Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(59)

Jealousy rolled through his belly. A jealousy he didn’t have any right to feel, considering he’d been the one to leave her. “The boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend.” She turned to look up at him as the elevator hummed. “And he wasn’t even really that. We only went out a handful of times or so. It wasn’t serious.”

He wanted to ask what she meant by serious—I-love-you serious or sleep-with-you serious?—but the elevator doors pinged open before he could.

“Here.” She handed him her keys then punched “Redial” on her phone and held it to her ear. “I’ll be just a minute. Go on in.”

He nodded as he moved toward the apartment’s door, but he couldn’t shake the strange feelings swirling inside him.

His life was exactly like Brent Coleman’s. Even down to the drinking and self-deprecation. The only difference was that he’d had parents and siblings who’d looked out for him. Brent Coleman hadn’t had that.

He moved into the apartment and closed the door behind him, dropping Raegan’s keys in the dish on the entry table. He didn’t want to end up like Coleman, bitter and alone. He didn’t want to look in the mirror one day and see half the man he used to be.

He blinked, looking at the purple walls around him, realizing he’d wandered into Emma’s room. His gaze strayed to the pink-and-white castle Raegan had painted above the bed when they’d learned that Emma was going to be a girl.

Pain lanced his chest. A pain that burned his eyes. A pain he knew he’d never be without. But one he didn’t have to struggle through alone if he didn’t want to.

Footsteps sounded behind him, then a sharp intake of breath. Turning slowly, he spotted Raegan standing in the doorway, her cheeks pale, her eyes wide and filled with a thousand insecurities.

She lifted a hand and flipped the switch on the wall. Light from the ceiling fixture illuminated the bed, the dresser, and the toys neatly put away in the corner of the room. But all Alec saw was her.

“You’re probably wondering what this is,” she said hesitantly.

“I’m not.”

She looked over at the room, glancing, he realized, anywhere but at him. “I know you think it’s silly. And maybe it is, but I—”

“I don’t think it’s silly. I think it’s perfect. I want this in my house.” When her gaze slid to his, he added, “I want it in our house.”

“Ours?” she whispered.

“Yes, ours.” His heart raced as he stepped toward her, as he brushed the hair away from her bruised cheek and gazed down at her as if he were seeing her for the first time. It felt like he was. In the center of his soul. Where his heart seemed to be beating hard and strong for the first time in years. “I want a second chance, Raegan. I want our life back. I want you and any future kids we might have, and I want to find Emma. My life means nothing without you in it.”

Emotions played across her face as she looked up at him—fear, doubt, hope—but when her eyes grew damp and her lip quivered, he knew the strongest of those emotions was love. “I want those things too.” Lifting to her toes, she threw her arms around him and whispered, “I want all of them. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

His eyes slid closed, and he held her close, pressing his face against her neck and breathing in the sweet scent of her jasmine perfume. This was where he was supposed to be. With her. He’d spent the last three years trying not to feel anything, trying to convince himself that being numb was better than hurting, but it wasn’t. Numb was empty. Numb was Brent Coleman, waiting to die. Numb gave him no reason to live, and he wanted to live. He wanted to live with Raegan. He wanted to feel the highs and the lows. He even wanted to feel the pain because it meant he was human and real, not dead inside. As long as he was with her, he knew he could survive the pain. As long as they were together, he could survive anything.

Tears burned the backs of his eyes. Tears of regret, of sadness, of fear, but mostly of hope. A hope he felt because of her.

“I need you to know something.” He swallowed the lump in his throat, the words like sandpaper on his tongue. “I’m an addict. I was an addict before we met, and I’m always going to be an addict, even now when I’m sober. I can give you a hundred different reasons why, but the simplest is that it was available when I was very young. Gilbert never cared if I drank. He encouraged it, actually. And when you’re a kid, living in that kind of environment—” His chest grew tight. “It’s how I learned to cope with all the shit going on around me.”

She drew back and looked up with tear-filled eyes, and even though he just wanted to go on holding her so he didn’t have to see her face when he admitted his faults, he knew he owed her this. Owed her way more than he could ever give her.

He drew a deep breath for courage and looked down into her gorgeous green eyes. Focused on them and not the raw emotions clawing at his chest. “I hid it,” he said, closing his hands over hers and holding on to them for strength. “For a long time. After Michael and Hannah adopted me, I got caught at a few parties. They knew I drank now and then in high school, but I played off the fact all kids do it. I knew just what to say to reassure them it was no big deal. They didn’t know how much or how often I was drinking, though. My siblings didn’t really either. Ethan’s the only one who had any kind of idea, but he never even knew how bad it really was. Anytime he or anyone else would bring it up, I’d make a joke and laugh off their concern. I got through college okay because everyone drinks in college, but before you and I met, I was drinking way more than before. I blamed it on the job. On the travel for the AP, on the long hours and the things I was photographing and seeing in war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Ethiopia. And I told myself when I got home I’d be better. But I wasn’t. Not until I met you.”