Uncensored Passion (Men of Passion) (29 page)

“So you’re saying that you wanted to be the only one in her life?”

“Yes. Guess you think that makes me old-fashioned, but the polyandry lifestyle is something I cannot accept. And frankly, I couldn’t understand how any of you, if you loved her even half as much as I did, could share her, either. However you did it, alternate nights or whatever,” he said bitterly, the memory threatening to cover him with that old smothering, helpless rage.

Harm nodded. “The fact is we all loved her enough to want to be with her regardless of the circumstances. That’s where you and I differ because to me, that’s the epitome of love. You know Kayla wouldn’t talk about you then and still won’t, but God, she was broken up about it. I wanted to kill you, man, for hurting her that bad. Matter of fact, I still do, because she didn’t deserve it.”

Their eyes clashed in flashes of mutual anger, but Trey let it slide, knowing Harm was venting, knowing he needed to. And the truth was, he couldn’t fault him for feeling that way.

“I’ve called her several times and she didn’t seem too broken up to me.”

“Hell, are you surprised? Kayla has too much pride to let you know how she really feels or how bad you’ve hurt her. But every time you called, she lapsed into a black mood. Why the hell didn’t you just leave her alone?”

“I tried. I should have. I will now.”

“No, you won’t!”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean you won’t hurt her worse. Damn you, Trey, I’ve watched the bravest, most savvy woman I’ve ever known go downhill ever since you left, yearning for you, always thinking of you. Even though she denies it, I can tell. Nothing I’ve tried to do to lift her spirits has worked. It was bad when there were all of us there to comfort her, Lee with his gentle cajoling and Luke in his shy but straightforward way.”

Harm stopped for a minute and Trey saw that he was fighting back a wave of remembered pain. He remained silent, waiting for Harm to regain his composure.

“But after J.J.’s attempted suicide and the plane crash that changed Lee and Luke, taking them away, too, Kayla withdrew completely. She’s turned her practice over to another psychiatrist. She’s done a 180-degree turn from the Kayla I used to know. I kept hoping she’d snap out of it, but she hasn’t. And now, well—now she’s…”

Trey felt like he’d been punched in the gut, thinking of her suffering, knowing he had caused it. “She’s what?” He prompted.

“You say you still love her. Do you mean that?”

“Yes, dammit, I do.”

“So if there was just you in the picture, would that make a difference, or is it too late? Have you found someone else? In a relationship maybe?”

“No. There’s no one else.”

The two men stared at each other, both thinking practically the same thing, that Kayla was one of a kind and once you’d known her—been with her—no other woman would come close to satisfying you.

“If I stepped out of the way, so there would be just the two of you, would you go back to her?”

“If you love her as much as you say you do, why would you do that?”

“Because I
do
love her. Enough to want her to be happy, and she hasn’t been since you left. I know she loved us all—loves me still—but, dammit, not in the way she loves you, Cameron. I don’t know how the fuck you did it, but somehow you crawled inside her heart and stayed there. I argued with myself about coming here. But I had to face you, find out where you stand, and tell you that Kayla needs you and only you. Now more than ever. God, I’ve tried to be enough for her, but I’m not and never will be, and I’ve finally accepted that.”

Trey ran a shaking hand through his hair. Pushing up nervously from the chair, he walked to the bank of windows, turning his back on the man and wishing he could turn his back on the past, but knowing he couldn’t.

“Why now? What’s brought you here now?”

There was a strained silence that Trey was beginning to think Harm wasn’t going to fill when he said brokenly, “Because she—ah—she’s about to have your baby, and she needs you. It’s been a high-risk pregnancy, and her health has been declining. I know she’s hanging by a thread mentally, grieving over her losses. And you’re the main one, damn you!”

It took a second for the words to sink in.

“
What
? What did you say?” Trey asked, shocked to the core as he swung around and met Harm’s accusatory glare.

“Yeah, you heard me, you judgmental prick! She’s pregnant with your babies.”

Stunned, Trey said, “But I thought she couldn’t have kids. I mean, she was with all of you, and she never got pregnant. Hey, wait a minute!
Babies
? More than one?”

