Country Love (A Billionaire BWWM Romance) (17 page)

Chapter Thirty
Eight

Monique

The hollow thump
of my suitcases hitting the hallway floor reverberated through my empty
apartment.

I looked around,
trying and failing to find any relief at being back "home." The air
in here smelled strange. Stale and stagnant from being shut up for nearly a
month. This place had never really felt like home, and it felt even less so now
that I had returned.

I looked down and
saw that my hand was resting protectively over my still flat belly and yanked
it away. Only a few days had gone by, but it was already a habit I couldn't
seem to break.

Like I was going
to feel something in there,

So far, all I
felt was nausea.

And heartbreak.

Leo had driven me
silently to the airport after all of the guys had said their subdued goodbyes.
Jimmy looked like he might burst into tears. Blake refused to look me in the
eye.

Tanner hadn't
come. He had locked himself in the hotel room with a bottle of bourbon and
refused to answer my knocks when I tried to say goodbye. I had never felt lower
than I did at that moment, standing there on the other side of the door from
Tanner Brock, listening to him growl and slosh his bottle.

But now I was
here and I could put it behind me. Like I had put Holcum behind me the night my
daddy was arrested. The past is the past and you just shake it off and move on,
reinvent yourself however you see fit. Falling in love with Tanner Brock was
just one more strange, impermanent thing in my strange, impermanent life.

My hand flitted
to my belly again.
This
, on the other
hand, would be pretty permanent…

I closed my eyes
and counted to ten.
 

I can pretend like it never happened. It’ll just be
you and me. I’ll keep you safe.

Chapter Thirty
Nine

Tanner

"Brock,
where you at?"

Blake's voice cut
through my aching head like a knife. I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled over,
groaning.

"Found
you," he called from the doorway. Then he made a strangled gasping noise,
"Jesus, how much have you had? It smells like a fucking distillery in
here!"

He was too damn
loud and wearing too many damn colors. The bile rose in my stomach and I
clenched the sheet in my fist, forcing myself to swallow it back down.

"How long
are you going to be like this, man?" Blake didn't sound quite as disgusted
with me as I was with myself. "Yeah, we get it, it sucks Mo left, but
can't you try putting down the bottle for a second? You've got work to
do."

"Don't give
a fuck about the tour," I snarled. "Keith can go to hell."

Blake shifted and
sat down on the bed. The motion nearly made me vomit again. "I know that.
He's having ten heart attacks a day about it, but between you and me, I think
the guys are grateful for the time off. I know I am."

As if on cue, a
wail went up from downstairs. "Did you bring the baby?" I asked
incredulously.

"Shit, sorry
man, I had to. LeeAnne's at the dentist. She finally had time to go now that
I'm home." He disappeared from the room and returned with a car seat
dangling off of his arm. "Shush shush, baby girl. You're supposed to be
napping."

Maddie let out an
even stronger wail of protest and Blake swore softly. "I guess she's up. I
just wanted to check up on you, is all."
 
He set the car seat down and fiddled
with the straps. "Here little one, here, here, Daddy's got you."

I rubbed my head
and blearily sat up. Through the fog of bourbon and heartbreak, a faint picture
was emerging. I woozily stood up and wobbled over to Blake.

Maddie's little
face was the only clear thing I could see. But in my mind's eye, I could
perfectly picture Monique's face the last time I held this baby.

How she looked
like she desperately wanted to tell me something.

How she had been
dizzy and nauseous...sick all morning, in fact.

How she had
randomly thrown up that night.

And then how she
had left me by saying she "wasn't going to do this to me."

"Shit,"
I swore, leaning hard against the doorway.

"Hey, watch
your fucking mouth around my kid," Blake smiled. Then he paused, "you
okay man? You look a little green. Well, more green than you just did
anyway."

"I know why
she left, Blake." I shook my head slowly. "Holy shit, I know why she
left."

My friend looked
confused as I suddenly starting throwing clothes into a duffel bag. "What
are you doing?"

"I'm going
to get her back."

Chapter Forty

Monique

I sat down in the
middle of the open suitcases and took a deep breath. With all the experience I
had starting over, you'd think I'd know how to pack up my life efficiently by
now.

My text alert
buzzed furiously - again - but I ignored it. Gil had been calling and texting
all morning. He accepted my resignation with the grace I would have expected
from him. Which is to say, his voice skyrocketed into the heavens and I
literally had to cover my ears.

"I'm
sorry," I told him. "But it's time for me to move on."

I left the
offices of Auteur with my head held high, ignoring the stares of my co-workers.
I had never known them, any of them, and they certainly didn't know me. The
legend of angry Monique would probably live on though.

Let it. I was
done with pretending to be something I'm not.

I flicked the
lock screen off my phone and deleted Gil's angry texts. Then I dialed Chanel's
number. I swallowed hard, determined to keep my voice light.

"Hey
girl," she answered breezily.

