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My knuckles turn white from clenching the steering wheel like I am navigating an icy switchback road on the edge of a cliff rather than the well-groomed driveway leading to the Ascot’s Cabin. Beside me, Amber’s fruitful belly is leaving no room for me to pretend that the situation is different than it is.
I clench my teeth. There are things I want to say that I know beyond a doubt I shouldn’t. It isn’t Amber’s fault that I let my guard down this afternoon. It isn’t Amber’s fault that the father of her baby spent that afternoon naked with me. And it isn’t Amber’s fault that it feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest.
Amber is only a few years older than Lillian and Abigail. And if one of my daughters found herself in the same situation, I wouldn’t want to think that some deranged woman was unloading her anger and heartbreak on them.
I park in the spot next to Simon’s SUV. The porch light illuminates the festive wreath on the door, and an enormous Christmas tree is visible through the window. I haven’t been here since I came looking for help during the power outage. That seems like a lifetime ago.
Bile rises in my throat, choking me.
I should have been braver that night. I could have figured it out on my own. I didn’t need him.
I feel Amber’s eyes on me, but I refuse to look at her. I am still white knuckling the steering wheel, like it can save me from going under. I wasn’t looking for a man to save me that night. It was just what I found.
Except, nothing is fixed. Everything is a thousand times worse.
I was a fool to fall for his magic. Catching him kissing Camilla under the mistletoe should have been the only clue I needed to stay far away. My overreaction to the bachelor auction was just my intuition trying to get my attention.
“Are you ready?” I loosen my grip, letting some blood back into my numb hands. My eyes flit from her face to her belly and back up. I don’t know where to look.
“Absolutely. I’m excited to tell Simon.” Amber’s face lights up with a big smile.
Every mothering instinct inside me wants to take her in my arms and protect her from the fact that she is having a baby with a man who has about two decades on her and has proven himself to be less than an angel.
The crazy in me wants to shove her into a ditch and pretend she never existed.
Except, I still have just enough of a grasp on myself to know that the anger brewing in my stomach isn’t for Amber. She is the victim here just as much as I am. More so.
And that is the reason I needed to bring her here myself. Nolan and Kelsey offered, but I need to see Simon’s face when I show up with Amber.
I could never make Greg see the havoc he caused because damage to the heart is invisible. Simon may never be able to see the damage he has done to me, but he can’t miss Amber’s protruding belly.
I force a smile onto my face. “Let’s go tell him the good news.” Amber doesn’t need to be subjected to four decades of my pent-up bullshit.
Amber almost bounces out of the van and up onto the porch. I follow at a slower pace. As much as I want to tell Simon what I think of his reprehensible behaviour—and I don’t care that people barely blink an eye at an older man with a younger woman. He is old enough to be her father, and he left her to deal with this pregnancy on her own—I don’t know how to face him.
“Simon! It’s me, Amber.”
I pause on the steps, watching the play of emotion on Simon’s face. His welcoming smile fades as his eyebrows come together in confusion, then widen with recognition. He looks behind her, like he is searching for the answer to what a very pregnant Amber is doing on his porch three days before Christmas.
“Let’s go inside.” Amber shoots a grin back at me as she pushes past Simon into the cabin.
“Amber wait. Maybe—”
“It’s time for your family to meet their newest member.” Amber rubs her bump.
Amber moves so quickly it disorients me. I feel stuck, like my feet have grown roots down into the wood of the front porch. Simon glances at me, his eyes wide and pleading, his face pale. My gut twists with the urge to step forward and comfort him, but I stop myself. This is his mess.
“She showed up at our door.” I shrug, trying to pull off a degree of nonchalance that I don’t feel.
I have so much more I want to say, but the words are jammed in my throat with my tears. I will not cry in front of him.
“Simon. You must introduce me to your mom.” Amber’s tone shifts from sweet to demanding.
“I just need to speak to Ruby for a moment.” His voice has a ragged edge to it that pulls at my heart, making me ache for him.
The scene plays out in front of me like I am stuck in a time warp. Everything is moving too fast, but at the same time, excruciatingly slow. I need to leave, but my feet are stuck.
“No.” Amber pouts. “You need to focus on me and our little bean.”
She puts her hand on his chest. Flinching, he places his hand over hers, gently removing it. He doesn’t look at her. His gaze locks on me, and his anguish tears at my heart.
