Page 34 of Without You
“Charisse…”
“I don’t want to talk about your latest girlfriend.”
“We have to talk about it, and she’s not my latest girlfriend. You’re the only woman in my life. JoJo lied. That video is not from last week or the week before. It has to be from a year ago, which was the last time I saw her.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
His brow wrinkled in consternation. “Don’t do that. Don’t mock me.”
“I’m not mocking you. I’m accepting what you say, like I did in the past. Of course that video is old. You also never knew where the numbers came from that showed up in your pockets. Brenda was a stalker and you’d never met her before. Oh and sure, all those suggestive photos posted on Gossip Bomb over the years are not you—they’re of a guy who looks like you. Right?”
He looked ill, but she didn’t care how pitiful he came across. She’d seen that expression before—contrition and a little bit of fear. Yet she couldn’t muster a smidge of sympathy, because it was her heart that was breaking. Not his.
Terrence clasped his hands together. “I admit, I lied to you in the past. A lot. But this time—”
“This time, you’re not lying.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about her.”
He frowned. “Then why did you come? You’re obviously upset.”
“Yes, I’m upset, but I’m not going to waste any more energy on you and your women.”
“She’s not my woman!Youare the only woman I’ve touched or seen since April. Period. No one else. You have to believe me. You really think I would invite you to New Orleans while I was laid up with another woman? While we been working on possibly getting back together?”
She shook her head at him in disgust, refusing to allow the sadness that filled her heart to swallow her whole. “I realized something about myself when I saw that video of you and her walking into the hotel together. I realized that for years I wanted to believe you, but you keep showing me you’re not worthy of trust. At some point, I have to get it through my thick skull that you’re no good for me.”
Terrence closed his eyes. “Don’t do this.”
“I didn’t do this, you did.”
He opened his eyes. “She’s just out to get me.”
“It’s always the women’s fault, right? You’re so innocent.”
“No, I’m not innocent, but I’m telling the truth this time.”
“Of course you are.” She gave him a fake smile. “I came to give you some news, and I need you to be quiet so that I can say what I need to say and leave.”
He fell silent.
Charisse licked her lips nervously. “I’m pregnant.”
His eyes widened. “You are?” As expected, elation took over his face, and he appeared ready to burst with joy.
She nodded.
“How far along are you?”
“A couple of months.” Based on the timeline, she got pregnant in Macon.
“I know what you’re thinking, that this baby is a mistake, but it’s not. We used to say we wanted four, remember?” he said.
They’d lost their first child—the child she supposedly used to trap him—to a miscarriage. She suddenly wanted to cry and pressed her lips together, focused on a point beyond his shoulder because she couldn’t look at him. “We used to say we wanted a lot of things.”
Terrence took a step closer. “We can still have that. All of it. Everything we said we wanted,” he said urgently.