Harm nodded. “Twins. She was on birth control pills, but she confessed to me that she had forgotten to take them the day before she met up with you, and that was all it took. She didn’t think that was possible, but as it turned out, it was. It took that one interlude.

“The more I’ve thought about it, the more I wonder if the two of you aren’t meant to be together, or it wouldn’t have happened. It was a colossal fluke. Something Kayla still has trouble believing happened, but she wants these babies, and she’s fighting to have them because they’re part of you. And she’ll bring them into the world, even if it kills her.”

“Kills her? My God, could that happen?” Trey ran his hand through his hair.

“Yes, it could.”

Kayla dying
?
No. No.
No
!

For a moment the room receded and a dark curtain seemed to waver in front of his eyes.

“Did you hear what I said?” Harm’s voice was like gravel grinding broken glass.

Still reeling from the news, Trey sank into his chair. “Tell me everything,” he choked out.

“Like I said, she wouldn’t want me to be here, telling you all this, but I couldn’t keep watching her slowly kill herself,” Harm said bitterly. “I can’t snap her out of the depression she’s been in since you left, and neither can the doctors she’s seen. That’s added to the physical problems, and she won’t take any medication for it because it might harm the babies. So she suffers. She bursts into tears; she walks the floor at night, or she did until the doctor put her on bed rest.”

The intercom buzzed. Trey quickly told Delia he wasn’t to be disturbed and returned his undivided attention to Harm.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“You’d made it clear how you felt—that you could never be a part of her life.”

“If she had told me, I—”

“You what? Would have come back? Joined us? Been a part of our life?”

The stricken look on Trey’s face was his answer.

“No, I didn’t think so. Well, J.J., Lee, and Luke are out of the picture now, so that leaves just me. And I will walk away if that’s what it takes to make you go to her.”

“She’d probably hate me for that, if you left.”

Harm snorted in disgust. Shaking his head, he gritted, “She could never hate you. You don’t get it, do you? I’ve never seen a woman so in love in my life as Kayla is with you. I wish to God I could make her feel that way about me, but I know I can’t and never will. If I could, I would stay and raise those babies like they were my own flesh and blood.

“Maybe some people are bound together by that soul mate thing that I never really believed in before. But I do now. When you walked away, you ripped a part of her off and took it with you. She’ll never be the same until you’re back with her.”

“She won’t want you to go, Harm.”

“No. I know. But I’ll tell her that I’ve decided to make a change, that I want to go back to Los Angeles and get more involved with my tattoo salons, maybe even start up a new business with my old partner.”

“Will she believe that?”

“Probably not. But she’ll let me go because she doesn’t believe in holding anybody back from what will make them happy. And if you’re back in her life, she’ll grab onto that explanation like a lifeline. Your twins are due in about four weeks, by the way, or maybe sooner the way things look. The doctor might induce labor and take them earlier, if she doesn’t rally some. Anyway, four weeks, give or take, and you’ll be a father, if you’re interested.”

“Dammit, of course I’m interested!”

“I’m worried she might not make it through the birth. She’s thinking that, too. She made me promise if something happens to her, that I’ll contact you and let you know you’re a father. She said you’re an honorable man and would take care of your sons.”

“Sons?” Trey asked incredulously.

“Yeah.”

Trey swallowed hard, fighting back a flood of emotion.

“So, are you going to go to her? I’m returning this afternoon. I’ve already laid the groundwork for my departure, hinting that my old partner in business has been in touch a lot lately, asking me to return to L.A. If you come back, I will say that frees me up to follow my dream. And leaves you there with her.”

Still reeling from the revelation that he was soon to be the father of twins, Trey said, “Of course I’m going to her. But I have a business here and obligations.”

“You have two kids in
Nashville
, or soon will have, and I can’t think of a bigger obligation than that!” Harm spat out.

“You said Kayla’s given up her practice. Do you think she’d move here?”

“I think she’d relocate to the moon if you asked her,” Harm said ruefully.

