Having Her: Lies We Tell, Book 2 (32 page)

Kara squared her shoulders. Lifted her chin. “If you think love isn’t about the baby, that it’s only about you and me, then I’m afraid we can’t be a family.”

His expression became fierce with denial. “No.”

“A family without love isn’t a family, Vincent. And I know, I’ve lived it. I don’t want that for my child and I don’t want that for me.”

He moved, coming toward her, six foot four of broad, angry male. But she didn’t back away or back down. Just continued to stare at him, challenging him.

And he stopped, eyes glittering. “You can’t take the child away from me. I won’t let you.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I wouldn’t, you know I wouldn’t.” She swallowed. “But I’m not marrying you, Vincent.”

“You have to fucking marry me!”

“No, I don’t. And I won’t. I’m not marrying someone who doesn’t love me, baby or not.”

He stared at her, anger burning in his eyes, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I thought this was what you wanted?”

“No, it’s not. It’s settling. It’s
good enough
. And I don’t want
good enough
ever again. I want more. Shit, I
demand
more.”

He took another step toward her. “And what about what I want? Doesn’t that matter?”

She looked at him. At his hard, beautiful face. “Of course it does. Which means this is the best solution. Because you don’t want this either. You’re only doing it because it’s right. Because taking responsibility is what you do.”

“We’re a family, Kara.”

“No, Vin. No, we’re not.”

“Why not?” he demanded. “What the fuck changed?”

“I did.” She felt calm. Sure of herself. More sure than she’d been of anything in her entire life. “I finally accepted who I am. This is me, Vin. Take it or leave it.”

For a long moment, he just stared at her. Then abruptly he pushed past her to the doorway, where he paused. “We’re getting married in three days. I’ll be there. And if you want a family for our child then you should be there too.”

Then he went out, the apartment door slamming behind him.

Kara finished the last of her packing then sat on the edge of her bed, looking at the ticket to Tokyo in her hands. Changing the dates had used up the last of her meager savings since the cost of a last-minute ticket change was horrendous.

Jesus, it really was an awful thing to jilt your groom. But there was no other choice. She wasn’t going to marry him and settle for whatever he felt like he wanted to give her. Loving him but getting nothing in return.

He’d taught her she should aim higher, figure out what she wanted and go after it. So she was. She was aiming for the fucking sky. And if he didn’t want to be a part of that then that was his loss.

It would hurt. It would hurt badly. But she was strong. She would manage.

Leaving without telling him where she was going, without even telling him she wouldn’t be turning up to the registry office, was pretty low. But Vin wasn’t a man who gave up easily once he’d decided on something. If she told him she wasn’t going to turn up, he’d probably come and find her. And they’d go through the whole thing again because for some reason he just wouldn’t let her go.

Oh, he couldn’t make her marry him if she didn’t want to but it was easier this way. Easier on them both. He wouldn’t know she’d gone until after she was safely on her way to Tokyo.

Outside in the street, she heard the horn from the taxi she’d ordered.

Kara slipped off the bed and picked up her bag. Bent and gripped the handle of her suitcase. She glanced once at the pillow on Vin’s side of the bed, where he usually slept but hadn’t for the past couple of nights, staying away from her. Her note still sat there. A paltry goodbye but she couldn’t leave him without some explanation at least.

The taxi horn sounded again.

Time to go.

Vin waited on the steps outside the registry office. It was in the middle of downtown Auckland, the streets full of people out on their lunch break. He kept peering into crowds, hoping to see Kara walking toward him. But he hadn’t managed to spot her yet.

He tried to ignore the ache of anxiety in his gut.

He’d left her to make her own decision about whether to turn up or not. Had given her a few days of total space to come round to the idea. But he had no doubt she would.

She didn’t mean those things she’d said that day in her apartment, of course she didn’t. Love. What the hell did she even mean by that? Christ, he was giving her a house, a father for her baby, all his support. A family. All the things she’d told him she wanted. Love didn’t give anything extra, didn’t add anything. Love just took from you and left you with nothing. Why the hell would she want that?

I love you, Vin Fox.

He pushed the words violently from his head. What she felt for him was irrelevant. Completely. It meant nothing to him.

He looked down at the bouquet of white orchids he held in his hand, checking to make sure they were all in order. They were. He’d bought them for her because every bride should have a bouquet and because they were rare and delicate and just a little bit weird. Like she was.

A flash of color in the crowds going by, a streak of purple hair, brought his attention from the flowers and he stared after the woman it belonged to, his heart beating fast. But it wasn’t Kara.

The ache inside him intensified. Shifted.

For the past three days he’d been crashing at the office because he’d needed the space. Because he didn’t know what to say to her. How to make things right between them again.

He didn’t love her. He didn’t want to. He was just so goddamn tired of love and its demands. Of how it made you give away bits of yourself until you didn’t have anything left.

You coward.

Yeah, well, coward or not, once you’d given those pieces of yourself away, you wouldn’t ever get them back. The person you gave them to would take those pieces with them when they left you and then you’d be broken. Never to be put back together again.

He’d already given so much of himself to people. To his father. To his mother. To Hunter. To Ellie. There was nothing left to give Kara.

Does our child not deserve a piece of you?

The pain inside became sharp, raw. Fuck, no. He couldn’t think about the baby yet. He couldn’t. What with all this stuff with Kara, it felt too much. Too big.

He forced the thought away as the clock on the university building up the hill near Albert Park began to chime, the sound blanketing the city.

