Lexi would never have given up her baby no matter how mad she was at his father.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant when you left. I had no idea. I actually think it might have happened that night. The timing was right.” Her voice took on a monotone, devoid of all emotion. She stared at her hands as though it was too painful to look anywhere else. Aidan wanted to go and grasp her hands, to force her to look at him and just fucking tell him what had happened to his son.
He stopped and was still. He knew this woman. Though there was a part of him that wanted to rage at her for keeping this secret, he knew the only reason she had was the pain he’d caused her.
“When did you find out, angel?” It was easier to shove down the anger when he realized how much this was costing her.
“Uhm, about a month after you left. Lucas came down for the weekend. I was moving out of our apartment, and I passed out. Lucas freaked and made me see a doctor who told us that I was pregnant.”
He’d been in Basic by then. He’d been getting the shit kicked out of him. He’d thought after that first day of training that he’d be so tired he’d be able to sleep without thinking of them, but he’d been wrong. He’d closed his eyes and they were there, holding their arms out and taunting him with everything he couldn’t accept. While he was pushing them away, Lexi had been pregnant with his baby.
Lexi continued. “You have to understand, Aidan. You were gone. I was in a state of shock. I made the doctor do the test again. I went out and bought five boxes of tests. I couldn’t be pregnant. I said a lot of things back then. I told Lucas I didn’t want the baby. I told him I was going to fix the situation.”
The words cut at his heart, but damn, he understood them. Lexi railed and fought against anything she viewed as unfair. She said things she didn’t mean when she was mad. It would have been worse than just mad. She would have been afraid.
“I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t really ever plan to. I was just being a bitch.”
He put a hand on her back, needing the connection to her. “You were mad, baby. It’s all right. Tell me what happened.”
He knew. He could feel the tears slipping from his eyes. His child was dead. Julian had mentioned an accident. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. His child had been gone for a long time, but Lexi was here. Lexi was still in pain.
“I pretended it wasn’t happening. Lucas tried to get me to tell my mom, but I wouldn’t. I made him promise not to tell. It was easy, because after that one fainting episode, I didn’t even notice I was pregnant. I told myself I would decide what to do later. I told myself I could make an appointment the next day, but I never did, and one day it was too late.”
She’d put it off because she hadn’t really wanted to make an appointment. She wouldn’t have been able to go through with it. But she hadn’t been ready to admit she wanted the baby. Aidan had lived with her long enough to know what had happened. And now he could see what was wrong between them. He just wasn’t sure he could fix her.
“I never bought anything, you know. I didn’t buy a baby name book. I didn’t buy little socks. I didn’t even buy maternity clothes. I didn’t run around telling my girlfriends about it. I only told Lucas.”
Aidan felt a sob threatening. God, he wanted to cry. He wanted to scream and pound into something until his fists bled. He swallowed it all down and sat down beside her. “How did he die?”
Her head was down, but he could see the tears falling like raindrops against her clenched hands. “I was driving to Dallas. It was late, really late. I shouldn’t have been on the road, but I couldn’t stand being alone. I had to see Lucas. I didn’t even call and tell him because he would have insisted on driving down to pick me up. I didn’t want to wait five hours. The car came out of nowhere. One minute I was driving and the next some paramedic was pulling me out of my car. I was in and out for a while. I had a concussion, but otherwise I was fine. I was five months along, but you could barely tell I was pregnant. It was hours before they did a sonogram. There was no heartbeat. No movement. A couple of days later they induced labor, and he was stillborn.”
Aidan sat back, his whole body numb. If he’d been with her, she wouldn’t have been on the road that night. He would have treated her like fragile glass.
“He was so tiny, and I never told him I loved him. I know babies don’t understand, but I never said it. I didn’t even feel it until he was gone. Do you think he knew I didn’t want him at first?”
“No,” Aidan forced the words out of his mouth. “No, angel. He knew what was in your heart. This wasn’t your fault.”
It was his. He’d walked out. He’d never even considered that she could be pregnant. He’d simply left because she wouldn’t conform to his vision of how life should be. Because she wouldn’t leave behind a man she loved for another man who couldn’t accept that he loved them both. He’d walked out with only a suitcase of his clothes and his guitar. He’d left everything else behind, a mess for her to clean up. He’d left behind the couch they’d bought at a garage sale. He’d left the books she’d bought for him. He’d left the table where he’d made love to her that first night they moved in, when everything had seemed possible. He’d left it behind like it was trash when it had been their lives.
“Lucas had to name him. They made a death certificate. Lucas had to name him and make the arrangements.”
Yes, Lucas had been the one to do all the things Aidan should have done. Lucas had stepped up. Lucas had tried his damndest to hold everything together. Lucas had needed him, too.
“The man who hit me accepted a plea. I was grateful for that. I couldn’t have handled a trial. It also kept me off my stepdad’s radar. Jack was happy with him going to jail. He was even happier when the dude broke his parole and ended up back there. As far as he knew, I was okay after all. I moved to Dallas to be close to Lucas, and I tried to forget.”
But she hadn’t. Aidan could see that plainly. She’d been drowning in grief, and he’d been gone. Now he’d walked back in demanding that she give him a second chance. He’d gotten her fired and tricked her into seeing him again.
Guilt weighed on him.
“I’m sorry, Aidan.”
She was weeping openly, her body curving in on itself as though she could block out the pain. Or maybe, he thought as he watched her, because she didn’t believe she deserved comfort.
Aidan gathered her in his arms, praying she wouldn’t reject him. He hadn’t been there when she’d needed him, but he was here now. Her arms wrapped around him as she sobbed out her grief.
“It wasn’t your fault, Lexi. None of it was your fault.” Her grand crime had been loving two men. Her crime had been refusing to settle for a life that would have made all three of them miserable. “You have to know that you would have made a hell of a mother. You would have loved him because you don’t know how to do anything else. You can’t hold this in anymore. This is a poison that’s killing you. You have to grieve.”
Aidan understood death. He’d lost his mother and his father. He’d lost his career. He’d lost her and Lucas. Grief could break a person, but if it was shared, if the burden was spread among loved ones, grief could be freeing. When his mother had died, he’d held on to his brother. When he’d lost his father and his ability to play the guitar, all that had kept him afloat was the thought of getting back his loves. He might not deserve her forgiveness, but he was going to ask for it. He would do whatever it took to never fail her again.
It washed over him like a river. He’d lost so much, but he had a chance to fix things if he didn’t give in to his guilt. Guilt wouldn’t bring back his child. Guilt wouldn’t fix Lexi. Love, really loving her, and dedicating his life to her and Lucas was the only thing that might fix it. His first instinct had been to slink away because he didn’t deserve her, but that was cowardly, too.