Breakaway (25 page)

Apparently she was the only one who wanted to hold onto the
house.

Was she being overly emotional about it? Perhaps she was.

So she called a realtor and arranged for him to come over
and look at the house. She might as well do it all—sell the house, give up
their home, find some crappy apartment to live in by herself for the rest of
her life. She even got so agitated, she started packing things in boxes,
decorative things that served no purpose, clothes that were out of season,
anything left behind in Kyle and Jasmine’s bedrooms.

She might as well do it all. Nobody cared about her or what she
wanted, not Kyle, not Jasmine, and God, not Jason. Pain stabbed through her
like a knife as she threw stuff into boxes, blinded by stinging tears.

And wasn’t that just the way it always was. Her sacrificing
everything for everyone else. Fine. She’d do it. Just like she always had.

Oh for heaven’s sake. She paused over one of the boxes she
was filling. She sounded like the biggest martyr in the world, all sorry for
herself.
Get over it, Remi
. She rolled her eyes at herself and
straightened her shoulders, then went to find the newspaper. She had a life to
get on with.

She scanned the classifieds for apartment listings, looking
for something near the school. Two bedrooms would be good, in case Kyle or
Jasmine did in fact need a place to stay. But she bit her lip when she saw
prices in the neighborhoods she’d like to live in. Eep. She’d had it pretty
good, living rent-free in a house that was paid for. Maybe it was going to have
to be one bedroom. If Kyle or Jasmine needed a place to stay, they’d have to
figure things out.

The next day, the realtor was enthusiastic about the house.
Remi knew it would sell easily. Her parents had bought the house many years ago
and since then the neighborhood had become very desirable and house prices had
escalated to the moon. They’d get good money for it. So she signed the papers
and the For Sale sign went up in the front yard.

She cried when she looked at it, her emotions all ragged and
shaky. But she swiped the tears away and pressed her lips together and returned
to shoving stuff heedlessly into boxes. And while she did that she tried not to
think about Jason.

Then the doorbell rang.

She froze with her hands in a box of sweaters, tears
dripping down her cheeks.

It was Jason.

He eyed her face, which she knew only too well looked
atrocious, then her baggy yoga pants and faded T-shirt. “Hi.”

She stood aside and held the door open for him to come in.

“I have a game tonight,” he said.

Oh, yeah. Life did go on. And he had to go play a game while
their lives fell apart.

Then a hot wave of shame swept over her. That wasn’t fair. Jason’s
career may be a game, but he was talented and dedicated and serious about it.
So were a lot of other people, including a lot of fans who counted on him being
there and winning. It really was a big business, despite being just a game.

“Oh. Okay.”

They walked into the living room and stood there on the
carpet, facing each other. He actually didn’t look much better than she did.
His face too was tight, with lines grooved around his mouth and eyes. He still
had greenish and yellow bruises around one eye, still hadn’t shaved and now had
dark circles under both eyes.

“Can we talk about this now?” he asked in a scratchy voice.

She nodded and put her hand out for him to sit on the couch.

“I want to tell you what happened,” he said, sitting. She
sat at the far end from him and picked up a cushion to hug against her like a
shield.

“Okay.” She needed to hear it. Painful as it was, she needed
to hear it, needed the answers to her questions, like,
how could you be so fucking
stupid
? She bit her lip.

“Brianne came to see me a couple of weeks ago to tell me. I
didn’t believe her. She’s been phoning me ever since we broke up and I thought
she was making this up so we would get back together.”

Hope flared in her as she listened. Maybe that was true!

But he extinguished that hope with his next words. “She got
something from her doctor to prove how far along she is.” He bent his head. “The
timing worked out. It must have happened the last time we were together.”

Shit.

“I told you, Remi, I haven’t seen her since we broke up.
Other than that night at Rouge. We were done.”

“Birth control?” She managed to squeeze the words out
between tight lips.

“She was on the Pill.” He looked at her, anguish in his
eyes, and she believed him. “She doesn’t know what happened either. It
just…did. She’s not happy about this either, Remi. She’d just been offered a
job by Victoria’s Secret and now she won’t be able to do it.”

