Never to Keep (Accepting Fate #1) (36 page)

“I’m telling you now.”

“I need you,” she said quietly. I needed to get her off of the phone before I decided to hop on the next flight back to her. I couldn’t risk seeing her again until I figured everything out.

“That’s a bit selfish, don’t you think?” I asked. She sucked in a sharp breath as if I’d kicked her in the stomach.

“Do you know when you’ll be back?”

“No.”

“Are we over?” she asked, her voice trembling. I couldn’t tell whether she was afraid of losing me…or my earning potential.

“I don’t know—I need some time to think. I’ll let you know when I figure things out.” But I didn’t see how I would ever figure it out. I felt like a complete piece of shit as I hung up the phone.
Maybe I should have just cut her loose
.

“It’s for the best, man.” Thomas slapped my back. “She managed to trick you into knocking her up, and now she’s going for the kill.”

“She didn’t trick me into it. It was my fault; I fucked her without a condom.” That was one thing I didn’t regret at all. I would deal with just about anything for my baby.

“She didn’t bother to remind you to glove up or warn you she wasn’t on birth control.”

“What’s done is done.” He would never be able to accept, let alone understand, how I felt.

“Are you sure it’s yours?”

“Yes.” I snapped. There was no doubt in my mind that the baby growing inside of Madison belonged to me.

“Women lie. She’s destitute, and you’re loaded.”

Thomas was practically begging me to kick his ass. As confused as I was, I wouldn’t tolerate him talking about her that way. “She doesn’t know I have money.” I’d been very careful to keep the truth from her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t after what little she thought I did have.

“Maybe, maybe not. She knows you have an expensive house and car. She also knows you have a sister who’s filthy rich.”

“She isn’t like that. She never once mentioned asking Marina for anything.”

“Yet.” He was trying to talk me out of being with Madison, but every one of his points was having the opposite effect—making me wonder if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.

“What if you’re wrong? What if she’s the person I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with, and I’m just too damned stupid to know it?”

“Remember Finn’s wedding? You asked me to save you from making the same mistake. You need to trust me now.”

I wished I’d never had that conversation with Thomas. Madison wasn’t the devil incarnate.
Yeah, but Finn doesn’t think Kristy is, either
. Maybe Thomas was right, and I was just too blind to see it. What if I didn’t listen to him and I ended up like Finn? “Okay, what should I do?”

“Mom and Dad are out of town, so you don’t have to worry about explaining anything to them.” He briefly paused to think through all of our options. “First, you and I are going to go get wasted. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.”

*

The sun burned my eyes as I pried them open. I had absolutely no idea how I ended up naked in my bed; however, I knew exactly how I ended up with a metaphorical pickaxe in my skull. I rolled to my other side to turn my eyes away from the window.

My sheets were a twisted mess, just like they’d been after Madison and I had spent the afternoon in bed before my mother’s birthday dinner.
Madison
. Maybe she had come for me. The decision had been made—I wanted to be with her.

I kicked away the tangled sheets and got to my feet. I heard the soft stream of water from the shower. My cock stood at full attention as I dashed to where my girl was washing herself after our night together.

I pulled back the shower curtain and instantly went limp. “Kristy! What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted as I covered myself.

“You don’t remember, big boy? I’m surprised, seeing as how you made sweet, sweet love to me most of the night.”

“You’re lying. I would never touch you,” I said. I was glad I was in the bathroom because I was sure I was going to hurl.

“Go check your room. You’ll find all the evidence you need.”

“Get the fuck out! Now!” I ran back to my room, where I found my discarded boxers on the floor next to the bed. I quickly pulled them on and then tossed the sheets. My heart stopped when I found three empty condom wrappers. She must have planned the whole thing.

“I can’t wait to do it again, so you’ll remember how amazing we are together.”

“You fucking bitch! Finn is going to divorce you when he finds out.”

“You’re going to tell your little brother you had sex with his wife? How do you think that will turn out?” I couldn’t look at the bitch as she dressed. “I wonder what your little pregnant whore of a girlfriend will think.”

Madison.
I’d betrayed her in the absolute worst way possible. How could I face her? How could I watch her heart break when I told her what I’d done?

“You are going to burn in hell,” I growled at the whore who’d taken everything from me. I quickly gathered my belongings and fled from my parents’ house.

Madison

My life had fallen apart. Two weeks had passed without a single word from Sawyer. More painful than that was the fact that Peyton and I had been living without Olivia for almost three. I’d called both of their phones a few times, needing to hear their voices on the outgoing greeting. I’d left a couple of messages for Sawyer, but I was beginning to think I was as likely to hear back from him as I was Olivia.

Peyton began sleeping in my bed the night after Sawyer vanished from our lives. I clung to her each night, terrified of what might happen if I let her go. I couldn’t stand the overwhelming emptiness in my soul when she wasn’t close. She was my reason to keep breathing.

