Page 36 of Room 1212

I shook my head, loosening the tears from my lashes and sending them down my cheeks. “No, thank you,” I told her and turned to rush out the door.

Just because I had discovered love, that didn’t mean all the tough decisions were over. I was still single and still a workaholic—still a less-than-ideal version of what anyone would consider a father. I had a long way to go, and the first step was to find Drew.

Shoving open the door, I nearly collided with someone coming in. “Oh, sorry,” I began, brushing away my tears to look up into the face of the person in front of me. “Drew!” I gasped.

For a second, I thought maybe he was a hallucination. I’d been dreaming of him every night, thinking of how our baby would look just like him. Somehow, I had conjured him into being.

But instead of his usual smile to see me, his face crumpled into complete devastation. “Are you pregnant?” I opened my mouth to answer, but before I had the chance, he asked, “Were you even going to tell me?”

What was I supposed to say? I knew this looked bad. The guilt hit me like a punch to the chest. “Drew—” I began.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Tell me. Are you still… Did you…?”

“I am,” I admitted, reaching for him. “I couldn’t…”

He took a step back, out of my reach. “I can’t believe you would even consider doing that. I thought…” He shook his head, as though trying to clear it.

“Wait, Drew, let me explain—”

“No. I don’t want to hear it. If you don’t want me, fine. I get it. You told me how you felt about relationships and families. So, if you don’t want the baby, I’ll take them.” He wouldn’t look at me. He kept staring down at my feet.

I hated this distance between us, the way his eyes were shuttered and how cold it made me feel. I took another step toward him, but he put his hands up as a barricade. “Don’t touch me,” he gritted out.

“Drew, please, listen.”

But he wasn’t listening. “I-I can’t talk about this now. I’ll come over tomorrow.” He turned and began walking away.

I felt like a garbage human being. How had I managed to so thoroughly screw this up? Not just the unplanned pregnancy, but everything. As I watched Drew walk away from me, I felt an icy chill settle into my bones. He would never forgive me for this. He would never love me now.

He said he was coming over tomorrow, so that meant I had to go home so I could be there when he arrived. No more hiding.

In a daze, I somehow made my way back to The Scarlet Hotel. I was running on autopilot. The staff greeted me, and I nodded and grunted out what I hoped was an appropriate reply. Then I went up to my room and began packing my bags. It didn’t take long because I had barely unpacked. The whole time I’d been here, I had been curled up in the bed, moping.

Fuck. The bad book release felt like a lifetime ago, and it no longer seemed important. I had real problems to deal with now, nothing so shallow as worrying about what total strangers thought of my book—or about my image. Now, the only person whose opinion of me mattered was Drew. And he hated me. I’d officially lost the person who meant the most to me.

The man I loved.

By the time I made it home, I was mostly numb. The shock had worn off, and what was left behind was a thick layer of shame and regret. If I could turn back time, I would change everything—and not just how I handled the pregnancy.

I could finally admit how much I missed Drew, now that it was too late. What could I say to him?

Pulling my car up out front, I left the key in the ignition for the valet. I mumbled a thank-you as they unloaded my bag from the trunk. “I’ll have this brought upstairs for you,” he said. I nodded.

Herb was at the front desk. “Good to see you, Mr. Kepler. I hope all is well.” With his keen observation skills, he never missed a thing. He scanned me for injury, and I realized belatedly that I should’ve told him I was staying at the hotel for a few days.

“Yes, I’m… okay,” I told him, and his gaze focused on my face. What did he see, I wondered. Blotchy skin and red-rimmed eyes, no doubt.

“Mr. Webber stopped by this morning looking for you,” Herb told me.

“He did?” The guilt flared to life once more, and I shoved it back down, along with the bile creeping up my throat.

“He was worried about you since he hadn’t heard from you in a while.”

“Right…” Of course he was worried about me, because he was just amazing like that.

Herb was still watching me, eyebrows raised as if waiting for a reply, so I nodded numbly. “Drew caught up with me. He’ll be here to visit tomorrow, if you could send him straight up whenever he arrives.”

“Of course, sir. I’m glad he found you.”

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