Young Revelations (Young Series) (20 page)

“How do we fix that?”

Sighing heavily, I shrug. “We take it one day at a time. We communicate openly instead of keeping everything locked up until we explode. We have to learn to trust each other again.”

“I agree,” she says. “And in the spirit of opening up and communicating, we need to discuss what you saw this morning.”

I feel all the fight leaving my body and don’t even realize I’ve released her hand until the expression of hurt passes through her eyes. “I told you, I don’t care as long as you’re still mine and still in love with me.”

“You might not care, but I need to explain,” she says plainly. “If you want me to trust you, I need to know you trust me.”

“I do trust you,” I insist. “With everything, Samantha.”

“Is that how you felt when you walked in the room this morning? That you trusted me implicitly even seeing what you saw?”

I hesitate. No, that was not how I felt. And that made me feel like an asshole. I’ve always trusted Samantha; she’s never given me reason to do otherwise. But I can’t shake what I saw and if I’m being honest with myself, I do want to know what happened. “Okay,” I say. “Tell me.”

She watches me for a few minutes as she tries to decide on her words. “He’s a friend,” she says simply. “Nothing more. I only met him this week. He was a listening ear when I needed one most and if it wasn’t for him, the night Natalie was here could have been so much worse for me and the baby.”

“So I’m supposed to be grateful to this guy even though he had his paws all over my fiancée?”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” she responds, her patience straining. “Admittedly, it shouldn’t have gotten to where it did, but I don’t regret spending time with him.”

“Are you attracted to him?” I ask with the utmost reluctance.

She raises an eyebrow at me. “Yes,” she admits quietly. “But I have no intention of doing anything about it. Not while I’m still engaged to you.” My brow furrows at her words and I wonder if I should be concerned at how she’s phrased them. “And yes, he told me he’s attracted to me, but he knows our situation and he won’t interfere with our relationship. We really are just friends, Matt.”

I want to believe her. Having his hand resting on her belly as though it belonged there, though, didn’t seem merely friendly. “How did you meet?”

She pulls her gaze away and I’m suddenly suspicious. If it’s such an innocent relationship, why doesn’t she want to tell me more? “He was my doctor,” she says reluctantly.

I stare at her for several moments. “What?” I ask dully.

Biting her lip, she looks up at me again and nods. “That’s how we met. And we just started talking. When he realized we were becoming friends, he ceased being my doctor and handed me off to another. That just happened yesterday.”

“So this is the first time he’s slept next to you like that?”

She shakes her head minutely. “The night Natalie was here,” she explains. “He helped kick her out and came back to check on me, even offered to call Claire for me, but I asked him not to because she’d been spending all her time here with me and I wanted her to get some rest. Considering the level of my blood pressure, he didn’t think it would be a good idea to just leave me to my thoughts, so when his shift ended, he came and sat with me. We fell asleep.”

“Sam, don’t you think that’s a little quick for a friendship to form?”

She looks incredulous. “Are you joking? Matt, you weren’t here. You have no idea how close I came to losing our daughter, not to mention my own life. He saved us both and then in the middle of the night when your ex-lover, friend, whore came in my room to taunt me, he saved me again and stayed with me to make sure I was okay. He’s a good man, whom I want nothing more than a friendship with. It’s certainly nowhere near you and Natalie being friends, you lying to me about your background with her, inviting her to
our
party and letting her fawn all over you. He saved my life and our baby’s life. I think that is a little different than your little office fuck buddy. Who, by the way, if I ever see again probably won’t live to tell about it.”

I’m staring at her with my jaw wide open. For the first time in weeks, she isn’t holding back, not counting the letter she wrote me before I left. I’m almost afraid to argue her descriptions of Natalie for fear it will completely screw up what little progress we’ve made so far.

And then I think about what she’s actually said. I’m blaming her for things that are, essentially, my fault. I brought Natalie into our lives, regardless of how long ago that was or that Samantha and I weren’t together at the time. I should have been able to keep my family safe from everybody, even ex-girlfriends I didn’t feel posed a real threat. It kills me that I wasn’t the one here keeping Samantha calm and our baby safe, that another man had taken it upon himself to do my job. I understand now why Claire told me to fix this before I lose Samantha altogether—not because of her health, but because she’d met somebody she could find herself being happy with. Somebody who isn’t me.

Then I hear the next words that pass my lips: “If I wasn’t in the picture, would you be with him?”

She looks down at her hands briefly. “Maybe,” she says to her fingers. “Matt, I’ve never clicked with another person the way I did with you. Until I met him. I never felt so comfortable so quickly with another person than I do with you. Until I met him. But I love you, Matt. I only ever thought about those possibilities because I believed you were cheating on me. And I’m not trying to make you feel insecure or bad or anything. You want honesty. ”

I’m suddenly rethinking that request…

“I know more about you and Natalie than I ever wanted to know. Nothing even close to that happened with Mark. I can’t lie to you and say I didn’t think about it, especially thinking you’d been screwing Natalie behind my back. I thought about what it would be like to kiss him. But I’d never do that to you, Matt.”

I don’t miss the silent implication that she still believes I’d do it to her.

“That’s it?” I ask, uncertain if I want to know whatever more there is to tell.

She nods.

“And are you planning on remaining friends with him?”

A shrug is her response. “I don’t know,” she says. “I think I would like to remain friends with him. And I’m not asking you to be his best friend, but I would appreciate it if you accept that I have friends that aren’t in any way associated with you.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, feeling a little hurt.