Our lives had become robotic. We got up every morning. Peyton went to school while I went to work at the hospital. We did homework. We ate dinner. We went to bed.

There were only a few variations to our routine. I’d gone to the elementary school and met with Peyton’s new teacher to discuss her learning disability when her grades started slipping. Being back in the classroom was absolute torture. Ethan, Charlie, and Brianna had come for a couple of visits; however, their attempts to lift our spirits failed miserably.

One Saturday morning, Peyton was pushing the eggs around on her plate, and I was going through the motions of eating my cereal when I was literally kicked out of my stupor.

“Peyton, come here.” I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have a smile stretch across my face. Peyton slowly made her way to my side of the table. I took her small hand and pressed it firmly against my belly. “Do you feel that?”

Her eyes lit up for the first time in ages. “What was that?” she asked with wonder.

“That’s your little sister,” I said. I still hadn’t found out the gender of my baby, so I continued to use feminine words. I was confident that Peyton would be the baby’s big sister even though the adoption case was still in progress; I wouldn’t accept any other outcome.

Peyton left her hand in place as she leaned in close to my stomach. “Hi, baby sister! I’m Peyton. I’m going to be the best big sister in the whole world.” The baby fluttered in response to her words. Peyton’s smile spread from ear-to-ear. In that moment, I knew we would be okay.

*

Monday morning came too soon. I showed up early for my appointment at the Child Services office to beg, one more time, to have a new social worker assigned to my case. As usual, my pleas fell on deaf bureaucratic ears.

I sat in the dingy waiting room for almost an hour before Hailey called me back to her office. I followed her into the small room with as much poise as I could muster. The woman who had helped torture me growing up now held my entire life firmly in her hands. “Good morning, Miss Fox,” I said as I took a seat across the desk from her.

“There’s no need for niceties,” she said. “Let’s just get on with it.” She shuffled a few papers around on her laminate-top desk until she found the one she wanted. “According to the documents you provided, you are currently unemployed. How do you, as a single parent, expect to adopt a child when you don’t have any steady income?”

“I have a little bit of money in the bank from selling my car awhile back. I should get more once Olivia’s estate is settled.” I was pretty sure Olivia hadn’t spent all of Ryan’s life insurance money.

“That money isn’t going to last forever, especially with the legal fees that come with adoption.” Her eyes pierced mine with a frigid glare. “I heard Sawyer skipped town,” she said. His name on her lips really pissed me off. “It’s too bad, really. The judges in this area don’t usually give children to unwed women. Given your lack of employment and the fact that you’re pregnant, you’ll be lucky if the judge doesn’t laugh you right out of the courthouse.”

I took a deep breath. As much as I wanted to haul off and punch her in the face, I couldn’t afford to let her see me lose my temper. “I’ve been taking care of Peyton for months. I can do this.” I would do whatever it takes. “I’ll have my nursing license soon, and then it won’t be a problem.”

“Yes, that’s right. You took care of her by stripping.”

I wanted to slap the smug smile from her face, but chose to compose myself once more. “Please, Hailey. There has to be something that can be done.” I wasn’t above begging for my little girl.

“The court date is in three weeks. If you want the adoption to go through, you’ll either need to get an extremely high-paying job or marry someone who has one. I think Ethan would be a perfect candidate.” She seemed a little too happy with her solution. I wondered what was going on in her head.

“Most of Ethan’s income goes to pay his student loans,” I said.

“The court looks only at what he brings in, not what he pays out.”

“Let me make sure I understand. The only way I’m going to be able to adopt Peyton is if I marry Ethan within the next three weeks?”

“Exactly.”

*

“I’ll do it,” Ethan said the second I told him what Hailey had said. “My lease is up, so it won’t be a problem to move in.”

“What about Charlie?”

“You’d rather marry him?” Ethan said with a crooked smile.

I swatted his arm. “You know what I meant.”

“He’ll understand. I promised I would never let you down again, and I meant it.” He stroked my cheek and pulled me into his arms.

I thought back to all of the times I’d seen Ethan and Charlie together. They weren’t just messing around. I knew what it was like to have my heart broken, and I couldn’t inflict that on either of my friends.

“No, there has to be another way.”

“I was thinking about asking you if I could move in anyway. We could split expenses, and I’m not ready to move in with Charlie yet. The rest is just a piece of paper.”

“Yes, you can move in, but we both know that getting married is more than just a piece of paper.”

“Promise me that you’ll let me do this for you if you can’t find another way.”

“I promise.” I would keep my promise if it meant keeping Peyton, but I would do everything in my power to avoid it—including self-inflicted emotional pain.

I grabbed my phone and dialed the number of the one person with more connections than Delta.