Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
He’s saved my life.
And I walked out on him. I ran. I made him feel like I didn’t love him.
I bury myself closer to him, unable to get my emotions under control, and we stay where we are, huddled on my bed for an age, Dec quiet, me waiting for my body to stop shaking with the force of my sobs until I’m able to speak. “I still love you,” I eventually murmur, hearing his heart beat harder under my ear. “I can’t stop that.”
He sighs, in relief, I think, and negotiates me to my back, spreading himself the length of me, now his face in my neck. My hands naturally slip under his hoodie to his naked back and start softly tracing his spine. “I wanted to tell you about Albi,” he says, the words hot across the skin of my neck. “Not at first, but as soon as I realised I was growing feelings for you, that maybe I could see a future with you, I wanted to tell you about him. But then you shared your loss, Camryn, and I just couldn’t find the words that I knew would send what we have into fucking bedlam. I hated that my son would be the cause for such heartache in the woman I love.”
I close my eyes, another wave of wretchedness coming over me. “I hate that too,” I whisper. There are so many questions I want to ask, so much I need to know. Not only from Dec, but from myself. Can I handle this? If I try, if I truly want him, can I handle it? “You’re a single dad?” I ask.
“She walked out when Albi was four weeks old,” he says quietly, pulling out and sitting up, resting his arse on his heels and pulling me up to sit too. He gently wipes my eyes. “We were seeing each other. It was casual. Nothing serious. Then one day she showed up at my office and told me she was pregnant.” He flinches, as if remembering that moment. “All I could think about was my father. How absent he was. How promiscuous. Undevoted, undedicated. How he fucked me up. I didn’t want to be that man. I didn’t want to fuck my own son up by not being around.” He clears his throat and brushes some wet hair off my cheek. “So I did what I thought was the right thing.”
“Married her.”
He hums, his lips pressed together. “I wanted Albi to have a present dad, a stable family unit and, stupidly maybe, I thought that meant marrying her. She didn’t do pregnancy well. She did motherhood even worse. When Albi was four weeks old, I got a call from my bank manager saying she was trying to clear out my personal bank account.”
I blink at him.
“I told him to let her take it.”
“All your money?”
He laughs under his breath. “No, not all of it.” He shrugs. “Enough to start someone a new life, though. My sister called me while I was on the phone to my bank manager. April was at my house, and Albi was screaming in his crib.”
“She left him all alone?”
“April would stop in most days. I know she was checking up on them, but she spun it differently, played on the doting aunty card. They tolerated each other. Chelsea and April.”
“Your sister didn’t like her?”
He laughs, and it’s not in humour. “That’s putting it mildly. The feeling was mutual. April saw a gold-digging, self-important, selfish woman, and Chelsea knew April had figured her out.”
“Had you? Figured her out?”
“I had no plans to build a life and a family with her. Not with any woman. She wanted to be kept. Lunches, shopping, going on exotic holidays. Albi got in the way of that. She demanded a nanny, I refused. Then she left.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “And you’ve not heard from her since?”
“Not a peep.”
My mind can’t compute such heartlessness. How any mother could abandon their child. “And you’ve done it all yourself since.”
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. And it’s absolutely everything. “I was never supposed to be a father, Camryn. Having kids never crossed my mind. But Albi happened, and here I am. Fucking loving being his dad.” My heart melts. “April helps out a lot. I have Lynette, who takes care of the house, and Ron who drives us to school and then me to the office each day. I do my best.”
Dec suddenly isn’t just a beautiful man whom I’ve fallen deeply in love with. He’s a beautiful human. A beautiful father. “I think you’re amazing,” I whisper, reaching for his face, raising to my knees and crawling onto his lap. Cuddling him. Like he’s cuddled me when I’ve needed it. I hate that he’s been forced into silence. I hate that I’m the reason.