Page 77 of Revived

“I heard you…”

“Okay… heard me do what?”

“I heard what you said to Teresa.”

And instantly I feel my jaw drop, my stomach sink to my toes, and my heart frantically beat in my chest.

“Rachel…”

“No, Luke! No!” She throws her hands up again in defeat. “I’ve tried to convince myself you were just nervous about them coming here, about all the memories I’m sure their presence brings up. But to hear you say you’re not ready to move on, that you don’t think you’ll ever be…”

“I didn’t mean it, Rachel,” I plead as she backs away.

“Then why say that!”

“What the fuck was I supposed to say to the mother of my dead wife? Yeah, I’m fucking my nanny now!”

Her mouth falls open before she shouts. “Is that all this has been about for you? Getting your dick wet again?”

“You know that’s not true! You know I care about you!”

“I thought I did. But then it all started making more sense. You pulling away, you saying those words to Teresa… you’re not ready for this, Luke. And it’s not fair to me.”

Her words slice through me, because even though I want to deny them, part of me knows they’re true. I’m not fully ready for what the future could hold for us and the unknown that it brings, but I know I don’t want to lose her either.

“And your silence right now speaks volumes.” She shakes her head at me, wiping tears from her eyes. “You were never going to fully let me in, were you, Luke?”

More silence from me as I realize there’s nothing I could say right now to make this any better. Yet still I need to say something. “I care about you so much, Rachel. I do. But…”

“I’m in love with you, Luke. I love you and your son. But I don’t deserve to be second best, or be strung along…”

“You feel like you’re second best?”

Throwing her hands in the air, she cuts me off. “How can I not? I never once said I was trying to replace Hannah, Luke! Not once! I was perfectly content with helping keep her memory alive while building our own memories together. But I swear that’s what you think I’m doing! Trying to replace her…”

And now my anger is rising. “No one can ever replace her, Rachel! She was my wife and the mother of my son. She will always be a part of me and him! She will always be a part of our lives!”

“And I get that, I do. I respect it and it kills me that you’ve had to go through losing her. But I know you have room in that heart of yours to love again. I just don’t think you want to.”

“I fucking found her, Rachel!” I shout, the tools on the walls rattling as I punch the wall, my knuckles cracking as blood drips down when I turn to face her again. Her hand is covering her mouth, her eyes wide with shock as I struggle to breathe and control my heart rate. “I arrived on the scene of her accident, saw her lifeless body and mangled car! I watched the paramedics pull her from the crunched up metal and her body being zipped in a black bag. Do you know how badly that fucked me up?”

Rachel’s eyes are leaking as she watches me.

“I swore I would never do that to someone else, make them experience that kind of pain. So yeah, I don’t know that I can love someone else like I loved her—because losing her was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced and I NEVER want to feel that again!”

“Luke…” She breathes through the emotion in her voice, yet still standing so far away from me.

“No!” I yell and then throw my hand towards the door. “You know what? Just go! Leave! It’s better this way. Grayson never knew about us, so he’ll be fine.”

And then her anger returns as her eyes narrow at me, still crying but clenching her jaw tightly now. “You never should have pursued me if you knew this would be the end result,” she seethes.

“You’re right. But there was something about you that told me to, and I couldn’t deny that. What we have is real, Rachel. But now, I know… I’m not ready, and I don’t know that I ever will be.” Watching Rachel hear those words from my mouth mimics a pain I’ve only ever felt once before. Her entire body is shaking, her face is covered in tear-stained make-up and she looks truly heartbroken. I didn’t want to be the person to do that to her, but I can’t fight the response my head is having right now.

Push her away before this goes any further. She’ll be okay, eventually. You’ll just go back to normal. It’s better this way for everyone involved.

I knew better than to get involved with my nanny, or any other woman for that matter. But there was something about this woman that told me to take the shot, to risk breaking down the walls I had erected around my heart.

And now standing here, watching us demolish the past five months of sharing our lives with one another, I’m reminded of why I avoided this in the first place, why I never toyed with the idea of moving on.

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