Mistresses: Just One Night: Never Stay Past Midnight / A Dangerous Solace / One Secret Night

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TENSION gripped him in a vise cranked so tight Levi half wondered if he was going to snap.

Elise’s soft eyes had gone to slate. “What kind of man would say that?” she demanded.

“The kind who’s honest enough to admit he wouldn’t make a good parent.” The kind who’d been telling her he wasn’t the good guy she deserved from the start.

The bitter huff of humorless laughter that answered told him exactly what Elise thought of his answer. That it was bull. A cop-out.

Only it wasn’t. He knew firsthand what it meant to be better off without someone. Or a string of someones. He knew what it meant to have your hopes crushed over and over. To be let down by the person you needed to count on most.

He wouldn’t do that to his own child.

Reluctantly his mind dragged him back through the years to a rat-hole apartment, and the nightmare that was having nowhere to run, no way to hide. To the lead weight in his small gut as he crouched in the corner, wishing he hadn’t come inside—but the cops had driven past the alley twice already and he was scared Child Services would get him. Scared of the stories his mother had told him about the kids who got picked up by them. So he’d come back and walked into another sloppy, booze-fuelled fight on the brink of violence.

The loser who’d been knocking them around the last two months was threatening to leave, his already ugly face twisted and red. Levi waited for the rest of the scene to play itself out—his mother’s slurred insults and demands that the guy go.

Only this time, it was different. This time, she pleaded through her tears, clinging to his arm not to leave her. Swearing the baby had been an accident.

Promising she’d get rid of it.

At eight years old he hadn’t fully understood what she’d meant, but it scared him anyway. He wanted to tell her to let the guy go. They’d be better off without him. She could keep the baby and he’d be good. He’d help her. He knew how to do lots of stuff on his own. He’d taken care of himself for that week she’d been gone the year before and he took care of his mom all the time. He even knew how to make money—only a little, but it was enough to buy food when he had to.

The guy called his mother pathetic and took a step toward the door, his foot landing on an empty bottle. He tripped, turning angrier than before. It happened fast. The backhand that sent his mother to the ground and Levi lunging across the room in flurry of fists and kicks that ultimately did nothing more than set the guy off worse than he already was.

The blow that came next was closed fist and the last he remembered.

He had to stay in for a week until the bruise healed, his skin itching from the inside out with the need to escape the dank space that reeked of stale smoke, booze and the guy who’d decided to stick around after all. For a while, anyway.

There wasn’t any more talk about the baby or getting rid of it. And for a while Levi let himself hope, but by his next birthday his mother’s body hadn’t changed. No baby had come. And he knew it never would.

Eventually the guy left for good. Same as the others before and after.

But Levi couldn’t. He’d just watch them leave, one after another, each year wishing more and more it could be him. Aching to get out, but knowing he couldn’t go. Suffocating in the life he couldn’t escape until finally it was his turn.

And once he left, there was no tying him down again.

He couldn’t stand it.

Some people weren’t cut out to have kids. People like his mother, whose dysfunction found its beginning and end in the bottom of a bottle. And people like him, who didn’t know anything else.

It was just like he’d told Elise about her father. That relationship was a foundation on which the rest of her life had been built.

Levi’s foundation was damaged to the point where no one was fool enough to build upon it.

He knew what he had to offer.

Money. Lots of it. Earned off a career based on leaving everything he’d built behind.

When it came to security though, the kind he’d never known, Elise would be the only one who could offer that. She’d be the kind of mother he’d wished he could have had.

He’d make sure nothing got in the way.

Elise wouldn’t have to struggle. She wouldn’t have to tie herself to some jerk-off just to get by. She knew how to love. She understood responsibility. And the cold look in her eyes when she realized he wasn’t the kind of man her baby deserved told him everything he needed to know.

They would be fine.

And he would be too.

The trill of Levi’s watch cut through Elise’s bitter disbelief. Just three short minutes … how could everything have changed?

Together they pushed back from the table.

Vision tunneling, Elise walked on numb legs toward the results that would set the course for the rest of her life.

Levi followed close until they got to the bathroom, where he hung back at the door.