“Ruby? This isn’t—”
Upbeat Christmas music filters outside, hinting at a party inside, but I am numb. Which is better than what I am going to be feeling later. Time is frozen. My eyes are stuck on his lips. Lips that touched intimate parts of me. Lips that betrayed me.
“Simon—” My voice cracks. I don’t actually want to hear his explanation. We have been through the whole this-isn’t-what-it-looks-like scenario before, and I am not fool enough to buy it twice. There is nothing that can explain away Amber’s baby bump.
Nothing that I want to hear, anyway.
Taking a step backwards, I stumble on the step. I clutch the railing to steady myself. “I can’t do this.” My throat is raw from stuck words. The ones I desperately need to say but can’t.
“I just need a minute.” He detangles himself from Amber’s grasping hands. Then he is moving towards me.
I take another step away from him. I should just flee. But something has me stuck. Amber plants her hands on her hips and glares at us. I need her to go inside. I need her out of my sight so that I can pretend this isn’t happening.
“Ruby—” Every time he says my name, it is like another slice to my heart. It sounds so good on his lips, but it is so wrong.
“Is everything okay?” A woman appears at the door.
“I just need a minute with Ruby, Mom. Can you take Amber inside?” Simon turns to Amber, taking her hands in his. His voice softens. “We’ll get this sorted in a minute.”
Simon’s mom’s eyebrows almost disappear into her hairline, and her lips purse into a fine line, but she doesn’t comment on the scene. I can only imagine what she is thinking. There isn’t a single way to interpret this scene in a positive way. Not with one clearly distraught middle-aged woman—me—and one robustly pregnant twenty-something—Amber—standing on her porch just shy of Christmas Eve.
“I bet you weren’t expecting to get a grandchild for Christmas,” Amber says brightly as she is guided into the house.
Heat flushes my face and cold washes over my body. I just had sex with a man who got a woman almost half his age pregnant. I believed his honeyed words, and I let myself trust he could see something in me other men couldn’t.
The fact that I was desperate enough to buy him at the bachelor auction must have tipped him off that I would be an easy conquest.
The door closes, cutting off the Christmas music, leaving us alone together. Around us, the forest is filled with the night sounds. The creak of the trees swaying in the wind above us, and the rhythmic crash of the waves far below.
“It was real, Ruby. All of it.” He moves towards me.
No. No. No. It is too much. I am on the verge of a breakdown, and I need to be back in the safety of the cabin with my friends before I can let that happen. I put my hands up, bracing against his chest and giving him a little shove.
“I don’t want complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be. I promise. Amber is—”
“You have a pregnant ex inside, meeting your family. It can’t be anything but complicated.”
“It isn’t what it looks like.” He runs a hand through his hair, pulling on it.
“You keep saying that.” The tone in my voice is almost pleading. I want him to tell me this isn’t really happening, but at the same time I don’t want to hear any of the words that he has to say. Because no matter what we might want, that baby isn’t going away.
“It’s true. Amber—”
I hold my hand up to stop his words, turning my face so that I can’t see the anguish in his eyes, because if I do, then I won’t be able to do what I know I have to.
“No. I didn’t come here to find romance, Simon, so I don’t need your explanations. I’m here because Christmas is about family, and those women over there”—I wave my hand in the general direction of the cabin—“they’re the closest thing I have to family when mine isn’t around. I thought you understood that.” The last words are ripped from my throat as I dash to my van.
He calls after me, but I don’t turn.
I can’t.
––––––––
THE MOMENT I PUT MY van in park, I fall apart. By the time I am inside and struggling to get my shoes off, sobs are erratically erupting from my throat. I feel completely out of control.
Instantly, Charlotte, Jenna, and Fae surround me, leading me to the couch.
“I’ll get the wine,” Marisol calls as she heads for the kitchen.
“I think— I think—” Each time I try to speak I am overcome with another round of tears.
“She needs something stronger, Mari. Don’t you?” Charlotte wraps an arm around me.
All I can do is nod, then fall apart again.
When Marisol returns with a bottle of wine and what looks like a glass of vodka, ice, and a lemon wedge, I have recovered enough that I am no longer crying. My face feels swollen and stiff with dried tears, and I am making the occasional hiccupping sound, like babies do after a crying jag, but at least the tears have stopped. I accept the cup, taking a deep drink, hoping it will calm my nerves.