Trey met and held Harm’s bloodshot eyes as Harm ran a shaking hand through his hair, admitting, “I’m not going to lie to you. This is tearing my guts out, asking you to go to her, and knowing that I will be leaving her. But I know if you don’t go to her now, she’s going to die. And if she dies, I promise you, Cameron, I will kill you. If it’s the last thing I ever do, believe me, I
will kill you
.”

Trey nodded as their eyes met and held.

“I believe you. I can tell you love her that much. I can appreciate what it means because Kayla is the kind of rare woman who gets under a man’s skin and can’t be gotten out. I wish I felt differently; I wish I could say stay and let’s share her, but I can’t. I just can’t live that way.”

“I know. Just promise me you’ll take care of her.”

“I will.”

“When are you going back?”

“I’ll make arrangements right away. Probably leave tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll get back tonight and start laying the groundwork for leaving. You can use Lee’s apartment at the house.”

“Where does she think you are now? You say she’s on bed rest so someone has to be with her, right?”

“I’ve got a home care staff, including a registered nurse, with her. Told her I had some business I needed to tend to and might be gone the better part of the day. As soon as I know things are all right between you two, when I’m certain Kayla has accepted you back in her life, I’ll check out.”

“So you’re really going back to L.A.?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’ve still got a lot of friends there, and the main office of our business is there. But hell, maybe not. I don’t know. What I
do
know is if you hurt her again, or leave her and those babies, I’ll be back. And when we meet the next time, one of us won’t walk away,” he warned.

Trey rounded the desk and held out his hand.

“Fair enough. Thanks for coming here. Again, I know how hard this must be for you, Harm.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

Trey shrugged. “Maybe not, but I can guess. If she’ll have me, I won’t ever let Kayla go again. You have my word on that.”

Harm hesitated, obviously reluctant to take the offered hand, but shrugging, he did, and with a curt nod, turned and walked out.

Trey sat with closed yes, thinking,
Kayla is going to have my child. No, not child but children! Two boys!

He buzzed Sarah.

“Sarah, have Delia book a reservation for me on an early flight to Nashville for tomorrow. And be sure that all my personal appointments for today and for the rest of this month are cancelled. You handle that interview with the applicant yourself and either hire him or not, depending on your instincts about him. I trust your judgment. Hell, cancel everything I’m supposed to be personally involved in until further notice. Redirect everyone who asks for me to Jerry to assign the cases if any more come in. Where is Jerry right now?”

“He’s following up on a case. He’s out of town but should be back tomorrow.”

“Good. Call him. Tell him that something urgent came up, personal business, and I don’t know when I’ll be back but I’ll be in touch. In the meantime both of you are to hold down the fort.”

“Is something wrong, Trey?”

“No, Sarah, something is finally right. Or God willing, it soon will be.”

CHAPTER 28

The right words

Trey pulled his rental car onto the winding driveway. The indecisive thoughts tumbling through his mind seemed in rhythm with the rolling crunch of the tires on the paver bricks. Those tumbled thoughts had been going full tilt all the way from San Antonio.

As he braked in front of Kayla’s house, his heart was beating erratically, his mouth felt powder dry, his palms were sweaty, and his stomach was tied in knots. Having been a man of action and always in control—at least mentally—of any situation, Trey was angry with himself.

Why can’t I get a grip on my emotions now?

He had never been more nervous or unsure of himself in his life. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff and the rocks were crumbling beneath his feet; that if he so much as wavered, he would fall and never stop.

He sat thinking about Kayla having two babies—
his
babies. That revelation vibrated to his core. He had argued with himself during the sleepless night prior to boarding the plane that he wasn’t ready for two babies, but yet he was because he had to be. Surrounded now by silence except for his badgering thoughts, Trey tried to sort out his feelings. They were a tangle of dread, excitement, and wonder.

Dear God, I am going to be a father of twins.

It was hard to comprehend.

For the umpteenth time, he mentally rehearsed what he wanted to say—not only the words, but all possible scenarios of Kayla resisting and sending him on his way. He would begin with his plea for forgiveness, followed by his apology for being an ass, followed by his desire to be with her, regardless of how that would be accomplished.