Reaching for the little white stick with trembling fingers, she closed her eyes and took a steadying breath.

Negative. It had to be.

She couldn’t be pregnant. Not feeling as hollow as she did in that moment.

Blinking, she stared down as all her fears and hopes coalesced into the quiet sob that broke from her lips.

She waited for the relief to wash through her and drown out everything else. Only it didn’t come to abate the sense of loss that had overwhelmed her before the timer had even sounded.

Feeling more tired than she could remember, she gave into the pull of gravity and sank onto the side of the tub, holding out the stick for Levi. She couldn’t look at him. Not right then. Not with the cacophony of emotions clattering around inside her.

“What’s this mean?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“Negative. It’s your get-out-of-jail-free card. Not pregnant.”

Within the small confines of the room, she waited for him to say something. Let out a whoop of relief. Send up a prayer of gratitude. Something.

But the silence between them only stretched. She could feel his eyes on her. But couldn’t sense whatever emotion was behind it.

Probably because there wasn’t any. The guy was too cold for feelings. He’d been ready to write a check and walk away without a backward glance.

From his own child.

She shook her head. No. There was no child. She wasn’t pregnant.

And yet she felt the betrayal as though she were.

Levi took the test from her hand. “They aren’t a hundred percent accurate.”

No, they weren’t. “I’ll take the other one in the morning. The hormones or whatever causes the reaction are supposed to be more concentrated then. I’ll call and let you know.”

Another pause, and she wondered if he was going to make her say the words.

Ask him to leave.

Why wouldn’t he? He’d planned on asking her to raise his child on her own. What were a few uncomfortable words.

But then the floorboards creaked beneath the shift of his weight and he cleared his throat. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Elise wasn’t pregnant.

Levi still couldn’t quite get his mind around it. Couldn’t feel the relief that should have been the flip side to the dread accompanying the belief she was. The truth was he didn’t feel much of anything. Hadn’t since he’d walked out her door the day before.

Maybe it was fatigue.

After giving up on the idea of sleep he’d gone for a run around 3:00 a.m. Given up on that around five and dragged himself home and into the shower. Did some work until noon, when Elise messaged that she’d managed to get an appointment with her physician, who’d confirmed the results—citing stress as the most likely culprit behind her missed period.

Now, Levi leaned back in his office chair, closing out one spreadsheet after another. Dragging the plans and provisions he’d been making for Elise and a baby that didn’t exist across the well-ordered computer desktop and into the “Trash” bin.

It was nuts, but a part of him was disappointed he wasn’t going to be giving Elise the money for her studio. He’d even toyed with the idea of offering it to her regardless—as an investment. Only he’d discarded the idea as quickly as it came to him. The last thing he needed to do was find another way to bind himself to Elise.

And considering the follow-up text to the news that she wasn’t pregnant—“Free this afternoon? We need to talk.”—he imagined Elise wouldn’t be too fond of the idea either.

It shouldn’t have hurt. After all, she knew she was doing the right thing. And for all practical purposes, the relationship was already over—having ended with the words, “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

But when Elise opened her front door, it felt as though the man walking through it was a stranger. The neat kiss pressed against her brow belonging to someone she’d never met. The subtle underlying connection that had been so much a part of every moment spent with Levi … gone.

She recognized the body, but the man she’d thought she’d known wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and the stark realization that maybe he’d never been there at all was another shocking blow to her heart.

The sad confirmation that her desperate hopes Levi would show up and say all the right things—somehow convince her he’d realized he could never actually do what he’d suggested; better still, that she’d managed to completely misunderstand the blatantly clear words he’d spoken—were futile. Another bitter pill to swallow.

She hadn’t wanted to believe it. Couldn’t truly, after Levi had done so much for her. Shown such generosity and affection. But maybe it was only because those acts had been on his terms. Maybe he was one of those men who gave and gave when it suited them, but couldn’t be relied upon if you really needed something and had to ask.

She didn’t know. Would probably never understand. But hopefully at some point, she’d get over it.

Elise pushed the door closed as Levi walked into the living room and settled into the facing couch. Elbows resting on his widespread knees, fingers steepled beneath his chin, he watched as she sat across from him. “Get any sleep last night?”

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