Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,70
old one. She’d hidden her origins for so long, telling people as little as possible.
“One thing we have in common,” she said. “I don’t remember most of that night either.” She’d gone away inside her head, woken to find a naked Jeremy asleep beside her.
Abe’s jaw worked, his hand fisting on the carpet. “I got clean before coming to get you,” he ground out. “And I shot up the day I realized you were with Vance.”
She was the one who flinched this time.
“No, Sarah, I’m not blaming you.” Abe rubbed his hands over his head. “Cocaine is my demon. Alcohol was my crutch. All I’m saying is that you meant enough to me to break me.”
The declaration threatened to break her.
“Let me show you,” Abe said in that voice that held nothing back, that stripped him bare. “Give me a chance to be the man you deserve.”
Sarah was so scared. Not just for herself but for her baby. She didn’t want to be a single mom, but she’d far rather be that than be with a man who didn’t value her. Her mother had done that, allowed her “boyfriends” to beat her up, use her up, until one day one had gone too far. Sarah had repeated that pattern with Jeremy and with Abe.
Abe had never been violent, not physically, but the emotional wounds he’d inflicted still bled. Never again would she put herself in that position. She didn’t want the nightmare that had scarred her to mark a third generation.
She looked at the tattooed and pierced rock star who’d once been her husband. In many ways, the man he’d become since their divorce was a stranger to her, one who’d taken her on a midnight dessert date and who looked at her with eyes filled with what she wanted to believe was love. What if it wasn’t just a fleeting fantasy? What if Abe had changed? What if he did truly love her? What if he could be a wonderful father?
It was the last that swayed her most. Sarah wouldn’t protect her heart at the cost of stealing her child’s chance to have a father full time.
“All right.” She trembled within, terror and hope colliding to create myriad fractures. “But if things aren’t working by the time the baby is born…”
“Then we act like adults and make an agreement to look after our kid the best way we can while not being together.”
Sarah nodded.
Rising from the floor, Abe walked to the bed, looked down at her. “You want me to go home today?”
Sarah thought of all the lonely nights she’d spent aching for Abe, of all the lonely nights that might yet be in her future. “No.” She got up out of bed, found her robe. “Stay.”
Touching her fingers to his jaw, she smiled through the fear and the hope that was a flight of butterflies in her stomach. “You can go tire out Flossie while I put together some dinner. I’m starving.”
Abe smiled, kissed her fingertips. And it felt good, felt right.
CHAPTER 24
SARAH WOKE THE NEXT MORNING FACING AWAY FROM ABE, her body curved into the muscled warmth of his. He had one arm under her head, had thrown the other over her waist. It was a heavy weight, but one that made her feel safe, protected. His other arm though, it had to be numb. Still, she didn’t move, not wanting to ruin this moment.
Sunlight arced through a gap in the curtains, fine dust motes sparkling in the air. It was early enough that she could hear the birds tweeting loudly as they went about their business, no car sounds to break the peace. And she was all wrapped up in Abe.
Her eyes threatened to sting.
This had been one of her favorite fantasies during her marriage to Abe: just lying in bed with him on a Sunday morning, lazy and warm and with nowhere in particular to be. It had rarely happened though.
No more living in the past. Live in today. It was an order to herself. This would never work if she allowed herself to be held hostage to their painful history.
“Mmm.” A rumbling sound from Abe before he cuddled her even closer, pushing his thigh up between her legs.
Naked as they both were, she could feel his morning arousal hot and demanding against her back, but he wasn’t pushing for sex. He was just… holding her. And the tears, they came ever closer to the surface. She swallowed them in mute desperation.