Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(89)

“Birdy.” He stepped toward her, but she put her hands up, moving away from him.

“No, this is great. So great. I hope you get that title change.” The last words were almost an imperceptible whisper, but they punched Rake in the chest.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell him off. I just—”

“Why would you?” Lizzie said, closing her eyes and pressing the heels of her hands into the sockets. “You don’t owe me anything. None of this is real.”

If her previous words were a punch, these were a knife to the gut.

“None of it?”

Lizzie shrugged in defeat. “Nah. I guess I just got carried away, didn’t I? How typical of me. We’re nothing but strangers, after all. Two strangers and a soon-to-be baby. This is a relief, if anything. Consider it taken care of,” she said, throwing his words to Dominic back at him.

“A relief?”

“Of course. Now we know exactly where we stand,” Lizzie said, moving toward the bed. She picked up her clothes off the floor, shoving them into bags. “I’m this embarrassing piece of shit that got knocked up, and you’re some hero doing the world a favor by offering to help out. But hey, we had some good times, huh?”

“Lizzie, stop.”

“No,” she snapped, turning her sharp eyes on him. “You stop. Stop looking at me like I’m pathetic. I’m not pathetic. And I’m not some problem to be swept under the rug so you can impress your boss.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking!” Rake yelled, fisting his hands in his hair. “If you would let me get a word in, I could explain this to you. But you won’t. You’ll do what you always do, steamroll through a conversation. Have something decided in your thick skull and never let any words get through to you.”

Lizzie stared at him, hurt cracking through her beautiful face. “Wow.”

“What am I supposed to say, Lizzie?” Rake continued, his voice straining. “I’m doing my best. Do you want me to lose my job? Do you want me to tell Dominic to fuck off?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what you’re supposed to say. You want to pretend to be the hero? You want to try and make this something it isn’t? Then that’s exactly what you were supposed to say, you idiot.”

“So I can sit around here doing nothing? Not provide for you? Live off you? Be some deadbeat right in time for our child to be born?”

“How do you not get it?” Lizzie said, stomping her foot. “I don’t need you to provide for me in some archaic domestic facade. I’m a big girl, and I can figure out how to survive with or without your financial support. The only thing I’ve ever needed was someone to stand up for me.”

“I do stand up for you! I do. Remember when Thu was out of line? How about that whole shit show weekend with your parents? I’m always on your side.”

“Being on my side and snapping at people you don’t know or give a damn about is one thing, but defending me—going out on a limb for me—when the other person’s opinion actually matters in your life? That’s the fucking hard part. That’s the part that matters.”

“Lizzie, I’m sorry. But don’t throw away all we’ve built over this one thing. I’ll make it up to you.”

“Yeah?” she said, not bothering to look at him while she shoved more things in a bag. “How’s that?”

Rake was at a loss for words. His entire life seemed to be spinning out of control in a tornado around him, and he couldn’t grab on to any of the pieces and make them still.

“I uprooted my entire life for you. Isn’t that enough?”

Lizzie stopped, dropping her bag and fixing him with a look that made his heart twist painfully.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t you fucking dare. I gave you an out. You moved here for your own conscience. To heal your damaged little ego over a woman who cheated on you. Don’t put that on me. I’ll make this perfectly clear: I don’t need you. I don’t need your money, or your job, or your apartment, or your support, or anything else. All I needed was for you to care.”

Rake was silent, frozen to the spot.

Say something, his brain screamed at him. Fix this.

But he shut down, all ability to form words completely lost. The familiar feelings of shame and inadequacy and heartbreak—all the things he’d felt when Shannon left—came flooding back to him. Immobilizing him.

Without another word, Lizzie picked up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and walked out of their apartment.





Chapter 43




LIZZIE spent most of Saturday night and all of Sunday sobbing and FaceTiming with Harper and Thu while Indira spooned her and rubbed comforting circles on her back.

“Fuck him,” Thu said on repeat, throwing in threats of bodily harm every few hours to keep things spicy. Harper, for her part, created a broken heart playlist for Lizzie at record speed, and Lizzie listened to it on loop while she wailed.

“I feel like such an idiot,” she said through choked sobs.

“You’re not,” Indira said gently.

“I am,” Lizzie said. “I let myself develop feelings for him when I knew from the start it would be a disaster, that I would ruin it. I break every relationship I touch.”