Shit. She was now officially late.

Vin stalked into the building and asked the officials to wait another five minutes.

Then he went back outside again, the orchids still gripped in his fist. It would be okay. Brides were supposed to be late, weren’t they?

He walked up and down the stairs, unable to keep still.

Where the fuck was she?

Unease and anxiety began to morph into anger, which was so much easier to handle than the underlying bitter disappointment that began to creep through him. Disappointment laced with an anguish he didn’t want to acknowledge.

It shouldn’t hurt that she wasn’t here. He should be feeling relieved. Because she was right, he didn’t want to marry her anyway. No, he didn’t. She was too much drama, too much work.

It was just for the baby’s sake and if she didn’t want to then that was fine. Christ, it was better all round, right?

Someone came out of the building, asked him where Kara was. She was now ten minutes late. He wanted to tell them that she’d be here, of course she’d be here. But in his heart he knew she wouldn’t.

She’d aimed higher. She’d wanted more than what he could give her.

Vin cancelled the ceremony then stood outside on the stairs, still clutching the bouquet.

The jilted fucking groom. What a joke.

Furious, he stalked over to a nearby rubbish bin and chucked the flowers into it. So she didn’t want to get married, what did he care? At least he wouldn’t be tied to a woman he didn’t love. At least he wouldn’t have to deal with her shit from now on. And as for their kid, well, they’d organize custody. It wouldn’t be a big deal.

For a second he stood there on the sidewalk, not knowing what the hell to do with himself, the ache of anxiety mixing uncomfortably with the anger in his gut.

First, he was going to have to make sure she was okay.

Digging into his pocket, he hauled out his phone and sent off a terse
where the fuck are you?
text to her. There was no response.

The anxiety tightened. Jesus, where was she? Had something happened to her? He flicked off a text to Ellie in case she knew and was surprised when, a minute later, a text from her came back.
She’s on her way to Tokyo, asshole. She left this morning. Didn’t I warn you not to hurt her?

Tokyo. Kara had left him and gone to Tokyo instead.

The ache twisted into pain. A pain with no relief.

Vin gritted his teeth, put his phone away, then went to a bar and got pissed.

Much later that night, drunk and still unaccountably furious, he found himself outside Kara’s apartment building without any real idea of how he got there.

He really didn’t want to go inside but he found himself heading up the stairs and through the door anyway. And as soon as he got there he knew he’d made a mistake.

The whole place smelled of her and he couldn’t stop from checking all the rooms, his subconscious telling him she was there, that she was near.

But she wasn’t.

Standing blankly in the empty, dark bedroom, he felt her absence so acutely it was as if someone had cut a Kara shaped-hole in his chest.

His attention fell on a piece of paper on one of the pillows on the bed. The side he usually slept on. It had his name on it.

A fucking
Dear John
letter.

The fury, still simmering away inside him, flared bright and before he could even think straight, he’d bent, picked up the letter and ripped into a million white scraps of paper, scattering the bits all around the bloody bedroom. Just like she’d done with the letter her mother had sent her.

Which should have made him feel better. But it didn’t.

He turned around, wanting get the hell out of there but his phone buzzed so he pulled it out and there on the screen was a text.
I’m sorry it had to be this way, Vin. I told you I wouldn’t do it and I meant it. I changed my flight. I’m in Tokyo.

Yeah, and wasn’t that a goddamned relief? He’d escaped the whole marriage deal. And good job. Now he wouldn’t be tied down, weighed down by yet more responsibilities for yet another person.

It was a relief, that’s what it was.

Vin deleted the message. Then, because deleting wasn’t enough, he flung the phone at the wall where it made a satisfying crunching sound before landing on the floor.

But the violent movement didn’t help. He felt like a building with rotten foundations, slowly listing to one side, crumbling in on itself. And he had no clue as to why.

So Kara had gone. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had left him and it wouldn’t be the last. What was the big fucking deal? Why did he feel so…hollow?

It was the alcohol. The anger. That’s all it was. Tomorrow, he’d feel better. Of course he would.

Vin lay down on the bed on his back. Closed his eyes. Suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep. So he did.

When he next opened them, the room was bathed in sunlight and he didn’t feel better. He felt worse. His head ached and his mouth was dry, his stomach unsettled. The mother of all hangovers pounding behind his eyes.

But what was worse, infinitely worse, was being surrounded by a familiar scent. Of flowers and sex. Warm arms and gentle hands. Worse was forgetting what had happened and reaching blindly for the soft, female body he knew was right beside him. Only to find nothing.

And then remember.

She had gone. She had left him.

Loss filled him. He rolled over toward where she should be and wasn’t, his fingers brushing soft, silky fabric. A short nightgown she’d left behind. He closed his hand around it, bringing it close, turning his face into it like a child smelling his mother’s clothes for comfort.

He was pathetic. He was a mess.

You got shitfaced and pissed for a reason.

Just like he was holding her nightgown, inhaling her scent for a reason.

Hating himself, Vin flung the nightgown away and hauled himself out of the bed, feeling like shit. He went over to his phone where it lay on the floor and picked it up. Stupid bastard that he was, he’d now have to get it fixed.

He went back out into the lounge, intending to keep heading to the front door but at the sight of the dirty dishes that were scattered around, he stopped and surveyed the untidy room. Christ, she’d really left in a damn hurry.

Gathering the dishes up, he went into the kitchen to put them in the dishwasher.