: Chapter 30

TEN YEARS AGO

“Thank you for everything.”

My dad patted my leg. “I’m glad she let me help out at the end.”

We’d just boarded our flight back to New York after the most horrible week of my life. My mom had died eight days ago. It felt like I was leaving a piece of my heart behind in England. Up ahead, the flight attendant closed the cabin door, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic. Leaving seemed so final. But I had a baby coming in a few weeks, so it wasn’t like I had a choice.

Two days after Whitney’s baby shower, my mom had called to tell me she’d stopped the chemo months ago. She hadn’t wanted to give me the news while I was waiting for a child, so she’d been lying and telling me she was still in treatment. She’d hoped to make it until after the baby was born, but it wasn’t in the cards. My dad flew out the following day to help take care of her. That didn’t go over too well with wife number three, especially when he stayed for over a month, but nothing could have dragged him back home. My divorced parents had a strange relationship. They couldn’t make it work married, yet they never stopped loving or caring for each other.

“I should call Madison and let her know we caught the red-eye,” Dad said. “They’re going to tell us to turn off all devices any minute.”

“Shit. Yeah. Let me call Whitney, too. She sleeps late. I don’t want to scare her when we get in tomorrow morning. She’s not expecting me until this time tomorrow night. But my phone is in my bag in the overhead.” I was in the window seat, so I slid in front of my dad, stepped into the aisle, and reached up to unzip my duffle.

“Sir,” the flight attendant said, “you’re going to need to take your seat. We’re going to start moving any minute.”

I felt around inside my bag and pulled out my cell before shoving my bag back in. But when I closed the overhead compartment, my phone slipped from my hand. It landed with a loud clank on the armrest of my father’s aisle seat and tumbled to the floor an aisle up.

The flight attendant wasn’t happy when I bent to get it. “Sorry.”

Back in my seat, I tried to turn my phone on. But when I flipped it over, I found a big crack through the middle of the screen. Usually that just meant a hundred bucks for new glass, but when I pressed the button, the only thing that illuminated was a fat yellow stripe down one side.

“Crap.”

“What happened? It broke?”

I turned the screen to show my dad. He had his wife’s name called up on his own cell, about to push the call button, but he held his phone out to me. “Here, use mine. I’m in the doghouse with Madison anyway.”

I smiled sadly. “Thanks. But I don’t know Whitney’s number. I don’t know anyone’s number anymore because of these things.”

Dad nodded. “Me neither.”

In the end, it didn’t matter. Neither of us got to call anyone, because the flight attendant came on the overhead speakers and said all cell phones had to be switched to airplane mode or turned off.

Dad shrugged. “Oh well.”

A half hour later, we hit cruising altitude. Dad conked out, but I was too wired to even shut my eyes. I tried putting the airline’s complimentary headphones on and listening to music to relax, but the inside of my head felt like a merry-go-round.

Brown horse up. What should I do about Lucas? I wasn’t sure his father could handle a six-year-old. Especially one who was whip-smart and already a bit of a troublemaker. Brown horse down.

White horse up. What about Mom’s business? She and my dad had split up the magazines and newspapers they owned when they divorced. She had a good staff, a lot of trustworthy people, but someone had to keep an eye on things. White horse down.

Gray horse up. Could I still play for England? The manager of the team I’d planned to join before Whitney got pregnant had reached out to give his condolences, and we’d had breakfast this morning. He’d pretty much told me I had an open invitation to train and play with the team. But would Whitney consider moving? Gray horse down.

Black horse up. Whitney … Should I propose? I’d been considering it before all hell broke loose with Mom. And now I even had a ring.

I pulled the letter my mom had left me, along with the ring box, from my pocket. Unfolding the note I’d already read a dozen times, my eyes dropped to the last lines at the bottom.

The day your father gave me this ring was the happiest day of my life. I know that might be hard to understand now, since we haven’t been together in so long. But your father was and still is the love of my life. It was your grandmother’s ring, and her mother’s ring before that, and now it should belong to the love of your life.

I tasted salt when I swallowed. It was difficult to see my mother’s handwriting. Black horse down.

So much to think about …

I closed my eyes and tried to sort through some of it. But hours later, the only thing I’d decided was that it wasn’t a good time to make decisions. Dad stirred while I was staring out the window into the dark night sky. I’d forgotten Mom’s ring was still in my hand.

“I wondered what happened to that,” he said.

I sighed. “She left it for me with a letter.”

Dad nodded. We hadn’t talked much about Whitney or the baby. Considering the first thing he’d said to me when I told him my girlfriend was pregnant was that I should get a paternity test, he wasn’t the sounding board I was looking for.