Oh, that was really too bad. But again, a hot wave of shame
washed over her. Modeling was also a perfectly legitimate career choice.

“So she’s going to have the baby.”

“Yes.” Jason nodded. “She wants to have the baby. I can’t…I…”

“What do you want?”

He lifted shiny eyes to hers. “I don’t know, Remi. This
messes up my life so bad, but…it’s a baby. I can’t tell her to have an
abortion.”

“It’s her right to choose,” she murmured. “Whatever her
choice is.”

“Yes.”

“But it affects you too,” she said. “You’ll be a father, Jase.”

“I know.” He groaned and tipped his head back. “God, I know.
I’ve been thinking about this so much.”

“So Saturday you found out, you…what? Went out and got
drunk?”

“Yeah.” He bowed his head, hands on his knees. “I did. Not
proud of that. Not proud of how I acted. All I can say is, I was hurting. Like
I’ve never hurt before.”

“It’s not that bad,” she snapped, surprising herself. “Most
people become a parent at some point, Jase. It’s not like you’re fifteen or
something.”

He frowned. “It’s not that. Well, it’s partly that. Being a
father scares the hell out of me. I don’t know if I can do it. But I was more
upset because…well, because of you.”

Her eyes went wide. Her insides knotted. She clutched her
pillow tighter. “Me.”

“Yes.” Again, agony filled his dark eyes as he stared at
her. His hand moved on his knees, like he wanted to reach for her, but held
back. “I just found you, Remi. I love you. After what we went through—I was so
happy. Yeah, I was afraid of commitment and marriage—until I met you. When you’re
with the right woman it’s not scary anymore. You’re the right one. I love you.
And I was fucking
dying
thinking about telling you about this, knowing
how hurt you were going to be. This is the worst thing in the world that could
have happened.”

Oh. She stared back at him, her stomach flipping around
inside.

He rubbed his eyes. “I should have just come and told you
right away. I acted like an idiot and I’m sorry. My coach is pissed off at me,
the team’s pissed off at me, my parents are pissed off at me, you’re pissed off
at me. Shit.”

She nodded, but was softening inside, her heart thawing just
a little.

But fear still held her in an icy grip.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him, voice shaky.

“I don’t know.” He swallowed. “I knew I had to tell you
about it. That’s why I came to see you the other day. But I still don’t know
what I’m going to do.”

“Do you still care about Brianne?”

“No. Well…” His hesitation was like a slap in the face and
she flinched. “I care about her as a friend. We were together a long time. But
I don’t love her, Remi. I love you. Please, please believe that.”

She drew in a long shaky breath, and nodded.

“But I do care about my child,” he continued, his voice so
low and deep she had to listen carefully. “I know I have to do the right thing
for my child. I just don’t know what that is. Is it being with Brianne?”

She jerked and blinked. He shrugged his big shoulders.

“I just don’t know.” His voice caught, and wonderingly, she
watched the big brute hockey player’s eyes grow glossy. “I want to be with you,
Remi, more than anything in the world, but I have an obligation now to someone
else that I have to live up to. I have to be a man. I have to be responsible.”

She understood that. She truly did, because she’d had to be
responsible her whole life and she knew what that felt like. She nodded as her
heart splintered and cracked inside her rib cage.

“I don’t want to keep you hanging while I figure it out,” he
continued. “That’s not fair to you.”

She would wait. She wanted to say it, but held the words in.
Tears blurred her vision yet again.

“I love you, Remi,” he said hoarsely. He shifted along the
couch cushions and she put out a hand to push him away because if he touched
her, she’d be done, but he just moved her hand aside and pulled her onto his
lap. She held onto him, wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his
neck and inhaled the warm, male scent of his skin. For the last time. She dug
her fingers into the softness of his hair. Tears wet her cheeks and his neck
and his arms wrapped around her too, squeezing her so tightly she almost couldn’t
breathe. She felt his big body shudder and knew…he was crying too. “I love you,
Remi. But I can’t be with you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to do this to you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut at the pain, like a knife dragged
from her sternum down through her intestines. She knew. She couldn’t speak to
say the words, but she knew.

