Chapter 151

Charles leaned toward me, resting his weight on one arm on the sofa cushion. His expression stayed just short of fierce.

“Did you never think about the fact that there were other ways around my mother’s demands other than creating an argument?”

I opened my mouth and shut it quickly. Oh, Goddess. Had I really been stubborn and blind?

“Other ways?” I whimpered.

What if everything that had gone on was largely my fault?

“Yes,” he said. “You never gave me the chance to discuss any solutions with you. That was why I was so mad at my mother way back the weekend she visited: I didn’t give us a chance to think. And I needed one.”

“I finally got that chance after you left, but then I never got the opportunity to actually talk to you because you jumped to conclusions.” He let out another low growl. “While I was struggling with my phone and then thanking the woman from IT for finally fixing it for me, you were off making assumptions that things couldn’t work between us.”

He gave me a hard stare. “You do want things to work between us. Don’t you?”

I nodded. “I really do. That’s why I came back. Well, sort of. I came back because I couldn’t live without you in my life. I thought it would be better to have you as a friend than not have you around at all. I was ready to try and accept you being with another woman.”

He palmed his forehead. “The messes you make, Elena, by just assuming…” He sat back, looking exhausted. “You know, if you had confided in me when you first thought a baby was an issue, like when it started to bother you that I wasn’t wearing a condom, then we could have had all of these conversations before my mother even gotten involved.”

“That way, when Mother said that she wanted us to get married and have kids, we wouldn’t have been fumbling around in the dark. Why would you keep these things from me?”

“I don’t know.” Tears started to drip down. “It seemed like it was impossible to talk about that subject.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “Yes, and keeping quiet about it certainly made things better.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I won’t do that again in the future. If we have a future, that is.” I drooped against the back of the sofa.

He closed the distance between us and drew me into his arms, burying his nose in my hair and taking a deep breath of my scent. He let the breath out, slumping against me, his weight sagging.

“I’ve missed you so much, Elena. It was like a piece of me disappeared.”

I wrapped my arms around him, fresh tears dripping down my face. “That’s exactly how I felt. I’m sorry I let things get so bad between us. I’m so sorry.”

Charles cuddled me against him. “Forgiven. But before we decide if and how we can be together again as a couple, you and I need to decide how we’re going to get rid of this wedge that’s come between us. We have to untangle that mess if we expect to have a prayer of having a healthy relationship.”

I nodded. “Let’s do that,” I said. “Right now. Since I seem to have made such a mess of things, why don’t you go ahead and tell me what your other plan was? I should have listened to you and should have let you have a say in all of this, to begin with. So I think the best way for me to start fixing that is to give you your say.”

He nodded. “All right, then. I know my mother insisted on marrying us right away, but would that really be such a bad thing?” He eyed me carefully.

“I guess not,” I hesitated. “But I don’t think I want to do our wedding on the weekend with your brother-in-law officiating. I mean, we can have your brother-in-law officiate if you really want. But I think if we’re doing this as a show of strength between you and me, that it would be better if it was public and well-thought-out if we made a big deal of our marriage.”

“Not to mention it, they could be used as a distraction, but I’ll get into that more in a few minutes,” I said. “Anyway, even if we did a wedding. How does that help with the whole baby thing and me staying home and quitting my job?”

He reached over and took hold of my hands. “Just because my mother says we should have a baby now doesn’t mean that we have to actually try. She’s not in the bed with us.”

I gave him an open-mouthed stare. “You’d lie to her?”

He shrugged. “I just wouldn’t say anything. It’s not really the same thing as lying. All Mother needs to know is that a pregnancy hasn’t happened. She doesn’t need to know why it hasn’t happened. And if that ‘why’ happens to be because you and I use condoms, then so be it. She’ll just have to accept that our sex isn’t doing the job.”

I gaped at him for a moment before shaking my head. “You’re right. That was so blatantly obvious. I don’t know why I never thought of anything similar.”

He reached over and rubbed my hair. “You missed a simple solution because you were so worked up, worrying about things that weren’t really an issue. And not talking to me about them, you tied yourself up in knots so badly you couldn’t see the solutions.”

He gave me a small smile. “It’s the same thing with quitting work. Mother can order you to stay home, and while I would definitely encourage it, I don’t see why we can’t find a different solution.”

“As a boss, I’ve known ladies who had babies and swore they were going back to work,” Charles continued. “But then when the baby came, they didn’t want to anymore. You won’t know what you want until after you meet your baby. So why should we try to decide what you’re going to do with yourself right now?”

“We’ll put such choices off until after we have a baby, and then you can decide if you want to stay home, or if you want to split the difference and be a freelancer, or work from home. I will support you on all of those when the time comes to make our decision known to my mother.”

His expression turned stern. “But I am not going to start a fight with them about any of those things. Arguing will only raise suspicions if you’re not getting pregnant. I don’t want to start second fights over disobedience. But if we go discreetly into our decisions, then it will be very hard for them to get upset over any of it. Even if you choose to go back to work, we’re talking about a decision they won’t know about for years. Everyone’s opinions will be completely different by then. We’ll be married, and the whole conversation between us and my family will unfold very differently.”

I slouched, letting myself fall forward so that my face pressed into his chest. “I’m such an idiot,” I groaned. “We’ve lost so much time together while I’ve been being foolish.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of my head. “I don’t fully disagree. But I did let my temper get the better of me. So, I can’t say that I am 100% not at fault. David knew where you guys were staying. Even though my phone was only working on and off, I could have had him take me over to your hotel at any time. And I didn’t. I convinced myself that you’d gone for good. So, in that respect, I am as guilty as you are.”

I sat up and locked gazes with him. “So where does it leave us right now? Back together?”

“I hope so,” he said.

Charles leaned toward me hesitantly. When I didn’t move, he leaned all the way in, and his lips met mine.

It was a tentative kiss as if asking permission. I wrapped my arms around him and let the kiss deepen. Rather than going in with tongues, the two of us stayed with our lips tightly pressed together, drawing deep breaths of each other’s scent as if trying to fill the hole the other person had left behind in them.

“We need to go in the bedroom,” I whispered between kisses.

“Mmm…” he groaned. “I fully agree.”

“No, not for that,” I said. “And you have to let me talk before you try and get me into bed. Because this is important.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

He said he got up and held his hand out to me, drawing me off the couch and toward the bedroom. All of a sudden, it felt like my world, which had been upside down for so long, violently righted itself, and a deep feeling of peace settled over me.