Gage had never experienced the kind of rage he felt at that moment. Carol. Laurel. A miscarriage? What in the ever-loving fuck had been going on in his life that he didn’t know about?
Carol was uncharacteristically silent, merely watching Gage’s life implode before his own eyes.
“You had a miscarriage?” was all he could think to say.
“I did. The day after my mother died.” Laurel was almost stoic as she spoke, her eyes shooting daggers of hate, pain, and regret in his direction.
“But why didn’t you…” His voice trailed off and he looked at Carol. “You went to the hospital and told her it was inconvenient? Are you kidding me?”
Carol gave a little shrug. “You were on an important mission and the last thing you needed was to find out your wife had lost your baby and your mother-in-law had died. I needed to protect my asset in the field. I merely asked her not to contact you until your mission was over. You were going on leave after that anyway.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Carol!” He slammed his hand down on the table hard enough for their coffee cups to rattle. “Laurel, I—”
“And while I’ve mostly gotten past what happened then… This?” She motioned the two of them with her hands. “Makes so much sense now. The weird trips to meet with investors, even though your lawyer has your power of attorney. The late-night walk in L.A.—you don’t walk anywhere unless you’re at the gym. That very intense man, Stefan, in San Francisco… You’re still a fucking spy.” She shook her head. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“Laurel, I retired, it’s not what—”
“Save it.” She looked at Carol. “Are you happy now? You think I didn’t know you were in love with my husband back then? The way you said his name, the disgust you showed when you talked about the child we lost…and the complete lack of emotion you’re showing now. Well, you can have him, because I’m done.”
She turned and walked out of the restaurant.
“Laurel!” Gage sprinted after her, catching up to her when she got to the corner. “Babe, please. It’s not what it looks like. You’re right, she is in love with me and has been trying to keep me in the agency even though I turned in my letter of resignation. I’m out, I’m not doing that anymore, I swear it.”
“When did you turn in your resignation?”
He almost flinched. “Immediately after we got back together.”
“So you’ve been a spy all these years, and still, even after swearing it would be different this time, you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t think it mattered since I turned in my resignation… I’m sorry, baby. I was going to tell you when I came home from Afghanistan. They told me I couldn’t but I said I wouldn’t officially join the agency unless I could read in my wife. But when I got home, you’d already drawn up divorce papers, and then I couldn’t, because it wasn’t safe for either of us. Telling you in the middle of a divorce would’ve been a major security breach, so I tried to change your mind. And Jesus, how could you not tell me we had a baby?” He searched her face and the tears puddling in her eyes nearly undid him.
“She told me not to,” she hissed. “She told me your life was on the line and your country needed you, that I was just a distraction that would get you killed. She told me if I truly loved you, the best thing would be for me to disappear and let you do what you were born to do. I’d lost my mom, my baby, my—”
“Our baby,” he corrected, a sense of loss and momentary resentment surging through him.
“My baby,” she reiterated. “You didn’t know about him, you didn’t suffer—”
“Him?” he blinked. “How far along were you?”
“Thirteen weeks. They didn’t know what went wrong; we were both healthy.” She looked away. “So I had them do an autopsy. And they still don’t know. Something just went wrong. Sometimes it just happens.”
“Which is why you’re so terrified to get pregnant again.”
Something flickered in her eyes but then it was gone, replaced with anger. “I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Please don’t do this,” he whispered in a raspy voice he barely recognized. The idea of losing her again was unfathomable. “I left the agency as soon as we got back together. It’s not fair to punish me, again, for what I did a decade ago.”
“It’s a pattern, Gage. You put everything before me. You swear there are no secrets and then there are huge ones… You’re a freakin’ spy and not only did you not tell me when we were married, you couldn’t even come clean now.”
“You mean like coming clean about us having a child?” he shot back.
She recoiled as if he’d struck her, but then she lifted her head and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Your handler came to tell me how that could get you killed, so I chose to suffer alone, to protect you. My grief, my pain, my loss. While you were out saving the world. That’s on you. You and your secrets and your need to be a hero.” She started walking again, back toward the hotel.
“Dammit, Laurel, please don’t do this.” He fell into step beside her. “I resigned, for you, practically the minute you said you’d give me another chance.”
“And yet you still couldn’t tell me.”
“Well, dammit, you didn’t tell me about the baby, either, so we’re fucking even.” He was mad, unsure how to get through to her and still reeling from all this new information. A baby. She’d lost a damn baby, his baby, and he’d had no idea. None. He wanted to go back and strangle Carol with his bare hands, but he had to fix things with Laurel first. Except she didn’t seem keen on fixing anything, her body language even more frigid than the day he’d come back from Afghanistan.
