I traced every part of her face, documenting the changes since I’d last seen her. “Did I?”
Lia nodded. “I’m trying not to guess.”
“Why not?” I settled back against my pillow, in no rush to end this conversation. I’d talk to her all bloody night if she’d let me.
She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. It feels like … how often do we get this big of a surprise, right? There’s nothing else in life, no bigger moment when you could find out news of this magnitude. I like not knowing, not expecting. And when they come …” Her voice trailed off, and she got a dreamy expression on her face that about had me fucking crying. “Then I’ll get that moment, you know?”
“What moment?” I asked, so fully entranced by her.
“When you meet the most important person in your life, and your soul can go, Oh, yes, you’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”
This.
This was the danger in us talking face-to-face.
I wanted to spout words, poetic and emotional and impossible to take back. And I think she knew it because she was looking at me carefully in the silence that followed what she’d said.
I cleared my throat. “I like the sound of that moment.”
She smiled. “But it’s okay if you want to guess what it is.”
“Truthfully, I don’t care whether it’s a boy or girl.” I shook my head. “Though I’ll probably be a rubbish girl dad.”
Lia laughed. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I’ll want her to conquer a world that won’t make it easy for her to do so.”
“Oh.” She sighed, her whole body going soft. Then her eyes teared up.
“Shit, I’m sorry, please don’t cry.”
Lia waved a hand. “Don’t mind me. I’m just … hormonal, you know? I cried yesterday when Emmett made me a fresh chocolate chip cookie because he heard me say it sounded good.”
“I’d cry if someone made me one too.”
She smiled widely.
I decided to risk one small confession. “I miss seeing you eat things you love.”
“Do you?”
I nodded, holding her gaze steadily. “That’s one of the things I miss.”
Lia’s eyes got sad, and her mouth opened, then closed.
At that moment, for the millionth time, I thought about what Declan had said.
Nobody ever wants to bench the best person for the job, McAllister, and if that’s you, then bloody prove it.
This was the first time we’d done a FaceTime, and in our weekly phone calls, we’d done so well, shared so much of the things that must have been important to her. And if this was my shot, then I’d take it.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” I started, “but I do miss you, Lia. Very much.”
She let her head fall back with a sigh, against a dark gray upholstered headboard, and her eyes never wavered from mine. “I … I don’t know what I should say to that, Jude.”
“Why don’t we start with what you want to say?”
Her eyes closed briefly, and I saw the struggle in the pinch of her brow and the lines that appeared on her forehead when she was deep in thought.
“I wish I could,” she whispered. “I wish I could tell you those things without worrying about the consequences that might come with it.”
I rubbed a hand over my forehead and again, cursed the distance between us.
“I almost didn’t even call you,” she admitted.
“Why not?”
“Seeing your face …” She paused, sucking in a slow breath and then letting it out through pursed lips. “It’s hard, Jude. Because it makes me wish we could be back like it was before. And I’m happy being back home. I’m happy to be with my family. I was afraid you’d make me wish I wasn’t. And even though I know it’s the right thing to be home right now, I was afraid you’d make me wish I was still there with you,” she admitted quietly.
Frustration ebbed and flowed inside me, not in any great giant waves, but a low simmer that was out of my hands just as much as it was out of hers. It was the truth of our situation that she couldn’t stay in England forever, and I was in the middle of a season, unable to even contemplate what changes the next season might bring.
But still, there was an irrational spark of hope at her softly spoken confession. Could I yet prove that I was the best man for her? I wanted to. That much was clear.
“And have I made you wish that, love?” I asked. The moment it was out of my mouth, I knew what a selfish question it was. And I saw in her face that it was the perfectly wrong thing for me to say.
She sighed. “Oh, Jude.”
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “That was stupid.”
“No, I’m muddying things too.” She covered her face with one hand. I wanted to rip that hand away. I wanted to kiss her fingers and palm. I wanted to taste her mouth again and cover my body with hers, see how it had changed and how it felt now. But even more than that, I found myself wanting to take away whatever brief flash of pain I’d just caused her with my stupid pride.
Wasn’t that always my problem?
My unrelenting need to prove myself valuable, prove myself worthy had cost me so much more than it had gained me. Especially in the past few years.
“Look at me,” I told her gently.
She lowered her hand.
“I won’t do that again,” I vowed. “I think I was momentarily weakened by the mental image of you eating a freshly baked cookie. I know what sounds you make when that happens, and I’m only human, love.”
Lia smiled so brilliantly, bloody hell, it hurt to look at. I’d do anything to see her smile like that, I realized. Even if it cost me.
She bid me a quiet good night, and we disconnected the call. For a long time after, I stared at the ceiling.
Maybe that was what she’d been trying to show me when she walked away all those months ago. It cost her to walk away from me, but she’d still done it. There was strength in putting someone else first, like she’d done with our child. I knew that now. I was far enough removed from the bloody dinner that my own selfish words echoed like a broken bell in my mind, discordant and harsh. Yes, my parents said some bloody terrible things, but in my choices that night, in my complete inability to be honest with people about the things I was struggling with, I’d made Lia suffer as a result.
Lia’s strength had been showing me what love looked like when you asked someone to be accountable for their actions.
If she’d cared less, she wouldn’t have minded half as much how I was acting. Her leaving proved something that I hadn’t been able to see at the time.
And not once in my life had I ever had that modeled for me, not until her.
It was the edge piece I was missing, where Declan’s words provided the full image I’d been puzzling over.
Sometimes, you proved your worth by showing what you were willing to give up.
What Lia was asking of me was a selfless love, not a parade of proof or a litany of accomplishments for why I’d earned her priceless favor. Not even for her, but for our child.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.