Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56799 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
She melted against him, giving in to the power of their emotions and need. Her tongue swirled against his and she let the kiss go on long enough she’d feel the pain of leaving him even more intensely later. When she was alone.
Breaking things off, she stepped back, looking into his eyes, seeing the heartbreak she was experiencing mirrored back at her. “I love you, Noah. And I wish things were different.” He reached for her hand but she turned before he could reply and headed inside to say her goodbyes.
She only wished they weren’t for good, but there was no crossing this bridge without each of them giving up something that they felt deep in their core.
Chapter Twenty-Two
What the fuck just happened? One minute Noah and Fallon were having a great day and the next? His mother blew up their relationship and it appeared to be for good.
He’d asked Charlie if she could take the girls home so he could drive Fallon but she had to leave soon for a Zoom call with her team, and she needed the time without distraction. He understood. She’d had the girls to herself for the entire week.
So he waited outside for the Uber, silence reigning between them. And when she climbed into the car and he shut her inside, his world felt dark around him.
He walked back inside, joining his family, feeling the weight of his mother’s stare, but he had no desire to have another conversation. The girls’ chatter distracted him, as did the opening of gifts. He wished Fallon had been there to see his brother’s reaction to her candles. He’d loved the present, getting a good laugh out of all the various drink scents.
Charlie was getting ready to leave and once she’d said her goodbyes, Liam grasped him by the shoulder and propelled him out of the room and into their dad’s study, shutting the door behind him.
“Have a seat and talk to me. Your mood did a one-eighty after Fallon left and I didn’t buy her I don’t feel well excuse.” Since Liam had gotten to know Fallon recently, Noah wasn’t surprised his brother had picked up on something being wrong.
He lowered himself into his father’s favorite chair and Liam took the seat beside him. When they were in their late teens, after they’d moved here, it was the chair the boys took when they’d gotten into trouble.
“What happened?” his brother asked.
“Mom happened,” Noah muttered, drumming his fingers on the heavy leather of the armrest. “She cornered me in the hall and started grilling me about how Fallon was so much younger than me and would want babies one day. And how I’d already decided I was finished with the two I have, and why let us get in deeper and then have to end things?”
Nodding, Liam let out a low whistle. “Heavy. Okay, and you took this to Fallon today?”
“Hell, no. She was on her way to the bathroom when she heard her name and ended up catching the entire conversation.”
“Shit.” He leaned forward, his lips pulled into a firm line as he gave the situation some thought.
“Let me ask you something,” Liam said. “When did you decide no more kids?”
Noah scrubbed a hand over his face. “In the middle of the night when Dakota was screaming. Colic,” he reminded his brother.
“And do you mean it today? If it means losing Fallon? Or is it a mantra you’ve been repeating to yourself for years because you’ve been alone and there’s been no reason to consider more children in your future?”
Noah blinked. There were times Liam was a jokester and a charmer, but he was deeper than people realized after being jilted by his fiancée three years ago. His views on his own personal relationships these days might be skewed by that incident, but he’d hit on something Noah wouldn’t have thought of on his own.
“How do you feel about this woman?”
“I love her,” he immediately said. “And she loves me.”
Her words had settled inside him and warmed the parts of him that had been cold. For so long he’d been the twins’ dad. Someone’s boss. An attorney. But he hadn’t been a man with his own needs. Not until Fallon had he allowed himself to think about what he wanted or deserved in this life. Put himself first for once. Not at the girls’ expense. Never that. But he thought of himself, too.
“And if she got pregnant by accident, how would you feel?”
He let out a laugh. “You mean other than shocked?”
“Yes, asshole.” Liam smirked.
He closed his eyes and gave the question serious thought. Fallon pregnant with his child, her belly big and round with their baby. When Charlie had been pregnant, things were more clinical. He hadn’t been in love with her but he had been enamored with the idea of being a dad. But with Fallon, he’d be hands-on. Hands on her swollen stomach, the proprietary way he’d feel looking at her.