Page 119 of Designs on You

“Maybe you should start leaving a change of clothes here. And a toothbrush. Some favorite shampoo?”

“Yeah, about that. Can we sit and talk?”

“Sure.” He walked with her to the sofa. She sat and he took a spot next to her.

“I had a really good time last night with you, Eugene. These past few months have been amazing.”

Uh-oh. He knew what that meant. “Yeah, it’s been really great.”

“And when you told me you loved me last night—”

“It freaked you out, didn’t it?”

She shook her head. “No, it didn’t. Because I love you, too.”

He grinned. “You do?” He picked up her hand. “That’s a good thing, right?”

She inhaled, let it out. “Not for us, Eugene.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re almost five years younger than me. And I see you with my kids and my dog. You have this huge capacity for love and family. The thing is, I have a family. I have Camryn and Christopher. And they’re everything to me. My life is just the way I want it to be—family-wise. I’m done, Eugene. But you…you’re just getting started. You’re going to want to make your own family someday, have a child of your own. And I can’t do that for you.”

He sat there for a minute, absorbing everything she’d said before he responded. Emotions swirled around him from hurt to anger and back to hurt again. “You’ve decided this all on your own, huh? You know what’s best for me? For what I want in my future?”

“Eugene…”

She squeezed his hand, but he jerked it away and stood.

“I don’t get it, Natalie. You and me, we’ve been on this same trajectory almost since we first met. We clicked in ways I’ve never clicked with anyone before. You were so snarky and determined not to like me, until you just couldn’t help yourself. And I wanted to tease you into liking me, and it finally worked. I thought you and I could have some fun. That’s what we both agreed to. No big deal, no commitments, right? But then something happened, because with every passing day I fell harder and harder for you, until that turned into love.

“I had to tell you I loved you, realizing it was a risk, because while I thought you might love me, too, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. And just now, when you told me you loved me?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Man, it was the greatest. Because while you can’t see our future together, Natalie? I can. I see it perfectly. I see you and me and Cammie and Christopher and Grizelda and maybe another dog to keep Grizzie company. I see us getting married and living happily ever after in my house or your house or wherever you want to live. I don’t need some genetic marker to make kids my kids. I love your kids, Natalie. I love your kids as much as I love you. I want forever with you. I wish you could see that, could feel as confident about that as I am.”

She looked up at him. “You say that now, Eugene, because you’re in the throes of new love. But someday you’ll change your mind.”

“Oh, because you know how I feel? You know how I’ll feel in ten years? Twenty years? That’s pretty impressive.”

She stood. “I just…I don’t ever want to put you in the position of having regrets, Eugene. I love you too much to tie you down to me, to a family you might regret having someday. It would hurt everyone involved. And I have to look out for my kids. I can’t have them get hurt, either.”

He took a step forward, coming face-to-face with her. “Do you think that there’s any chance that I would do anything to hurt those kids? Because if you do, then you don’t know me as well as you think you do, Natalie. And that really hurts.”

He saw the tears filling her eyes, but he was so wrapped up in his own pain he couldn’t acknowledge them.

She went to the counter and grabbed her keys, calling Grizelda. “Give yourself some time to think about this, Eugene. You’ll realize I’m right.”

He went with her to the door. “And you give yourself the same amount of time, Natalie. You’ll realize how wrong you are.”

She walked out without a word, Grizelda following her out the door.

He closed the door and walked down the hall, that familiar emptiness surrounding him. Only this time it felt a lot more permanent.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

“Natalie. Are you out of your mind?”

Natalie winced as she listened to her mother rail at her on the phone about breaking up with Eugene. Mom had invited her and Eugene to a charity dinner, so she’d had no choice but to tell her. And maybe she’d just needed to unburden herself. It hadn’t gone well. Her mother had told her she was wrong about everything. She refused to argue with her mom about it, so she listened and told her mom she’d call her back later.

After hanging up, she picked up around the house and did a few meal prep items to stick in the freezer to take to work.

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