“It means every friend I have out here is someone who has known you for years. And while I cherish those friends, it would be nice to interact with somebody you know nothing about,” she says. “Claire is my best friend and that won’t change, but at the end of the day, she’s your baby sister and I’m not going to get an unbiased opinion from her about you. Same with Bonnie. Mark has nothing to do with you and you don’t have to worry about me doing anything with him, but you can’t stop me from having friends.”

I consider her words. Have I ever given her the impression that I would stop her from making friends? The only time I’ve ever had a real issue is when it came to Saunders. And it’s not like I kept her locked up in the house day and night; she had acquaintances while she was in school and I had no problem with that. At any time, she could have gone out with friends without me. Leo and I went out a few times without her.

There’s part of me that almost wants to ask why she can be friends with this guy, but I can’t maintain a friendship with Natalie. Not that I have any desire to maintain that friendship any longer. I also know that would be the second stupidest thing I’ve ever said to her out loud.

“Okay,” I finally say, nodding.

She blinks. “Okay?” she repeats.

I shrug. “I’m certainly not going to be the type of man who objects to his wife having friends. You know I’m not that guy, Sam. I trust you. And if you say it’s platonic, then I believe you.”

She seems surprised that it was this easy considering this morning.

“Samantha, I love you. I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to resent me for anything. Ever.”

I really wish I knew what that look on her face means. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “And as far as the video and Natalie goes…” She sighs. My stomach twists into knots again. “I’m still pissed about the party, but I’ll get over that. Soon. The video is going to take me time to wrap my mind around it. Fake or not, I still watched it. But I trust you, Matthew. I don’t want to believe you’re capable of something like that. Please don’t make me regret letting this go.”

For a couple minutes, I stare at her in shock. I’ve heard her words, but I thought it would take much more to convince her I’m telling the truth. I thought I’d have to pull out my laptop and get a dozen witnesses to back up everything I’ve said. Clearly that isn’t the case and I am beyond grateful. I stand up suddenly, startling her as she tries to figure out what I’m doing. I smile, leaning forward until my hand is resting beside her head. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” I say quietly, still smiling. “But I just realized how long it’s been since I kissed you and with everything that’s happened, it seems even longer than a week. I would very much like to kiss you right now, Samantha.”

Her brown eyes sparkle at me as she smiles. “Would you?” she asks softly.

I nod eagerly. “Yes, very much,” I say. “Is that okay with you?”

She pretends to think for a few seconds and I know she’s just doing it to torture me. Finally I feel fingers in my hair and her palm pushing the back of my head until our lips are a centimeter away. “I suppose that would be acceptable,” she breathes against me.

Ignoring the urge to respond with some smartass retort, I press my lips against hers. This is where I belong, where I should have been all along, and where I will remain until she tells me I should do otherwise. What began as a nice, sweet kiss has quickly evolved into something much more heated and desperate. It takes every bit of self-restraint in my body to keep from doing anything more. In fact, I fly away from her when I hear some sort of alarm going off next to our heads. I stare at her in horror wondering if I’ve made things worse, until I realize she’s laughing at me, her eyes darting up at the little machine that apparently measures her blood pressure.

“You seem to have some sort of effect on me,” she says, biting her lip against a laugh.

I smirk. “I’d love to have more of an effect on you,” I say suggestively, already imagining the sort of effects I’ve got in mind for her.

She rolls her eyes at me as I approach her again, but we’re both smiling as she reaches for my hand. “I missed you,” she whispers.

I let out a deep breath thinking that is one of my favorite phrases to ever pass her lips. “I missed you too,” I tell her softly, my free hand moving to cup her cheek. I place a brief, sweet kiss on her lips and sit back down, my eyes darting to the machine that ruined our moment. I’m relieved to see it’s returning to normal.

Now that we’ve managed to sort out the majority of our problems, and we’ve both accepted there are still things to work on, I’m able to relax for the first time since my plane landed. I tell her about the trial and how most of the time was spent in translation between English and German. She finds it hilarious that I very nearly screwed up my chances during the hearing by making a crack about David Hasselhoff, which was not very well received by our German counterparts. I learned Germany really does love the Hoff. And I still don’t get why. She tells me about Tyler’s visit to the hospital and how upset he had been to have to leave with Claire after his visit. Samantha felt guilty about making him leave and I felt guilty for her being in the hospital in the first place as it was the reason mother and son were separated, but we resolve to spend our entire weekend with Tyler, assuming Samantha is released from the hospital tomorrow. That seems to put her a little more at ease.

While she naps, I sit beside her and do a bit of work on my laptop. Whenever a doctor or nurse or anybody else entered the room, I scan their face, searching for the one I saw this morning with Samantha. All I know about him is he’s a doctor and his name is Mark. Not helpful. It’d probably be better for everyone involved if he doesn’t show his face in this room, at least until I’ve had more time to process this whole situation.

Meanwhile, I deal with our other problem. Natalie. I have no desire to see her or speak to her, but I need to do something about her harassing my pregnant fiancée. I get the ball rolling on a temporary restraining order on Samantha’s behalf. While I’m waiting on that, I’m going to have to find out what the fuck she had to do with the video. I send several emails to my tech guys at work with orders to start making lists of anyone who has access to the footage in my office, anyone who has tapped into it or has gone searching for old footage, and anyone who’s hacked into my office computer to send the video to Samantha.

I don’t need to hear Samantha tell me that any sort of maintained relationship with Natalie, whether business or personal, would be an immediate deal-breaker for us. Strike one was not telling Sam who Natalie was that day at the office. Strike two was the party. Strike three was the video, even though I technically didn’t do anything wrong in that instance. That’s probably the only reason we’re still engaged right now.

What I need to do is figure out what the hell is going on around us and get us through it without any more damage being done.