She stood, wrapped her arms around him, felt the comfort of his arms around her. How long they stood there she wasn’t sure. Just that they clung to each other, comforting and being comforted.
“Forgive me, Ross. Forgive me for not telling you I was pregnant,” she sobbed, needing to tell him everything. “I wanted you to want me for me, not because I was pregnant.”
“I did want you.”
“I mean for ever, Ross.” She pulled back, stared at him and buried her pride. “Call me silly or old-fashioned or a hopeless romantic, but I wanted you to sweep me off my feet because you loved me and wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. What I didn’t want was for you to feel obligated to marry me because I was pregnant and the kid sister of your best friend.”
“I was an idiot, Brielle. I should have known that something was going on when you started acting so different.” He put his hands on her shoulders, gripped her tight. “I didn’t understand and rather than fight for you, for us, I panicked and ran.”
“You didn’t run. Boston was a great opportunity. You’d have been a fool to turn it down.”
“Leaving you made me a bigger fool.”
“No, you didn’t want the same things I did so you staying would have been worse.”
“Tell me, Brielle, when did you start wanting to get married? Before or after you found out you were pregnant?”
She thought back. “From the moment I first kissed you I knew I wanted to marry you.”
“But there wasn’t a rush until you found out you were pregnant, right?”
“I always figured we’d wait until you were finished with your residency program and were in practice. Honestly, I was so happy being with you I never put a time frame on when we’d take that next step.”
“Until nature forced you to put a time frame on it.”
“I was wrong to not tell you outright. I just...” Her voice trailed off.
“You just wanted me to do the right thing and give you your happily-ever-after. Only I didn’t have all the facts, Brielle. Not like you did, and I didn’t understand the sudden rush and the personality changes and you shutting me out when we’d always been so close and of the same mind.”
“I should have told you.”
He nodded. “Yes, you should have.” He took a deep breath. “But having spent several hours earlier this week talking to your brother, I can understand why you didn’t, why you wanted more from me.”
“You talked to Vann?”
“Yesterday, when my flight landed, I went straight to him. We had dinner, talked.”
“I always regretted that your friendship with him ended because of me.”
“I regretted that our friendship ended, but that wasn’t your fault, Brielle. It was mine, because I let it end without fighting to save it, just as I let my relationship with you end without fighting for it. I can only blame ignorance and youth and stupidity.”
“You’re not ignorant or stupid, Ross.”
“Letting our relationship go wasn’t wise, Brielle. Not when it meant losing the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
She swallowed, waited for him to say more, desperate to hear his next words.
“I did date, Brielle. I went through a lot of women, fast, out of sheer desperation. None of them could hold my attention. None of them were you.”
The thought of him with other women pained her, but she only bit her lip, keeping silent, knowing he had more to say.
“I met a woman, a doctor I worked with. Theoretically, she was ideal, the perfect mate, and I considered asking her to marry me.”
Brielle’s heart squeezed. There had been someone special in his life? Thinking of him with other women who were meaningless was one thing. Thinking of him with a woman he’d loved quite another.
“But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You were on my mind more often than not and I kept wondering what you were doing, if you’d ever married, if there was any chance the sparks would still fly between us. I’d wake up from dreaming of you, reach over to hold you, and you wouldn’t be there. I’d convince myself that we’d had our chance and only a fool looked back.”
He gave a low laugh. “Then I went to this conference in Philadelphia, saw Vann, and instantly knew that I couldn’t move on to whatever my future was supposed to be until I saw you again.”