Page 68 of Stone Rules

I debated calling it off, but he has to know. He’ll leave right after I tell him anyway. He’ll want nothing to do with me.

The knock on my door makes me jump. This is it. This is the last time I will ever see him.

I walk to the door and open it. Ethan takes in a sharp breath when he sees my appearance. He puts his arms on mine. “What’s wrong, Charlie?”

“Come in,” I say. “Sit down.”

He hesitates before crossing the threshold. This was one of our boundaries. He never came to my apartment and I never went to his. He didn’t trust himself to keep his hands off me. I didn’t trust myself to resist him.

But he clearly sees I’m not in any shape to leave, so he steps into my living room and closes the door behind him. He walks me over to the couch as if I’m frail. “Are you sick?”

I have a quick debate in my head on how to answer that question. I think it’s best not to beat around the bush. Just get it out there. Rip off the Band-Aid. After all, there’s really no way to sugar-coat it.

“No, I’m not sick. But I will have to go to the hospital,” I tell him. “In about seven more months.”

I watch his face as it goes through a host of emotions. Confusion. Realization. Shock.

When I can’t stand to watch it anymore, I close my eyes and wait for it. Wait for him to yell at me. Wait for him to get up and leave. Wait for him to walk out of my life.

I startle when he takes my hand. My eyes snap up to his and all of those other emotions are gone. All except one. The one I never expected. The one I wasn’t prepared for. The one that has tears falling from my eyes just as they are falling from his.

“Marry me,” he says.

A sob escapes me and my hand comes up to cover my mouth as I shake my head at him. “I’m so sorry, Ethan. I can’t.”

“Why, Charlie?”

The way he’s looking at me right now tells me how much I’m about to hurt him. Two minutes ago I thought he would want nothing to do with me, and now he’s proposing. Maybe he’s doing it out of obligation. Maybe he’s doing it out of love. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

But whatever his reasons, I know I’m about to pull the rug out from under him. Because for just a second, I saw a glint in his eye. A flash of hope. And I wonder if he’s going to hate me as much as he hated Cara.

“Because it might not be your baby.”

Part Two

Ethan

Chapter Thirty-one

I let her words sink in. I feel like I was given everything and then left with nothing, all in the course of ten seconds. All these years, I was sure I never wanted another child. I never again wanted to be tethered so completely to someone that my happiness, my own sanity, relied upon another.

But in those few seconds, I felt something I never thought I’d feel again. In those few seconds, Cat’s entire life flashed before my eyes and I realized that I wouldn’t give up my time with her for anything. Not even to take away all the pain I felt when she died and all the hatred I carried around afterward.

And in those few seconds, I knew I wanted this. I knew I wanted it with Charlie.

“Fuck!” I shout. I get up from the couch and pace the room. I want to yell at her. I want to put my fist through the wall. I want to rip the throat from whoever else she’s been with. But something deep down inside me keeps me from doing any of those things. She’s been through hell. Every man she’s ever known has let her down.

“Who is he?” I ask, in the calmest voice I can muster. I run a frustrated hand through my hair, hoping to God there isn’t more than one.

She’s still sitting on the couch, crying with a pillow pulled to her chest. “I don’t know,” she says, wiping a tear away. “It was only once, I swear.”

“I guess once was enough,” I bite at her. “Who is he, Charlie?”

“You were gone, Ethan. You didn’t want me. You made that perfectly clear. And then when Kyle and Levi came to Mitchell’s a week later, they made it clear as well. They said you couldn’t be with me. That you couldn’t be with anyone.” She takes in a few ragged breaths, picking at the fringe of the pillow. “I was a wreck, Ethan. I did something stupid. I went to a club and hooked up with a guy. The song came on. The one from the concert. I thought it was you for a second. I tried to run away but he followed me and it just happened. And now this. What am I going to do? How did I get here?”

I lean against the wall of her living room, my hands balled into fists as I listen to her cry. I’m pissed as hell. But I have no one to be pissed at but myself. I pushed her away. I pushed her away right into the arms of another man.Shit. This is all my fault. “You didn’t use a condom?” I ask.

“No, we did. I always did. Well, except for that time with you in the pool. But that’s not when I got pregnant. The doctor told me when I had the ultrasound that I most likely got pregnant on March 13th. Ethan, that was right in between . . . Oh, God.”

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