“Nothing for you to be sorry about.” His chest rose with a deep breath. “I wasn’t ready to have a child. Wasn’t even something I was thinking about when she got pregnant, but I grew to be happy with the idea.” He dropped his hands to his chest as he tilted his head up so his gaze found mine. “Wasn’t meant to be.”
“She said that you felt guilty over it.”
His brows furrowed together.
“That you felt responsible for her losing the baby,” I said. “That your guilt over losing the baby drove you to ask her to marry you.”
Those eyes turned to midnight. “What else did she say to you?”
He didn’t deny it.
My heart sunk. “She . . . she told me that you never really loved her.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I have absolutely no idea why she told you that, but I cared for her. I think a part of me loved her, but I wasn’t in love with her. That part is correct.”
I winced. While there was a terrible, horrible little part of me which was pleased to hear that, to know his heart had yet to belong to someone, there was a greater part of me that could not fathom how he could spend six years with someone, get that person pregnant, ask for their hand in marriage, and still not be in love.
Then again, people stayed together all the time for a hundred reasons other than love. Finances. Children. Loneliness. Sometimes it was just easier to stay with someone, so why would guilt be so farfetched?
It wasn’t.
But this was the person he’d picked over me that night. I’d let that go. At least, I thought I had. Sometimes I wasn’t so sure. I guessed that would always be a work in progress for me, and there was nothing wrong with that as long as I truly worked at letting it go. But, what if Brock stayed with me for years and years and never loved me, never loved me like he should?
“What else did she say to you, Jillian?”
“She told me that she was . . . or had been trying to get back with you.” A flash of anger lit me up. “Why didn’t you tell me she was still contacting you?”
“Why would I?”
I cringed. “Seriously? Why? I’m your girlfriend—“
“Yes, you’re my girlfriend, and because of that, I don’t want you worrying about some woman who obviously didn’t understand it was over.”
That thrill of hearing the words “my girlfriend” was still there, but he should’ve told me. “I get that, but you should tell me if someone is trying to get with you. I have a right to know that.”
He looked like he wanted to disagree, but then sighed. “And have you stress out over something that would’ve been irrelevant? Because that shit is not happening with Kristen. That shit is not happening with any woman. I know that, back in the day, I didn’t do commitments, but you know me. When I’m with someone, I’m with them. You never have to worry about that with me.”
Brock was loyal—sometimes to a fault. Him cheating wasn’t something that concerned me. That wasn’t the issue.
“What else did she say?” he asked. “Because I bet there is more.”
There was. “She said that you felt guilty for what happened to me that night at Mona’s,” I told him.
His forehead creased. “Of course I’ve felt guilty over that. You and I have discussed that. I don’t see—”
“Are you with me because you want to be with me, or because you feel guilty about what happened to me?”
He stared at me for a moment, almost like he couldn’t find the words to say, and then he said, “Is that a serious question?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I don’t think I need to answer that question.”
Frustration snapped at the seeds of dread sprouting in my stomach. “I think you do.”
“Do you really believe that?” Brock sat up fluidly, thrusting a hand through his hair again. He clasped the back of his neck. “Seriously?”
“It’s a serious question, Brock”
“And how does me wanting to be with you out of guilt make sense?” His eyes glinted. “What did she say to you?”
“She said that you stayed with her out of guilt and that you’re with me because of guilt.”
Brock cursed under his breath as he shook his head. “And you really, truly think that?”
“I don’t know what I think.” Tugging my hair back, I quickly twisted it and then let go. The hair spun loose. “I need time.” And I needed space so I could think straight. “Look, it’s really late. Maybe you should just go home.”
His brows flew up. “You really want me to leave?”
I rose from the bed, snatching the long cardigan off the corner. I yanked it on. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but I’m not leaving.”
My arms fell to my sides. “Oh, yes you are.”
He stared up at me from where he sat at the head of the bed. “There is no way in hell I’m going to leave when you’ve got that nasty shit crowding your thoughts, so you can talk yourself into whatever the hell it is you’re so badly wanting to believe about me.”
I gaped at him. “I don’t want to believe any of this, Brock.”
“Are you sure?” he challenged. “Because you seem damn quick to think that I’d actually be with you out of guilt. That I’d actually be fucking you out of guilt.”
I cringed. “You don’t have to say it that way.”
“Really? You think that sounds bad? Try being on the receiving end of hearing someone say that,” he shot back, and okay, he had a point. “I get why it would be easy for you to believe this, but you have to give me more credit than that.”