“I don’t know, Amelia. I saw you with another man, and I panicked. I’m sorry,” Aiden answered, his brow furrowed as he slumped down on the couch.
“We are not engaged,” I hissed.
“Only because you ran out on me the night I proposed.”
Folding my arms over my chest, I huffed out in frustration, “And you figured that was a maybe?”
He flinched at my harsh words, and I regretted them at once. Aiden had never been anything less than charming, wonderful, and giving. He deserved so much more than a woman who ran out on a romantic proposal and never returned.
“I didn’t know what to think. You just disappeared.”
I hung my head in shame as more tears etched a path down my cheek. “I’m sorry, Aiden. I just…I’m sorry. I couldn’t accept.”
He nodded, leaning forward to run his long fingers through his short dusty-blond hair. His dark brown eyes met mine, and he took a ragged deep breath.
“Why, Amelia? Why? Is it because of him, the guy that was here?”
Even though my head had screamed for me to go to Garrett, I’d spent the entire evening with Aiden, talking until the sun came up. I’d needed him to understand me—the real me, the one I’d never shared with him. So, for the first time since I’d met him, I’d opened myself up and told him everything.
I’d met Aiden right after college and found him to be funny and easy to get along with. He was a few years older than me, and he’d been just starting his career in law while I had been just starting mine in accounting. He had been completely immersed in his career, and from the beginning, our relationship had been casual. He’d told me a wife and kids weren’t in the cards for him, and those were terms I could happily agree to.
After losing Garrett, I had given up on the idea of marriage. It wasn’t something I wanted with anyone else. So, when Aiden had asked me to move in with him a year later, I’d agreed, knowing it would be the furthest our relationship would ever go. I’d thought I would never be pressured for more. I would never have to share more of myself than I was willing.
Over the last year though, things had changed. Aiden’s career had settled. He had become a partner in a firm, and he no longer needed to prove himself by working to death. When he’d started looking at me differently, tenderly, I’d known we were headed for trouble. His fingers would linger on my ring finger, and I’d find him stealing glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
The night he had proposed, he’d pulled out every stop. He’d rented out an entire restaurant, lit hundreds of candles, and decorated every surface with flowers. It had been every woman’s fantasy—every woman but me. To me, it had been a nightmare. The only proposal I’d ever wanted was an impromptu declaration of love on a river bank with a tiny diamond ring and a boy who had stolen my heart when I was still a child.
I want you to be my wife, Amelia. I want you to be the mother of my children. Please, do me the honor and make me the luckiest man alive, he’d said. With a wide-mouthed grin, he’d dropped to one knee.
I’d been frozen stiff from the shock until I’d finally burst into panicked tears before running out of the candlelit restaurant. With shaky hands, I’d gathered as many things as I could from our apartment, and I’d spent the night at a friend’s house. Even though she hadn’t understood my reasoning, the next day, she’d gone over and packed everything else for me while Aiden drilled her on my whereabouts. She hadn’t given in, and eventually, she’d made it out with everything I owned.
I’d left the next day, getting behind the wheel and driving to an unknown destination. When I’d realized where I was headed, I’d pulled into a shabby motel for the night, and I’d emailed Liv from my phone, not expecting her to respond. It had been eight years of radio silence. I had deserted my best friend without any explanation. I hadn’t deserved a response, but being the person she was, Liv had welcomed me into her home with open arms.
I’d left Aiden with no explanation. I couldn’t blame him for the length he went to find me. I should have never ran, but running had always been what I did best and now I had to fix it. It had been unfair and careless of me, and over those few hours after I watched Garrett walk out, I’d tried to make it up to him. There had been so much I’d never told him.
He’d known where I was from, but that was the extent of it. He hadn’t known anything about my family or the type of home I was raised in. Aiden hadn’t known the life I had before. For him, I was a completely different person. I was Amelia. Strong, independent and emotionally stable. After I left home, I bottled so many things up, thinking that by doing so, I was making a better life for myself and the new people in it. Aiden didn’t know about Garrett, the baby, or the consequences of my actions from that part of my past.
I’d falsely let Aiden believe that my heart was still mine to give, and for that, I would forever be sorry. When he’d left the next day, feeling destroyed and rejected, I’d told him he deserved better than a woman who wouldn’t be able to give him her whole heart.
He’d only given me a slight smile, shaking his head, as he’d said, Oh, Amelia, I didn’t deserve you.
I’d spent the next few days desperately trying to reach Garrett, but my calls and texts had gone unanswered.
I feared my decision to stay and finally tell Aiden the truth, rather than running off to explain things to Garrett, had cost me everything.
After sloshing around at work for several days, Leah had finally thrown down the gauntlet and demanded information. She’d pulled me into an empty birthing suite, and I had finally told her everything. I’d cried until my eyes were bloodshot, and I couldn’t make a single syllable without hiccupping. She’d been everything I expected Leah to be—compassionate, caring, and blunt.
“You’ve got to stop waiting for him to come to you and go get him, Mia,” Leah said.
I blew my nose for the tenth time. So attractive.
“I can’t. What if he throws me out?”
“That’s a risk you have to take, but you won’t know until you go over there and do it. Fight for him, Mia.”
She’d persuaded and convinced me that I needed to stop waiting around. The longer I did so, the more damage I could be doing. I’d agreed wholeheartedly and walked out of the hospital, ready to fight for the man I loved and the life I thought we deserved.