Billionaire's Second Chance (Billionaires #16) - Jennifer Hartley Page 0,53

possibly take care of the whole farm by myself. Once you get further along in your pregnancy, you won’t be able to help out as much. And we both know that I’m not half as good at some of this stuff as you are. I mean, I’ll try my best, but I’m afraid that it just won’t be enough to get by.”

He was right, and I had already known that. But still, it didn’t change my decision.

“Even if we do keep the farm running until after you have the baby, once the baby is here, we won’t be able to care for it. Hell, we’ll barely be able to keep ourselves and the animals on the farm alive.”

I looked at my brother, and he appeared so defeated. I saw all of the life fade right out of his eyes. He had always been there for me and taken care of me. He had been my steady rock through all that we had been through. Ever since our parents had died, he had put aside everything that he had wanted for his life in order to make the farm work, not just because it was what our parents would have wanted, but because he knew that it was what I wanted. It was time for him to think about what he wanted, as well. He had put himself last for way too long, and none of this was going to work out if one or the other of us was miserable.

“Scott,” I started carefully as I looked at him intently. “You need to be truthful to yourself about what you really want out of your life.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You know what it means,” I said gently. “You haven’t been happy doing this for a long time. Running this farm is not what you wanted to do; it’s not what you signed up for. This was all thrown in your lap, and you’ve been handling it every bit as good as Mom and Dad knew that you could. They’d be proud of you, and so am I. But just like this baby, you dealt with something that threw your life in a direction that you didn’t plan on going. The difference is that you didn’t get to make a choice in the matter. You just jumped right in to taking care of the farm and taking care of me. I can’t keep asking you to do that. I can’t keep asking you to put my needs before your own.”

“I will always take care of you, Clara,” he said devotedly. “You’re my little sister, and we are all that each other has.”

“Scott, you can’t take care of me if you don’t start taking care of yourself. And I’ll always be here for you, too. But we are not all that each other has—not anymore.”

We sat there on the bed and stared at each other for a few minutes. I thought he knew I was right. And as much as change frightened us both, I thought he felt a little relieved that everything was finally all out in the open. My feelings for DeShawn, his feeling about running this farm, everything had been opened up and exposed, and now we could finally have a real conversation about what we were going to do and how we were going to move forward together.

And I knew that I was right about it not just being the two of us anymore. Scott and I would always be there for each other; we would always be the solid ground that held each other up. But we had overlooked the fact that DeShawn had been in our lives for almost as long as we had. He was even more so a part of our family now.

DeShawn had done nothing but tried to help us since he had gotten here, and instead of welcoming his help, Scott and I had both continually pushed him away out of some misguided sense of independence that refused to accept help from anyone outside of the two of us. It was only now that I finally saw how ridiculous that was. I felt bad that I had pushed DeShawn away and made him feel like an outsider. I was sure that this pregnancy was every bit as big of a shock to him as it was to Scott and me. But instead of having someone else to talk to about it, he was probably sitting alone in a hotel room