Page 77 of Secret Baby Daddies
I shoved my hair back from my face and nodded.
“Maybe just say it with less anger than Reagan? Or I might cry.”
He patted my arm and smiled.
“If those men love you the way Reagan believes they do, it’s killing them to stay away from you. If they’re doing it, it’s a fucking act of white-knuckled determination that’s probably costing them sleep and sanity.”
My chest ached. It throbbed. It felt like I’d ripped it out and was crushing it under my shoe.
“One more thought?” He waited for me to meet his gaze. “I can’t explain how much it still hurts me that I wasn’t there for Rea’s pregnancy. If you care about those rich assholes you won’t keep that from them.”
He’d already gotten halfway to the house away from me when I called out.
“I’m terrified.”
Tate glanced at me over his shoulder and grinned.
“That’s how you know you’re alive.”
I rolled my eyes and let myself out of the fence. Marching towards him I shook my head.
“Did you get that from a fortune cookie?”
“There she is. There’s the snappy little beast I remember so fondly.”
I huffed.
“Don’t call me a beast.”
“Better than being called a coward, I’m assuming.”
I elbowed him in the ribs and stormed into the house. Reagan stood inside the door, her face determined and my phone in her hand. She hit a button and I went weak in the knees when I heard Jace’s voice.
“I trust you, Harley. I trust you enough to know I’d never need to question you. I trust you enough to know I’d never need to use our money to control you. I guess it also means I trust you enough to come home when you’re ready. All I want to do in the world is to come get you and bring you home but the thing is…I trust me less than I trust you. If I saw you, I don’t know that I wouldn’t set up camp outside your front door and wait there on my knees every morning for you to come out and see me. I don’t want to pressure you. I don’t want you to see my sad excuse of a being right now and feel like you have to rush back. No matter what I want, it can wait. For you, I can wait. But holy fuck, little girl, I’m hoping like hell you want to come home soon.”
Reagan stopped the rest of the voicemails from playing and met my teary gaze with her own teary eyes.
“That’s my favorite one. Can you hear that and still doubt that he loves you?”
A knot unclenched in my stomach. I’d been feeling like a kid extending each of their limbs to avoid being put in the car for weeks. My body had felt taut with tension, stressed from the fight with my brain. Jace’s voice was a white flag. Both sides called truce and the tension seeped from my body so quickly I would’ve hit the floor if Reagan wasn’t there with Tate, catching me.
Before they got me to the couch, though, a new tension filled my body. I had to go. I couldn’t wait another moment.
“I have to leave.”
“Yeah, you do.”
Tate grunted.
“Maybe wait until you can stand on your own?”
I pushed away and proved how sturdy I was by running upstairs to find my purse with my keys. I was out of breath and wild-eyed by the time I got back downstairs but I barely stopped to yell over my shoulder.
“I’ll come back to clean up my room! Thank you and I love you!”
Belinda kicked up a storm of dust as I sped away from the ranch. I had a different ranch I needed to get to. I had men waiting on me.
CHAPTER 53