"Hey babe,
you busy?"

"Not really,
what's up?"

I pressed my lips
together for a moment. "Well, I just wanted to let you know that I'm
moving."

"Yeah? Where
to?"

I let out a short
laugh. "Holcum, Texas."

She snorted.
"You're joking!"

"Not really,
no."

"Huh,"
Chanel paused. "Thought you said you took the country out of the
girl."

My fingers
fluttered over my belly and I grinned a private smile. "Seems like I've
got a little country in me after all."

There was a long,
drawn out silence. Then I heard her exhale. "Well Mo, I'm happy if you're
happy. But I'm kind of sad too. For me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."
I could hear her swallow and tears came to my eyes, though I wasn't quite sure
why. "Seems like we could have been really good friends. I wish we could
have gotten to know each other better."

The weird flutter
in my chest made my voice crack when I said, "Yeah, me too."

"Good luck.
Maybe I'll visit you?"

"I'll make
sure to get you some overalls," I smiled, and then sniffed. "It'll be
fun."

"I'll bring
the girls. We can bale hay together or whatever the fuck it is you'll be doing
out there."

I paused. That
was the part I wasn't entirely sure of. I was upending my life on a hunch, a
hope and a promise Tanner made that I was too stubborn to understand until now.
"Hay baling parties are a little hardcore," I joked. "We can
start you small, maybe shear a sheep or something."

"Looking
forward to it. Good luck, Mo."

"Thanks,
Chanel."

I set my phone
back down with a sense of accomplishment. Stalking around my apartment, I
started throwing things into boxes in earnest. Keep, Donate, Throw away. Most
everything was going into the "throw away" box.

When I heard my
door buzzer sound, I assumed it was a mistake and kept right on sorting.
"Keep, Donate, Throw away." I for sure wouldn't be wearing my Jimmy
Choo slingbacks again. Just for sentimental reasons, I stuck them in the Keep
box.

The buzzer sounded
again, this time accompanied by a pounding on the door.
 
"Monique!"

My heart leapt
before my ears could make sense of what I was hearing. "Tanner?"

When I opened the
door, he went right to one knee. "You say nothing lasts forever? Bullshit,
this does. The commercial says so."

"Oh my
god." I exhaled sharply as he opened the small black velvet box.
"Tanner, how did you...?"

"Find you?” He
peered up at me with those fathomless blue eyes. "I know why you
left," he choked, and pressed his hands to my tummy. "And I'm here to
say that you didn't do the right thing when you left. This?" He brushed
his fingers lightly along my skin. "
This
is what's best for me. It's what I've wanted, even though it wasn't clear until
I found you." He nodded towards the sparkling diamond in his hand.
"But, erm, I feel we're getting off topic here. Monique Williams...will
you marry me?"

"Yes, yes,
oh my god yes!" I shrieked, flinging myself into his arms.

 
He grunted as I slammed into him, and
then laughed a little.
 
"Wouldn't be right if you didn't hurt me a little," he smiled
as he slipped the perfectly sized ring onto my finger.

Then he looked up
into the apartment. His eyes widened as he took in all of the boxes and
suitcases strewn about. "Wait, were you going somewhere?"

I wiped a tear
away from my eye and looked at my left hand. The ring felt solid and heavy, a
good feeling. One that would keep me from floating away. "Yeah," I
choked. "Back to you."

He burst out in a
joyfully incredulous laugh. "Are you joking with me?"

I wiped the tear
away and laughed with him. "Nope. I was gonna move to Holcum. I was going
to camp out there until you got back from tour and try to convince you to take
me back. And if you didn't...well..." I ran my fingers down my belly and
he cupped it possessively, "then at least I'd have something to remind me
of you."

"Monique,"
he rasped. "I love you so goddamned much it hurts."

When his lips met
mine, I tried to pour every feeling I had into the full force of the kiss.
Every insecurity, every second guess, every hesitation burned away, and in its
place bloomed hope, excitement and a love so fierce it threatened to swallow me
whole.

His lips trailed
down, covering my neck in a fiery trail of kisses, each one branding me as his
forever. We fell to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs and needs, desperate
and hungry to never be separated again.

When he surged
inside of me, I felt the union of our bodies coming together. The missing piece
in my life was right here, filling me up so that I was so full of love that I
was afraid I might burst. When I screamed out his name, he cried out for me
too, and we fell together, clutching and gasping as we hurtled towards mindless
oblivion together.

Tanner looked up
at me, breathless, his perfect skin shimmering in a golden sheen so enticing
that I couldn't help myself. I pressed my lips to his chest, tasting the salt
on his skin and marveling that it would be mine forever.

"God damnit,
Monique," he growled. "We have
got
to stop fucking on the floor like this." He brushed his fingers up the
side of my face. "I can't wait to take you home and make love to you
properly. In my bed… In
our
bed."

"Tanner,"
I exhaled, winding my fingers into his. "Take me home."