Take Me On

Maybe it was only that she was leaving him. Hopefully that separation would be brief. They could figure something out.

If only he knew that was the problem.

She lifted her head and turned it toward him. He’d begun to wonder if she was asleep, but no, her eyes were wide open. Even the scant light showed they were full of chaotic thoughts. She probably didn’t realize how expressive they were; with her, they truly were the windows to her soul.

“Gabby,” he said tersely, already preparing for her refusal to talk. “What’s the matter? And don’t say ‘nothing’.”

“Ian—”

“Something’s wrong with you. I’ve known it since you got here. If we’re gonna get anywhere, you’ve got to let me in. Shutting me out isn’t going to help anything.”

“I’m not the one shutting you out,” she said bitterly, sitting up and facing away from him.

Ian frowned, pushing himself around so he could see her face. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

She stared at him—he could still see the turmoil taking place behind those pretty eyes. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, and finally she dropped her head in her hands. “Fuck. Don’t make me do this.”

“Do what? For God’s sake, talk to me.”

“We talked about making this work, right?”

“Right. I want to.”

“Well, my parents apparently don’t agree.”

Ice infiltrated his heart, wrapping skeletal fingers around it. That shouldn’t be a big deal, right? At the end of the day, who really cared what her parents thought? She was a grown woman. But something told him it was a big deal, a very big deal. After all, it was enough to keep her in a funk all night. “Okay. It happens. So…” He lifted his brows, waiting for her to supply the problem.

“My parents pay for my apartment and pretty much all of my expenses, but only as long as I’m going to school. Hell, they pay for most of my school. I have some money, but not that much. Without them, there’s no way I could make it.”

He’d figured as much. Damn, and he’d been a dumbass. It should’ve been abundantly clear where this was going. So clear he could’ve stopped her from talking and deduced the problem himself, but he let her go on, each word a dagger driving deeper into his heart.

“It’s fine with them if we want to be together,” she said. “But you won’t be moving in with me. I move you in, I’m on my own. Which basically means I’ll have to quit med school and go back to nursing.”

Sighing, he rolled to his stomach, staring sightlessly at the pattern on his drapes. What could he say? He thought of the powerful couple he’d met at the hospital yesterday, and he’d known the very thing that was probably going through her dad’s mind. Looked as if he’d been exactly right.

“You’re not doing that,” he said firmly. Gabby giving up her dreams was unthinkable.

“I mean, it’s not like you and I had even talked about moving in together or anything.”

“Right.” But he’d had hope; it stood to reason that they would eventually, if this thing progressed. He damn sure wouldn’t mind waking up to her every morning. But he couldn’t give her a decent place on what he earned. He’d had roommates back when he lived in Dallas, and they’d still struggled.

“It just sucks that it was laid out there to me like that. My mom…she’s never been that way to me before. It’s always been Brian who got the whole finger-in-the-face thing.”

He thought of his own mom, and the shambles that were left of that relationship. If he could fix it, he would. Gabriella had never had to go it alone, not like him. Hell, she never would. She had beauty and brains to get her by. He’d only had brawn and street smarts. They’d gotten him through some rough shit. She was from an entirely different world altogether, though, and he never, never wanted her to get any taste of his. She couldn’t piss her parents off so severely that they disowned her. She needed them.

She needed them a f**k of a lot more than she needed him. What the hell could he do for her? He damn sure couldn’t earn enough to support them and a baby and put her through medical school.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said miserably.

He stroked her smooth, naked back while she held the sheet to her chest and gazed at him with such forlorn sorrow in her eyes that he almost couldn’t take it.

And worse than any of it, maybe, was his own humiliation. That he wasn’t good enough. It was f**king Earl all over again, telling him he was a worthless piece of shit who would never amount to anything. Hearing it from him, though, Ian could’ve laughed it off—look who was talking, after all. King of the worthless pieces of shit.

Hearing the equivalent from Gabriella’s parents… It cut. It cut him deep as f**k.

So the bastard had been right after all, hadn’t he? Ian had a beautiful woman who wanted to be with him, who wanted to have a child with him, and he couldn’t be what she needed. He would never be the f**king doctor who could give her the dream wedding and everything she wanted. He could almost hear his ass**le stepfather laughing at him from beyond the grave.

“I don’t know either,” he said distantly. Raw emotion churned in his gut, old wounds breaking open and oozing. The last thing he wanted was for her to witness it. “But…maybe you should go home tonight. Not because I want you to, baby, but…” He trailed off and sighed as her eyes widened.

“You’re serious? You’re giving in to their bullshit?”

“What else do you want me to say, Gabby? You said yourself you don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the f**k to do, either.”

He expected an explosion. He didn’t get one. Gabby’s shoulders rose with her deep inhale. She looked straight ahead for a moment in a sort of stunned daze, then stood.

Ian grappled for something to say while she dressed. Something to make her feel better, something to soften the blow of the words he’d just uttered. But he’d only be kidding himself, wouldn’t he? He had nothing left.

And it was the best thing for her, for his baby, to maintain their attachment to a rich, powerful family. If he would in any way jeopardize that by his mere presence, then he had to step away.

As the door closed behind her and despair ate a hole in his chest, he didn’t know if he could.

Chapter Nineteen

September

Even under the roof of the parking garage, it was hotter than the ninth circle of hell. September in Texas was little better than August, heat-wise—hell, she couldn’t hope for much relief until at least late October. If then. And they were breaking high-temperature records. Gabriella felt as if she were walking uphill through sludge—the journey from her last lecture to her car should’ve been a breeze, but for some reason today, she feared she might collapse before she made it. If it was this bad now, what would it be like when she was eight months along? Nine?

She was absolutely f**king exhausted, and she had a night of reading about the various ailments of the liver ahead of her. Joy, joy. She was being punished for something, she just knew it.

Digging her silenced phone from her bag, she cursed herself again for being such an idiot. Hoping for something, anything, from Ian. Saying he’d changed his mind. That he didn’t give a shit about anything but her. And then…what?