“You thinking about giving it to your girl?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Mom told me to give it to the love of my life. I’m not sure that’s Whitney. But the baby she’s carrying already is. So is that enough?”

“Well, I’m not the best person to give marriage advice with my track record. But I can tell you it’s hard enough to make a marriage work when she is the love of your life. It’s nearly impossible without that bond. Trust me—wife number two was a bad idea. And the jury is still out on number three.” Dad chuckled.

“What happened with your marriages?”

“We’re only flying to New York, kid. China wouldn’t be enough time to unpack that bag.”

I smiled. “How about what happened with Mom?”

Dad sighed. “I was young and stupid. Arrogant, too. I put my life and my business before her and you. We had different priorities. Hers were right. Mine weren’t. I regret that now, not changing my life to be who she needed. I thought building an empire was the most important thing. Turned out, none of it ever meant shit without your mother. You know, I asked her to marry me again a few weeks ago. But she turned me down. It was too late for us.”

“You’re also married to wife number three, so there’s that…”

We both laughed.

Dad rested his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll figure things out with your girl. No one else can but you.”

The cab pulled up to the rented house in Boston at 8 a.m. I looked it over like it was my first time seeing it—white picket fence, big yard, nice house. The neighbor next door waved as I grabbed my bag from the trunk. She was walking her little girl, who was about seven or eight, to the bus stop.

I stood in the street for a minute, even after the cab pulled away.

I had a good life. A beautiful girlfriend, a baby on the way, a promising career—even if it wasn’t in England. So why was I holding back? Maybe Whitney wasn’t the love of my life, but I did love her and the baby … Well, at least I cared for her deeply. They deserved commitment. It didn’t have to be Mom’s ring. I bet Whit would like to pick out her own anyway.

I took a deep breath and decided. Fuck it. I’m asking her to marry me. And if she says yes, we’ll do it before the baby’s born. My kid should have a family. If I waited for things to be perfect, my kid would grow up shuttling between two houses like I had. Whitney and I would just have to work on it, that’s all.

Blood pumped through my veins as I went up to the house. I unlocked the door and tiptoed inside, not wanting to wake her—but maybe I should. Maybe I should propose right now. We didn’t have much time left before the baby came. Hell, it could be today.

Setting down my bags, I slipped off my shoes and walked down the hallway toward the bedroom. It sounded like maybe Whitney was up anyway. Or if not, she’d fallen asleep with the TV on. The door was shut, and as I opened it, I heard what sounded like grunting.

Nice. Was she watching porn? It had been a while since we’d had sex, so that was a welcome surprise. Maybe my proposal could wait an hour or two … And if she was sleeping with that on, I was most definitely waking her.

I walked in feeling more upbeat than I had in a week. And then I froze.

I was definitely not going to have to wake Whitney. Because she was up on all fours on the edge of the bed while some guy plowed into her from behind. The two were so busy, they didn’t even notice someone had walked in—not until my phone hit the mirror above the dresser a few feet away. It cracked again, shattering into a million pieces. Just like my life.

“What the fuck?” I roared.

The guy jumped back. Whitney grabbed for a sheet, pulling it up over her chest like being naked was her biggest problem.

The guy took one look at my face, one look at the size of me, and very wisely backed away. He held his hands up. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Well, you fucking found it anyway!”

But … why did the guy look so familiar? It took a few seconds of staring, while debating which leg I was gonna break first, for it to come to me. The guy from the mall. And I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t recognized him when we saw him again, but he was also the guy who’d been watching Whitney the night we met.

It felt like my blood was boiling, I was so filled with hot rage.

The guy grabbed his clothes. The motherfucker was lucky as shit that I was so surprised, or he’d be pounded into the ground by now. He ran past me, looking like he was going to piss his pants.

And that—that’s what Whitney was focused on. She screamed after the guy. “You freaking wimp! Running away like a damn coward!”

Un-freaking-real.

I shook my head. “You’re lucky you’re a woman.” I pointed to her, then to the door. “Get your goddamned clothes on and get the fuck out of my house.”

“Gladly!”

This woman had some set of balls. No apology. Not even an attempt at faking embarrassed or ashamed. She acted like I’d done something wrong. I needed to put some distance between us so I didn’t explode. So I stormed into the living room and waited for her to get dressed.

A few minutes later, Whitney stomped out—the Louis Vuitton duffle bag she’d talked me into buying as her hospital bag on her shoulder. Her face was indignant. “You’re the one who should leave,” she spat. “I’m the one who’s pregnant.”

My eyes dropped to her belly. I swallowed. “Yeah? With whose baby?”