Dear Heart, You Screwed Me(54)

“No,” she breathed out, her answer coming out in a whisper. Taking another step towards her, I had to fight the urge to not wrap my arms around her and embrace her. Her lips twisted into a shy smile.

“Then what’s a few more weeks?”

“This wasn’t part of the plan,” her voice quiet as she looked up at me.

Taking one last step forward to close the gap between us, the breath caught in the back of her throat.

“Plans are boring,” I whisper, my eyes volleying back and forth between hers. I could see the vulnerability in them, the look of pain, guilt, anguish all rolled into those beautiful green eyes.

“Mine wasn’t,” she shook her head, dropping her head down, her fingers linking together.

“Tell me about it…” I nudged a little, I wanted to know all of her… truth was we didn’t know each other that well.

We worked together.

She was my daughter’s best friend.

And we were married. Accidentally married.

“Reese?” I tried to coax her out of her mind. “You know we could make this work; we could give it a go… I can give you everything you want.” Fuck, what was I saying?

She inhaled deeply before stepping back away from me, shaking her head.

“I want a baby, Killian. I want a family.” Her eyes lifted as she looked at me dead in the eyes, not faltering at all, and fuck I swear I saw tears pooling.

I choked, stepping away from her and putting considerable distance between us. Her eyes burned into me; I could see her chewing on her bottom lip. Shaking her head softly. Her arms dropping by her side.

Say something you idiot.

But words failed me.

“And that’s why we won’t work Killian,” a scoff of a laugh passed her lips before she reached into her pocket and pulled the ring out. Walking towards me, she grabbed my wrist, turning my hand up and dropping it into my palm.

My head and heart were screaming at me, but it was useless. I was too stunned to talk.

The door slamming behind me made me jump, finally catching up with everything. My eyes dropped to look at my hand. The cheap, gold ring sitting there. Clenching my hand into a fist, I squeezed tightly.

“A kid?” I mutter to the open emptiness and silence that surrounds my flat. “Fuck no, I’m too old for that.”





CHAPTER 25





REESE





Why am I crying?

Frustration filled me; my eyes raw from the tears that have been shed. I have no right to cry, it’s not like we promised each other forever and always. We got drunk, got married and hooked up a few times. I knew we were wrong for each other; this was never going to be more than what it was.

An accidental marriage.

Of course, he wouldn’t want kids, he was forty-five. He had a twenty-one-year-old kid, why the fuck would he want to become a dad again now?

I was angry with myself. Why did I tell him? I could have just kept my stupid mouth shut and lied, but no, I had to tell him I wanted kids. There was a part of me deep down that thought we could give it a go, but then who was I kidding? We were never going to work.

We were completely different ends of the spectrum.

Did it matter that whenever I was with him, my world was like looking into a kaleidoscope? The burst of colours that I had never seen before, everything was so black and white until him.

Until him.

Guilt and grief crushed me. I shouldn’t even be feeling like this. I had Elijah. I loved Elijah.

Loved.

Elijah wasn’t here anymore. Elijah hadn’t been here for two years and yet my heart still stung every time I done anything remotely close to moving on.

Maybe I wasn’t meant to move on.

That wasn’t in the plan.

The plan was to do this by myself, for me, for Elijah. Become the best mum I could to a baby that he couldn’t give me.

To a baby I couldn’t give him.

The burn in my throat was too much, the lump felt like it was choking me.

I had fallen into self-wallowing, and when I had no tears left to cry, I fell asleep.



The week at work passed in a blur, every time I heard the office door go my heart jumped and fluttered at the hope of it being Killian. But it wasn’t. Of course, it wouldn’t be Killian.

I told him what I wanted.

He didn’t want it.

He never did.

He saw me as a hot piece of fluff that he could tap and own when he wanted too. He didn’t want anything more than a fling.

Flings seem fun, but not when you start catching feelings for a man you shouldn’t. He was out of bounds. We needed to end the relationship that we had going on anyway. It wasn’t fair on any of us, especially not Connie.

Walking to the subway, I caught my train and headed home. Me and Connie were having a wine and Chinese night tonight. I had a deadline due by Monday and Adele had been even worse in the absence of Killian. She had been hard to work under, putting unrealistic pressure and deadlines on me. I was still no closer to getting my new job title that she had promised if I signed Harlen.

Harlen was due to start in a couple of weeks, but little old me was still being Adele’s dogsbody and truthfully, I was fucking sick of it. I just didn’t know how much more I could stick it out.

Moving thousands of miles away from my family and Elijah for what? An empty promise of a job that was never coming.