Page 60 of For Always
She couldn’t look at him when she said this. In fact, she wanted to get off the bed and be as far away from him as possible. In case he needed to walk away. But when she attempted to reclaim her hand, Tyler held it tighter.
She still did not look at him, but she did begin.
“I told you that Austin had two kids and that he shared custody with his ex-wife.”
“Yes, you told me that.”
“Well, we um, we couldn’t spend Thanksgiving together last year because he had his kids. So to make it up to me we spent the next weekend at a ski resort in Pennsylvania. The next weekend he had his kids again and then he had a big property going to settlement and I had two homes I needed to get staged. So we didn’t see each other a lot in December, not until Christmas Day. Because he had the kids for Thanksgiving, his wife got them for Christmas. I hadn’t been feeling well and I’d actually left my parents’ house early. They were a little disappointed because they were looking forward to meeting him. Up until that point I hadn’t told my family anything about Austin, but on Christmas Eve when Austin sent me a text accepting my invitation to have dinner with my family, I was excited and I told my mother I was bringing someone with me.””
Gabriella sighed and stared straight ahead at the door.
“Anyway, I didn’t feel good so I went home. Austin came over to my place and he took care of me. We thought I might have a stomach virus. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”
He squeezed her hand and tears filled her eyes.
“I was excited,” she said. “Just like my sister was excited when she told me she was pregnant two months ago. I was going to have a baby. Austin was a great father. He loved his kids and he was dedicated to providing for them and giving them a good future. I couldn’t wait to tell him.”
She went quiet as she remembered that night.
“What did he say when you told him?” Tyler asked.
She cleared her throat. “He said he didn’t want any more children. He said he’d told me that before and I should have made sure that it didn’t happen. He wanted me to get an abortion. I told him I wouldn’t. I said I could take care of my child on my own. That I didn’t need anything from him, ever. And then I walked out of his apartment. He called me the next day and I made myself clear if he hadn’t understood me the night before. It was over between us. He was an ass and my child deserved better.”
“I agree,” Tyler said.
That made her smile momentarily but she still could not look at him.
“I didn’t hear from him anymore until the morning of Valentine’s Day when two dozen red roses arrived at my office. He sent me a text asking me to be his Valentine. I thought he’d come around and realized how much of a jerk he’d been about the baby so I agreed to have dinner with him. I was having a hard time with morning sickness all hours of the day and fatigue, so I suggested we order in at my condo. When I arrived home from work there were more roses, all over the place. The building manager had brought them in because there were too many at the front desk.”
One tear escaped and Gabriella used her free hand to wipe it away.
“Austin arrived at seven-thirty. He was always punctual. We sat down to talk while we waited for the food. I don’t know how he misunderstood, or what gave him the idea that something had changed, but he thought I’d had the abortion. It was the only reason he’d reached out to me. When I told him I didn’t and that I was keeping the baby, he freaked out. Yelling that I was trying to trap him, to take even more money from him than his ex-wife was. He thought I was smarter than that. He thought I had more integrity than that. He was going to tell everybody at the office that I was lying and that it wasn’t his baby. I immediately felt sick. I ran to the bathroom and vomited for what felt like hours. He stayed in the living room still arguing and telling me I was getting what I deserved for not listening to him. That’s when the cramps came. They were quick and potent and I immediately fell to the floor. I called out to him and after about the third time he finally came into the bathroom. I told him something was wrong. I said it over and over again.”
Her chest hurt, but she kept going. She couldn’t stop now.
“He called me pathetic and weak and said he could do so much better than me. So he left. I was sitting on the bathroom floor in the worst pain of my life and he left me there. The minute I heard the front door slam I tried to get up. I just needed to get to my phone to call my mother to come and pick me up. I knew I needed to get to the hospital. But I never made it out of the bathroom. I fell to another cramp and when I tried to get up again I noticed the blood. It came fast and seemed like it was everywhere. I cried because with every cramp that came afterwards I knew my baby was dying.”
“The food delivery arrived and when I heard them ringing the doorbell I yelled for them to come in. They did and the delivery guy found me on the floor in a pool of blood. He called an ambulance and—”
Tyler hugged her to him. He lay her head on his shoulder and held her while she cried. Gabriella had no idea how long that lasted, but he didn’t let her go.
Sometime in the middle of the night he managed to get up and take off his clothes, but when she rolled over in the darkness he was there.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?” he asked groggily as they settled into their new sleeping position.
“For not saying anything and just letting me talk. I needed to get it all out.”
“And you did. It’s over now,” he said.
“It is,” she sighed into him. “It’s over now.”
“I’m not leaving you, Gabriella,” he told her a few seconds later. “I won’t leave you.”
She didn’t know if she was dreaming or not, but Gabriella loved hearing those words. She believed them and she trusted him because Tyler was everything Austin wasn’t. He was strong and loyal, honest and caring. He wasn’t going to leave her when she needed him most. She believed that, just as she believed Austin would not stop until he made her pay for leaving him.
Chapter 15
