What the Lightning Sees: Part Three (10 page)

A few minutes after the receptionist announced me, Jake rounded the corner, a huge grin on his face.
Shit, shit shit
. This was going to be even more difficult than I could have imagined.

“Hey, beautiful girl,” he said as he grabbed me into his arms. I tensed. “Sorry, I forgot about the PDA rule. Let’s get somewhere more private.”

He pulled my hand into his and led me down the corridor and through a frosted glass door. Three heads snapped up as we walked in.

“Hey, everyone, this is Haven. Haven, this is Eric, Greg and Dale.”

I forced a smile. Luckily they weren’t particularly interested in me and quickly went back to their laptops.

“I thought it was going to be bigger.” I said as I scanned the small room. I thought there would be a corner where we could talk. There was never going to be a good time for this, but I thought with Beth being back today, now would make the most sense. He would have his sister for support.

“Let me show you.” Jake led me toward the back of the office and through a door into another much larger space. “They can take the wall down if we want them to. For now, it’s better to be in the smaller room when there are just four of us.” He was excited and it was lovely to see.

I nodded. “Do you have some water or—” I needed to stay strong but being with him made me doubt myself. I wanted him. I always wanted him.

“Yeah, let me . . .” He walked across the empty room toward a coffee machine on a bench and pulled open a fridge set beneath the coffee cups. He passed me a bottle of water and kept one for himself. “There’s not much of a view because it’s on the ground floor, but I don’t think that matters.”

“It’s great and the location is awesome. You should be so proud.”

He smiled. I hated to bring him down, but he’d understand eventually that this was right for both of us in the long term. And it
was
right . . . wasn’t it?

“You’ve got a lot going on,” I continued. “What with this all happening and buying a new flat, your dad and the baby and Millie—”

He stood right in front of me. “Yeah, but it’s all good. I can handle it and I know we don’t get loads of time together, but it will get better.” He stroked his hands down my arms.

“It’s not about the time. I’m not demanding more attention. Please don’t think that’s what this is about.” I didn’t want him to think I was a monster.

“What what is about?” His eyebrows drew together and his voice changed pitch.

I took another deep breath.

“Haven?” Jake bent his knees slightly, trying to catch my eye.

“It’s just, I think you have a lot going on and that maybe I need to let you concentrate on other things.” My voice came out smaller than I’d expected. I didn’t feel as confident that I could let him go now that I was in front of him.

“What are you saying? Are you running from me?”

I shook my head. “I’m not running. I promise, I’m not. I just think that you need to be consumed with other things and I shouldn’t be a priority for you.” I wasn’t explaining myself very well. I’d rehearsed this speech in my head a million times in the past twenty-four hours and it had all made so much sense when I was on my own.

Jake gripped my shoulders tenderly. “You are a priority for me—”

I couldn’t look at him. “But you should be concentrating on your business and your baby and Millie. I couldn’t live with myself if I thought I was the reason that you’re not in a relationship with the mother of your child, or that you’re not spending more time with your kid. You need some space to figure out what you need.”

“Haven, I know Millie has been a pain in the ass recently, but I didn’t run over to her the other night. And when I saw her about the ultrasound, I told her there was nothing going to happen between us. She gets that—”

“You don’t know what things would be like if you were single—” The black molasses that had been rooted in my gut spread across my body at the thought of him with Millie or anyone else.

“I can tell you categorically that if Millie was the last woman on the planet I wouldn’t want to be with her. I don’t love her. I love you. I always knew that girls like her weren’t right for me. But being with you has woken me up to why—”

“Please don’t make this harder. I just don’t think this is our time.” My throat constricted. I really didn’t want to cry. I needed to stay strong, to make sure Jake knew I was serious. “It’s less complicated to walk away now, while we’ve not been together long.” I blinked more and more rapidly, trying to stave off the tears. “Better that than—”

“It doesn’t matter to me how long we’ve been together. When you know, you know. Clichés are clichés for a reason. You can’t tell me you don’t feel the same. You might not have said the words, but I know you. I own you.” Jake pulled me toward him. I let myself sink into him one last time.

“You do and you always will, but I need to walk away.” I couldn’t tell him that part of the reason I needed to leave was so I didn’t live in constant fear that he was going to abandon me. I couldn’t live like that, waiting for him to leave me. If I told him, he’d say anything to persuade me that it wouldn’t happen. And I wanted to hear it all. I wanted to hear it too much, which was why I needed to go. I was in too deep already.

“You can’t be serious, Haven. I can see you’re upset. You don’t want to walk away.”

I realized I wasn’t going to convince him by telling him it was what was best for him. He had to see this was what I wanted. “I’m sorry. I do.” It was all I could manage. My resolve was wavering. His touch and his smell were pulling me toward him. I placed my hands on his chest and gently tried to create some space between us.

“Haven, no. I’ll speak to Millie and say she can’t call unless it’s an emerg—”

That’s when I knew I’d made the right decision. “Don’t you dare do that for me. You see how conflicted you are? You see how you are being pulled in different directions? I never want to feel that you prioritized me over your pregnant ex-girlfriend, but you’re right, part of me needs that from you. And that’s not fair. It’s not fair to you, Millie or me. I can’t live like that.”

Jake’s hold loosened and I stepped away from him. He let me and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I’d got what I wanted, just as I feared.

