Page 73 of Mending Hearts

With my index finger, I pressedendon the translation app and glared at Pasha. “For the record, I wasn’tunhappybefore I met Tyler. I was fine. I’ll be fine after this baby is born and I leave this nowhere town. You know when I wasn’t fine? When I was stuck in a nowhere town dirt poor in an area that barely passed for livable.” That was my mother’s narrative, not mine. Deep down, I didn’t remember my life as being terrible before I became famous. My mother always insisted it was awful, the worst, nothing worse than being poor. I’d never been sure that was true, but I didn’t need my bodyguard taking me to task about beinghappy. My jaw clenched in defiance. “What would you know about being happy anyway? All you do is work for me. No life beyond this.” I threw out my arms.

“I happy once. Long time ago.” He stared into his coffee cup. “She die. I leave Russia.”

“Oh.” All the anger rushed out as I breathed the word. “Oh, I…God, I’m an asshole. I’m sorry.”

“When you happy, you—” He clenched his fingers around the cup. “Hold on.”

“I can’t love this baby. I don’t feel anything.” With both hands, I rubbed my face and sighed. “It’s just a thing growing inside me. I…I’d be a terrible mom.” Tears sprung to my eyes. “I know what it’s like to have a terrible mom. I don’t ever want to do that to someone else.”

“Maybe—”

“No.” I shook my head and met his sympathetic gaze. “You’re right. I made a deal with Tyler, a promise. I can’t go back on it just because I think I might have feelings. When the baby is born, maybe I’ll realize all the things I think I feel aren’t real. Hormones. Just lots of hormones. Then what? I’ll have asked him to do the unthinkable, and it’ll turn out I didn’t really mean it.”

He pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything as he rose and took his plate and cup to the sink. As he wandered past, he patted my shoulder.

Whether he believed me or not didn’t matter. Even if I could go the distance with Tyler, I could never love this baby. That kind of love just wasn’t in me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tyler

From across the gym, Katie’s gaze drilled into me. Seeing her wasn’t a shock. There were only so many gyms in a small town, and she liked places with fitness classes.

Maggie’s best friend, Lila, picked this gym a little less than a year ago when she talked me into bulking up for the charity Magic Men show. After the tour, I came back out of habit and because the exercise helped clear my head from thoughts of Mia.

My preoccupation with her was bad on tour, but it was almost unbearable now that we lived together, slept together every night, since she started to feel like a life partner rather than just a partner in this strange deal.

As I eased down the weights, Katie approached out of my peripheral vision. Since I slipped the note in her mailbox, we’d avoided speaking except at the hospital. While I didn’t think my prior feelings for Katie could overshadow what was developing with Mia, I’d clung to my residual love for so long, I couldn’t be sure what would happen once Katie sliced open those wounds.

“You’re lifting heavy nowadays.” Katie’s smile was hesitant. “I didn’t know you were this into fitness.”

“There are probably things you’ve done in the last eight years I’d be surprised about, too.” The biggest one was that she left at all. I plucked the disinfectant spray from beside the machine and wiped down the equipment, avoiding eye contact.

One social media post from anyone in the gym, and Mia would know I talked to Katie. For some reason, Mia began monitoring all her mentions on every platform after her birthday party. Occasionally, she read them out, laughing or raging about whatever was written. Being stuck in the train station didn’t help with her boredom scrolling.

“I’m sorry, Katie. I really can’t talk to you.”

“She’s got you so far under her thrall you can’t have a casual conversation with me in public?”

Suppressing my anger at her tone, I set the spray in its holder and made eye contact. “Honestly, it’s none of your business what arrangement Mia and I have about anything.” I grabbed my towel from beside the weights and wiped my forehead. “I made a promise. I honor those.”

“I was so sorry to hear about your dad. He was such a kind man.” Katie didn’t miss a beat, as though I hadn’t said anything at all.

Being around Katie raised my hackles, made me question too many things. My defenses were up before she even approached. The desire to lash out, to be rude, to hurt her lay just under the surface. With every interaction, the impulse rose a little closer to the surface.Eight years. The bitter tang was surprising. I’d genuinely thought I was over the abandonment.

Shit happened. She left. Move on, Tyler.That had been my motto. Lately, I was praying I didn’t need that motto a second time.

“I appreciate your concern.” I couldn’t help my frosty tone. Katie hadn’t come to the funeral, sent a card, or even emailed. Maybe she wassorry, but she hadn’t been sorry enough when it mattered, when my heart had been ripped out of my chest at my father’s loss.

“Ifyouneed anything, you can call me.”

“I can’t do that.” I rubbed my forehead.

“Right, yeah, it’s just—I was part of the family for ten years.”

She followed behind while I made my way toward the locker rooms. I wasn’t done with my workout, but if she couldn’t honor what I asked for in my note, I couldn’t stay here. Mia didn’t deserve to have some speculative bullshit splashed across social media. Already, a few people had their phones out. Whether that was for selfies or to post something, I couldn’t be sure.

People in town had latched onto the Pretty Boy hashtag Mia started months ago, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to be tagged in random photos of me from around town. The whole social media barrage was strange. Why did anyone care that I bought some milk in workout clothes? But there was no doubt ifthatwas news, then this conversation with Katie would be a golden nugget to anyone who knew our history. Making a scene would only make it worse.

---