracelet. She thought it was some kind of compensation from Kyle probably breaking your wrist.”

“Mayson is a crazy bitch. You can't believe anything she says,” she snapped so viciously, she almost shocked me into s
ilence. It was the biggest show of anger I’d seen from her since she moved in.

“That's cruel and wrong and you know it,” I admonished her.

She kept walking away from me and I stayed on her ass. I knew I would have to stop soon before I pushed too far, but I couldn’t just let it go like her family did. I couldn’t just accept her words and put on my blinders. Wasn’t gonna happen.

“Your mom said she didn't even know about the broken wrist until I asked her today. You gave her a different story about the bracelet. She also said you called her a little after midnight New Years and told her you were going to be there later in the day. You got there a day late, claiming you were in a car accident to explain away the fresh bruises on your face, on your arms, and even on your back.”

The emotions that formed on her face damn near broke my heart. She was horrified and terrified. Worse than that, she looked humiliated and guilty.

“He really fucked up your head, didn't he?” I said. “You feel like you deserved everything he did to you.”

She didn’t answer. She stared at the floor and I stared at her. I wanted to take her in my arms and apologize, but I wasn’t sure how she’d react. I pushed for enough already for the night.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't press you like that. When you're ready to talk about it, I will always be ready to listen.”

I put my lips on her cheek, wanting so badly to touch her, but I again made myself walk away from her.

I went back into the bedroom, hoping and wishing that she would come back, but I knew she wouldn’t. I laid there for a long time, praying that I had not pushed too far. Every time I pictured the look on her face my heart hurt for her. She thought she deserved whatever Kyle did to her, her lack of a response told me that much. Even in all of my anger when we broke up and after I found out about Lucas, I would have never wished that kind of punishment onto her. I would never have wanted her to be physically hurt, nor blame herself. It wasn’t until she failed to answer me that I really understood how damaged Em was.

I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give up.

*~~~*

I woke up and felt like shit. My head was pounding and I was feeling emotionally wrung the hell out from my confrontation with Emmy. There was no way I was going to go sit in the office all day.

I went into the living room, not knowing what to expect. She wasn’t dressed for work, but Lucas was dressed and she was packing up his diaper bag. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all. She was pale and looked even more emotionally drained than me.

“I'm not going in today,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Can you drop him off at Lena's?”

“I'm not going in either,” I yawned. “I'll drop him off a
nyway.”

I left with Lucas a little while later. My sister didn’t waste any time telling me I looked like shit.

“Had a long night,” I said through another yawn.

“Wanna talk about it?” she asked, nodding towards the kitchen.

“No. I want to go back to bed.”

“How’s Em?”

“A mirror image of me,” I said, rubbing my head.

“Well, I guess that’s progress,” Lena said as she kissed Lucas all over the face, making him giggle.

“You call both of us feeling like shit progress?” I asked dryly.

“Don’t curse in front of my nephew,” she said firmly. “And yes, I do. This means there isn’t any more pussyfooting around. You guys are digging into the deep shit that needs to be dug into.”

“Why do you and Emmy yell at me about cursing in front of Lucas and then curse in front him yourselves?”

“We push babies out of our vaginas, Luke,” she said as if that answered everything.