“What? You were? Lucky bastard,” I say, my voice filled with awe. “How was it? Was she very tiny? Did she cry immediately?”
Declan chuckles. “She didn’t cry. Her little eyes were open wide taking in everything happening around her.”
I’m so grateful to Declan I can only pull him into a hug. Not a man hug. A proper hug. “Thank you for having my back, bro!”
“Yeah,” he says.
“I’m sorry, Declan,” I say. “I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah, you are,” he says. “But I love you anyway and am saddled to you forever.”
I inhale deeply. I’ve gone through every possible emotion that a man can feel in the last twenty-four hours. I’m physically and emotionally drained.
“Lexi’s been calling me every half hour. She loves you, man.”
I glance at the time. It’s too late to go home now. I’ll sleep on the boat and go home in the morning.
“Think she’ll take me back?” I ask Declan.
“Of course, she will but you have to do some major groveling.” He grins. “Women like that.”
“Yeah.” Except that Lexi is not your regular woman. She’s complex and simple, sweet and serious, soft, and a survivor. She’s a contradiction and I can’t predict her reaction.
Chapter 35
Lexi
I survived a traumatic childhood by emotionally distancing myself from my mom and I’ll survive this too. I’ve had all night to think things through and when morning rolls around and I hear Ace’s key, I’m ready for him. I’ve already canceled Helen’s services for the day so it’s just me and Luna.
The first thing Ace notices is the suitcases in the living room. He stops short and stares at them and then at me sprawled on the couch as if I haven’t just made a heart-wrenching decision. His shocked expression nearly makes me rethink my decision, but I remind myself that I’m a survivor.
And survivors make tough decisions and stick by them. And to think that I almost agreed to his idea of taking a break from work to find myself. I would have been in a real fix then. As it is, I have a job, a place to stay, and I can take care of my daughter.
“What is this?” he asks staring at the suitcases and then back at me? “Lexi?”
Unexpected pain rumbles through me. I bite my lower lip to stop it from trembling. “Luna and I are leaving. We’re moving back home.” I manage to keep my voice stable.
“Why?” Ace says, his liquid brown eyes boring into me.
It may seem like a small thing to leave a man because he took off without saying where he was going and left me to worry myself to death. I understand behavior more than the average person. Living with my mom gave me a Ph.D. in bad habits.
The one thing I know is that people rarely change their habits. Ace will always break my heart. In times of trouble, he runs away. Today, he could be gone for a night, another time for a week, and another, he’ll do as he did when Luna was conceived and go away for two years.
That is not a life that I’m willing to live and neither am I going to expose my daughter to an unpredictable life. Luna is going to grow up happy and if I can help it, she’ll never have to carry the burden of worrying about her parents.
Ace goes to Luna, kisses her and she happily hugs him. I can imagine us spending the night together huddled in the living room in the dead of the night, waiting for Ace to come home. Worrying and wondering if he’s okay. If something bad has happened to him.
Thank God that Luna is a baby. It’s the right time to leave.
He comes back and sits down facing me. “I’m sorry for not trusting you, Lexi.”
My heart lurches. Protective feelings come over me, urging me to close the distance between us and wrap my arms around him. I ignore them.
“Please don’t go.” He forks his fingers through his hair. I’ll miss doing that.
I’ll miss a lot of things. Like his fingers coaxing me into making love at dawn. His cold body slipping into bed after a long shift. The sweet words he whispers into my ear when he thinks that I’m asleep.
I harden my heart. This is not the time to reminisce. There’ll be time for that in the evenings when I’ll be home alone, and after Luna has slept.
“I can’t be with someone who takes off at the first sign of trouble,” I tell him, keeping my voice even.
“I have to leave, Lexi. I needed time and space to think,” Ace says, leaning forward.
My chest tightens. “You could have let me know. All it would have taken was a simple text message.”
“Put yourself in my shoes, Lexi,” he says, his voice rising. “You just found what you think is damning evidence between your brother and girlfriend, are you going to text her?”