Page 44 of My Sweetest Obsession
I somehow know that with every fiber of my being, but I still toe off my boots and slide into bed behind her.
The bed she shared with Drew.
The bed I swore I’d never get in.
But there are so many things I swore I’d never do, so many lines I never thought I’d cross or roads I never believed I would walk, let alone sprint down them headlong without any way of ever going back.
And this one is so warm and inviting.
Ivy pulls my hand down around her, urging me closer, and I shift until my chest presses against her back, her entire body molded to mine so perfectly. She snuggles deeper as my palm settles on the swell of her stomach over hers.
I link our fingers together and bury my face in her hair, inhaling her scent, dragging it into my lungs the way I do the smoke from my cigarettes because I need it just as badly.
Am addicted to it.
To her.
And these months apart have left me teetering on the edge of a catastrophic fall back into the person I swore I would never become again.
Because she’s everything sweet and light and good, while everything else about me and my life is so dark and bad and wrong.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have this chance again…
To be here for her in her moment of need, to give her this when I’ve taken so much from her.
Sobs rack her body as she trembles against me, giving herself over completely to the emotions she has tried to bottle up and keep hidden from Marlo, Trina, Mom, and me…
She wanted me to walk out of here without seeing her like this.
She wanted me to believe she was okay.
But she’s so far from it.
I hold her tightly, slipping my other hand under her and across her chest so I can feel her heart beating under my palm and her ribs heaving with each anguished sound she releases.
My eyes burn, and I squeeze them closed, pressing a kiss to the back of her head. “I’m so sorry, Ivy. It’s all my fault.” The apology I’ve been choking on and holding back since that night she found me in the studio flows out uncontrolled now in a tidal wave of overwhelming emotions I can no longer contain. “Drew should be here with you right now, holding you like this, helping you through this pregnancy. You should be planning your life together, the nursery, shopping for all the baby clothes and toys, picking names, and I’m the reason he’s not here.” I swallow a sob, trying to push myself to say what I might never be able to again. “But it doesn’t mean you’re alone. Please don’t ever think that.”
Ivy heaves out another anguished sound and shakes her head. “But I am. I don’t know how to do this, Cam. I don’t know how to do it without him.”
I tighten my grip on her until her trembling makes my body start to shake, too. Until it feels like my strong grip is the only thing holding either of us together anymore. “You’re the strongest person I know, Ivy. Look at what you’ve already survived. And now, you have this.” I press my palm firmly against the swell of her belly. “You have this gift from Drew. A son or a daughter who’s going to have all the best parts of him, all those qualities I lack that he had, all those things you loved about him, and every time you look at him or her?—”
“Her.”
“What?”
She glances back at me, the corner of her lips twitching slightly. “It’s a girl. I found out last week.”
My brain short-circuits for a moment.
Everything goes blinding white, then onyx black, before the room around me starts to return.
Drew is going to have a daughter…
I’m going to have a niece…
Who’s going to grow up without her father.
Images of Drew chasing a little dark-haired girl down the beach, splashing in the waves, laughing and smiling, and so filled with joy wash through my head, so vivid. So crystal clear. As if it were a real memory instead of a fantasy that can never come true.