He pushed his hands through his hair and turned to the window. He looked so beautiful, but so upset. I hated that I had been the cause. But it was the right thing to do in the long run. There would be more pain, and it would be deeper for both of us, the longer we waited.

“I’m sorry.” I left before I could change my mind.

Jake

I’d always known that she’d run at some point. But this wasn’t entirely about her fear of letting me get too close. I was distracted. I had Millie making demands on me that I knew must have been difficult for Haven to stomach. And how could I expect anyone to live through me having a baby with another woman? I had been stupid to think that it could end any other way with Haven. I had hoped the way I felt about her would shelter us from everything else. That we could ride out the storm together. I wanted to look after us both and keep our hearts safe for each other.

“Are you okay?” Beth asked as I walked through the door to our apartment. She knew me too well; there was no hiding anything from her. I’d left the office just after Haven in the hope of finding Beth at home. There was no point being at work.

“Not really.”

“What’s going on? Is it Haven?”

Why had she assumed that I would be upset about Haven? Had they spoken? Could she tell that Haven had never been mine at all?

I nodded and collapsed on the sofa. “She ended it. She doesn’t want to be an additional pressure although she needs to be my priority. Or something.” I couldn’t remember everything she’d said. The conversation with Haven seemed to be over before it began. By the time I caught my breath and had finally managed to find some words, she’d already left.

“So, you’re going to fight for her, right?” Beth asked.

Despite, or perhaps because of, what was going on with me, it was so good to see Beth. She looked great. Her eyes were bright and she seemed more relaxed at the core of her somehow. I smiled, but shook my head. “What do you think I’ve been doing? I’ve been fighting for her every day since I met her. I can’t make her feel about me the way I do about her. It’s not mandatory. And she’s right. I can’t expect her to stand by me while another woman has my baby. Like she said, it’s not fair to her. I was a fool to think we were going to be okay.”

Beth pursed her lips. “I don’t believe this is about her lack of feeling. If anything, it’s the opposite. She sounds like she doesn’t want you to be torn between her and Millie. She’s sacrificing herself for you. Of course, if she knew Millie, Haven would realize what a lunatic Millie is and that you were a dick for ever putting
your
dick anywhere near her. Scratch that. If she knew Millie, Haven would think your judgment was so off, she’d walk anyway.” She elbowed me, trying to elicit a smile.

“You’re not helping. You know that, right?”

“I am too. I’m making you feel bad about yourself and that’s important because—and I’d know—you need to hit rock bottom before you can start recovery.”

I rolled my eyes and she laughed. It was good to have her back. Haven had asked whether Beth was back today. Had she been waiting for Beth to return to end things? Had she been that careful with my feelings? I didn’t know if it would be better or worse if she had. My stomach churned with the loss of her.

“So do you have a plan?” Beth asked.

“A plan?”

“Yeah, to win her back. You always have a plan. That’s what you do. You plan, you fix, you make everything better.”

I let myself consider her analysis of me. Was that who I was? I suppose it was. But this situation wasn’t fixable. Maybe Haven had been right. It wasn’t our time.

“Of course, it will help when you get that paternity test back to prove that baby isn’t yours,” Beth continued. “But what else are you going to do?”

“I’ve told you. I can’t make her do anything, and what makes you so sure that Millie is lying? She’s vacuous and a bit cold, but she’s not a monster. And she’s not stupid. She’s not going to tell me it’s mine if she’s going to get found out eventually. Why would she bother?”

“I’m not saying I understand her, I just think she’s got a game plan. But time will tell and then I’ll take great delight in saying that I told you so.”

Beth getting to gloat would be worth it, but the instant I had the thought I felt guilty. If the kid was mine, I didn’t want to be wishing it away.

“I can’t think about that. It seems wrong that I’d be hoping that the baby is another man’s. And I don’t think she’d lie. I really don’t. I’m going to concentrate on Elemental Energy. It needs a lot of time and attention from me. We’re also going to move.”

“We are?” Beth asked.

“We are. There’s no room for three of us in this apartment.” I put my hand out to silence Beth from saying anything else about paternity. “And I need to move on. This place is a dump, you’re right.”

“Oh my God, breakthrough! You see? Every cloud has a silver lining. You might have broken up with the love of your life, and you might never be happy again, but I’ll be cooking in a nicer kitchen.” She grinned and I threw a cushion at her.

“I saw some places this weekend with Haven.” I stood up and headed to my desk in the corner of the living room. “These. I think two were ones you’d picked out.”

I handed her brochures from the apartments that we had visited. She grabbed my hand and pulled me down onto the sofa.

“Have you considered sharing your feelings with her about everything you’ve got going on? Rather than just trying to keep everyone happy, you could explain to her the pressure. If you don’t let her see the strain, how can she trust you when you show her the good stuff, when you tell her how important she is to you? You have to reveal all of you, and trust her to love you anyway.”

I closed my eyes and let what Beth was saying sink in. “Stop with the making sense thing, just for a little bit.” I exhaled. I was exhausted.

“Okay, but if you love her, Jake, you can’t just let her go. I’ve never seen you give up on something you really wanted. Don’t let me think that giving up is an option.”

I pulled her into a hug. I didn’t know what to say. Haven wanted me to let her go, and I had to give her anything she wanted.