“I guess that makes everything okay then,” she retorted, picking up the pace.
“Laurel…”
“I can’t do this now,” she said, not looking at him. “We’re in the middle of the playoffs and I have a job to do. I can’t do it with all this personal drama, so I’m going to get my own room and focus on work. If you care about me even a little, you’ll back the fuck off and let me breathe.”
Gage threw up his hands. “Fine. You go ahead and do what you always do, which is run away. God forbid you ever stay to fight for something important to you; you just take the path of least resistance.”
“At least we’re both consistent in our faults.”
“I never said I was perfect.” He stopped walking and waited, wondering if she’d turn around.
She stopped and slowly looked back over her shoulder. “No, you didn’t. Like I said, you were my superhero, and even though you’re perfect for everyone else, you let me down when I needed you most. That’s not what superheroes are supposed to do.”
He watched in a furious frustration as she walked away from him, most likely for the last time.
Laurel packed up her things and moved to another room, hurt, frustrated and very, very queasy. She was mad at Gage for lying, again, with the same lies he’d told a decade before, and here she was doing the exact same thing. The only difference was that this time she wasn’t doing it for an altruistic reason, she simply was too angry to tell him they were having a baby. Again. She wanted to lament how stupid she’d been, but she honestly couldn’t blame herself for forgetting to take her pills or anything like that. Which meant she and Gage were part of that stupid one percent birth control pills didn’t work for. That’s how she’d gotten pregnant last time, too. No matter what else was going on, he would be happy, and up until half an hour ago, so was she. She’d taken a few days to wrap her head around it after getting the results at Tiff’s house, but she’d been planning to tell him today.
Now everything was an ultra clusterfuck and she didn’t know what to do. She would tell him about the baby, of course, because keeping it from him wasn’t an option. She wouldn’t do that to anyone, much less Gage, but she had to have a plan in place for how to handle it. Telling him would be easy. Living with shared custody and the like would be a nightmare. She liked living in Anchorage, but mostly because they were together. Living there as a single mom didn’t sound even a little bit fun. Knowing Gage, she could convince him to live part-time in Colorado, which was where she had potential work and her condo, but that would bring on a whole different set of difficulties.
A master at compartmentalizing her emotions, she put everything out of her mind except the next game and was relieved the team won. Gage had made himself scarce, merely stopping by the locker room to congratulate the team and then flying back to Anchorage on his private jet. She hadn’t thought ahead to living at his house and was both relieved and annoyed that there was a car waiting for her when they got to the airport. Since she hadn’t made any other arrangements, she got in and let the driver take her back to Gage’s.
The house was quiet when she got inside and she went up the stairs slowly. Was Gage in bed? All her things were in his room now and even though she had enough in her luggage to get her through the night, she wanted her things.
The door to his room was open, though, and it was decidedly empty. She looked around and noted that his things were gone, not hers. In confusion, she opened the door to the massive walk-in closet, which was the size of a small apartment, and sure enough, his things were gone. Not a pair of jeans, shoes or socks was left, and only her things remained, just as she’d left them.
What on earth had he done?
Though she hoped she wouldn’t regret it, she dialed his number. To her surprise, it went straight to voicemail, which was totally unlike him.
“You’ve reached Gage Caldwell. I’m temporarily unavailable and will be without phone service. If you have urgent business, please contact my attorney, Adam Healey. Otherwise, leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. And if this is Laurel, I love you.”
She stared at the phone for a moment, unsure what to do, but ultimately didn’t leave a message. He’d ghosted himself for her, knowing she needed time and space to think about things and get through the rest of the season. He probably thought he would be a distraction, which was true, but she hadn’t expected this. It was a typical Gage move, though, his M.O. when it came to her. He gave her what she needed without saying a word, no matter how bad things had been between them.
Dammit. Why did he always confuse her like this?
She slumped onto the bed and heard the crinkle of paper. Turning over, she found a piece of paper and recognized his terrible handwriting immediately.
I know you’ll want to leave after what’s happened, but this is your home too, and you need to focus on hockey. So I’ve temporarily moved out, leaving the house to you until we decide what we’re going to do. Always, Gage.
She read it twice and willed herself not to cry. How the hell was she going to get through at least three more games, most likely more, as well as at least one more flight to Vegas, and possibly an entire championship series? She was exhausted, heartbroken, and scared. She’d never admit it out loud, but she was. How could she have this baby without Gage? She didn’t need money, but she’d never even considered being a single mom and had convinced herself she wasn’t going to have children a long time ago. Now she was doing both and it was terrifying.
You could forgive Gage.
A tiny voice inside her head seemed to mock her and she broke down, letting out what felt like an eternity of emotion. Somehow, some way, she would get through this. No matter how much it hurt.