Page 89 of Accidental Vegas Vows

“No,” I sighed. “You enhanced it. But I wasn’t expecting it, and I thought I knew what the situation was between us. It put everything back up in the air for me.”

“So you were upset because your plan to sway me back into your fucking arms went up in flames?” she laughed, but the sound wasn’t the sweet chime I was used to. It cut. “You asked me if I was going to keep it as if it’s something to throw away.”

I flinched. I’d forgotten how bad that had sounded. “That wasn’t how I meant it, Liv, but I completely understand that that’s how it came across,” I pressed. “I was asking because I wanted to be sure that you were before we discussed it further, but I was a mess. That wasn’t fair of me.”

She scoffed. “Yeah. Sure.”

“I’m telling you now, Liv, I want this.” I swallowed my pride, swallowed anything that would hinder me from speaking my mind to her. “I want you and me and Noah and the baby. I want the four of us. I want to raise it, I want to be there for the things I missed with Noah. I want to be there with you.”

She steeled her jaw as her arms crossed over her chest again. “You want to be there with me?”

“Yes.” I took a step toward her, gauging her reaction. She didn’t move, but she didn’t stand down. “I want you. And everything that comes with that.”

She pursed her lips and shook her head, her ponytail swaying from side to side. “No, Damien, you want the baby as a byproduct.”

I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t keep having this back and forth with her, this constant arguing over who I was and what I wanted. I recognized that it was my own fault, that I had caused every bit of it, but she needed to understand.

I took another step forward, closing that distance between us, and took her face in my hands. Wild green eyes met mine, her lips popping open to protest.

“Stop. Please. Stop assuming everything and just listen to me. I do not want the baby as a byproduct of wanting you. I want you both. I need you both, Noah needs you both. I want everything that entails, and not because it’s required.”

Her eyes closed.

“I have made horrible mistakes, princess, but I am trying so hard to atone for them?—”

“I did so much for you, Damien, so fucking much out of empathy for you. I wanted to help. Every time you needed something, every time Noah needed something, I bent myself out of shape for you. I pulled early mornings and late nights, I put work second, I put my life on hold for you. You’ve made me feel a lot of things, but overwhelmingly, you made me feel needed.” Her lids lifted and a sheen of tears wicked at her lashes, turning black from her mascara. It cut like a knife to the chest. “I don’t want to feel needed anymore.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and the words fell flat. “What do you want, then?”

Her anger melted away and all that was left over was the shaking, the tears, the sadness. “I want to feel loved, Damien.”

Fuck.

“I want to feel loved, but you can’t even say it,” she choked.

She took a step back out of my hold again, wiping at the tears and smudging the black across her lower lid. I wanted to follow, wanted to grab her, wanted to make this better. But I froze again. I kept freezing.

“Do you want to know the worst part?” she asked, something akin to a laugh or a sob wracking her small frame. “I know you didn’t do all of this to hurt me. I know you had the best intentions. If you didn’t, you would have twisted that knife sooner, you would have told me you loved me well before any of this. Your carelessness has led to this and nothing else.”

“Liv,” I pleaded. It was the only thing that I could get out of my mouth.

“Tell me you love me, Damien.”

Nothing. Fucking nothing. I’d had enough time to sit on this, enough time to consider it, and I knew my answer. But it wouldn’t come. The fear was too much, the worry that I would say it and we would be happy for five years before she left and broke not only my heart, but Noah’s and the baby’s too.

“It’s not hard,” she snapped, a bit of that anger seeping back in as she took a step toward me. “I love you. I loved you, Damien. See?”

My throat closed in on itself. I hadn’t expected her to say it, hadn’t expected a past tense tagged on at the end. I was losing her again, losing this, and I just needed to say it. My mouth opened, and nothing came out.

Her hands flew up in surrender. “I’m done,” she breathed. “For the last Goddamn time, I’m done. I’ll send my resignation in the morning.”

I took a step forward and she took two back. “Liv, please. I’m trying,” I croaked. The backs of my eyes burned, and a second later the breeze through the hanging canopy of woodland felt far too cold against my cheeks. I wiped it away.

“Have Ethan sort out a custody proposal. We can handle it through him outside of court.”

“I don’t want that,” I begged. I felt like a fucking fraud, felt like a failure of a human. I could fix this so easily but it just wouldn’t come out. “I want this, no matter what that takes. I want to argue with you. I want to hold you. I want to fucking say it, Liv, I’m trying, please just?—”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’ll miss this and I’ll miss Noah, but I can’t do it. For once, Damien, I need to make a decision for myself and not for you.”

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