Chapter Seventeen

He’d done it. He’d told Remi. He’d broken her heart and his
along with it. Now he had to go see Brianne.

He’d made a decision. Now he had to tell her.

His insides churned.

Last night’s game had been another disaster, but at least it
hadn’t been entirely his fault. Or maybe everyone just sensed that he was still
messed up and that’s why Arnette had let in three goals that should never have
happened, why Dom and Matthieu had taken stupid penalties. They’d been fighting
their way from behind the entire game and although Jason had played with
everything he had, it hadn’t been enough to pull out a win. They’d now lost
three in a row and were up against the wire again. Sunday’s game was either the
end of the road or bought them time. At least it was a home game.

Jason hadn’t been to Brianne’s apartment since that night he’d
broken up with her. She’d dropped off the few things he’d left at her place
shortly after that and he’d never been back. And his hands were sweaty now as
he waited for her to let him in.

“Hi.” She stood there, looking more like her usual self.
Since she earned her living with how she looked, it wasn’t surprising that she’d
managed to get herself back on track fairly quickly. She didn’t even look
pregnant, dressed in low-rise jeans and a snug T-shirt. “Come on in.”

He walked in, legs rubbery as if he’d just skated a few
hours of drills, and he rubbed his palms on his jeans.

“How are you feeling?” he asked politely.

“Tired.” She made a face.

“You haven’t been sick or anything?”

She shook her head. “No. Thank god. Just really, really
tired. All the time. And hungry. It’s hard to keep myself from eating.”

He frowned. “You have to eat, Brianne. For the baby.”

“I still have to watch what I eat. I can’t put on weight too
fast.”

“But…that’s what happens when you get pregnant. You put on
weight.”

“I know that.” She pressed her lips together. “I just don’t
want to use the pregnancy as an excuse to eat everything in sight. I can’t put
on weight right now, I have jobs— contracts I have to fulfill. Don’t worry, Jase,
I know I’m going to gain weight. I just want to make sure it’s not too much,
too fast.”

He knew nothing about pregnancy. “How much is too much? How
much are you supposed to put on? Like, the baby’s going to weigh seven or eight
pounds, right?”

She shrugged and motioned for him to have a seat. “They say
twenty to thirty pounds is healthy, but I would die if I put on thirty pounds.
If I can keep it under twenty pounds, I should be okay.”

His brows drew together. Twenty or thirty pounds? No wonder
she was freaked out. “But thirty pounds is healthy. What if you…” Jesus, he was
going to have to do some studying up on this. He needed to know these things. “What
if you starve the baby and he doesn’t grow properly?”

She just waved a hand. “I said, don’t worry, Jase.”

“Well, I am worried. It’s my baby too, remember?”

“I know, I know. That’s why you’re here. You wanted to talk.”

Brianne walked across her living room to a book shelf and
picked up something. When she turned to him, she was shaking a cigarette out of
a package.

Jason jolted to his feet. “What the hell are you doing!”

She blinked at him, then looked at the cigarette. “Uh…having
a cigarette.”

He strode across the room and yanked the slender cylinder
out of her fingers, then grabbed the entire package. He crushed the package in
one fist, the cigarette in the other. “You can’t smoke when you’re pregnant!”

She took a step back, her perfectly groomed brows rising. “When
did you become such an expert on pregnancy?”

“Jesus, Brianne! Everyone knows that!”

“I can’t quit, Jase. I’ve tried before.”

He rolled his eyes. He’d never liked her smoking. She’d
tried not to do it around him, so it bothered him less, but he knew she did. He
could smell it on her clothes and sometimes her breath. He knew how terrified
she was of putting on weight, and every time she’d tried to quit, a couple of
pounds on the scale had her breaking open the tobacco again. He’d put up with
it, didn’t bug her about it, because—it was her life

But now it wasn’t just her life. It was their baby’s life.

“Yes you can. We’ll talk to your doctor. Maybe there’s
something they can do to help you.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you
aren’t putting the baby first.”