It doesn’t. It doesn’t change a damn thing about the situation. I take another one, deeper this time, coughing as it burns my throat, but the ache in my chest doesn’t lessen.
“So, it’s his baby?” Marisol pours herself a glass of wine, then holds it up to offer some to the other women. They all nod their heads yes.
“Of course, it’s his baby.” Jenna whacks her on the arm. “Do you think she would be like this if it turned out to be someone else’s?” She turns to me. “He said it was, right?”
“He didn’t deny it.” I swallow hard. The truth is that I didn’t let him say anything. I didn’t want to hear his words. Once he owns up to the deed that made that baby, there is no denying it. I won’t even be able to fantasize about the amazing time we had together. Everything will be tainted.
“Doesn’t mean he is going to choose her,” Charlotte says.
I swivel to look at her. She can’t be serious, can she?
“What?” Charlotte shrugs. “You never know what choice someone will make.”
“She’s right,” Fae says. “Nobody thought Ari would choose me.”
The room is silent for a split second. It is like all of us are thinking the same thing. It would have been better if Ari chose someone else.
I struggle to find something to say, but my brain is so foggy from the crying that I can’t come up with anything. Ari has some serious commitment issues, and as far as I am concerned, he has completely wasted Fae’s time. She could have been having a passionate love affair with some amazing man, instead of being stuck in an on-again-off-again purgatory with Ari.
“It doesn’t matter.” I square my shoulders. The way my heart is cracking suggests that it does matter, but I shove it down, because I know what it really is. It is just me reacting to my divorce being final. To be fair, it has been final for over a year, but in my heart, it wasn’t over until he said “I do” to Julia and whisked her off to Mexico to have a honeymoon in the sun, leaving me alone for Christmas.
“Of course, it matters,” Jenna says. “You like him.”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to compete with Amber.”
“Pfft,” Marisol scoffs. “There is no competition.”
I take another sip of my vodka soda. It still isn’t doing anything for my nerves, but at least it feels like I am doing something to numb the ache, because crying out my soul sure didn’t. “You’re right. She’s got everything that men want. Youth. Beauty. Curves in all the right places. Fewer decades to accumulate baggage. His baby.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Marisol says.
I just shake my head.
“You don’t really believe any of that, do you?” Charlotte asks.
I stare at her for a moment. She is usually so level-headed about love. She hasn’t let herself get silly about a man since Michael. Ever since she launched Love Notes, she has approached love like it is a business proposal because, for her, that is what it is. She doesn’t go in for fanciful ideas. She knows they are dangerous.
I should have paid closer attention.
“There is some pretty convincing evidence.” I gulp down the rest of my drink, wincing and coughing. Then, place the cup on the coffee table. “I don’t need what Simon was offering. I’ve got my kids, and I’ve got you guys.”
“Aww.” Charlotte purses her lips and spreads her arms wide.
As I move into her hug, I catch the worried look between Jenna and Marisol. But before I can question what it is all about, they pile into the hug too. For a few moments, I let myself melt into their love. Kelsey was so right to bring me on this trip. I don’t need to let any man define my happiness. I have my kids, and I have these women.
When we untangle ourselves. I smile at them. Without them, I would still be a pathetic sobbing mess. Instead, I am a well-loved sobbing mess. And it is an important difference.
“Thanks for being there.” I stand up, running my fingers through my hair. It feels as tangled up as my heart.
“Of course,” Charlotte says.
“We just want you to be okay.” Fae smiles gently.
“Yeah.” Marisol holds up the glass of wine that she managed not to spill during the hug. “If you want us to beat her up, you just let us know.”
“She’s pregnant, Mari.” Although, there is the immature part of me that wants to rip her hair out, even though she hasn’t really done anything to me. “And she saved me from myself.”
“Still. Offer stands,” Marisol says firmly.
“I’m okay.” Feeling a storm of tears gathering inside me, I leave them with that lie and disappear into the bedroom I am sharing with Charlotte.
Hours later, Charlotte climbs into bed and wraps her arms around me. “This will fade too.”
“I know.” I choke on the words. Simon hasn’t been out of my mind since I curled up in the dark. “I just don’t think my heart can recover this time.”