Her Bundles Of Joy

Chapter 10

“What are you doing here?” Nicole asked as she saw Evan sitting by the bed. She untangled her hand from his, ignoring how her palm tingled after feeling his touch.

“Nicole, I’m so glad you’re okay.” He sighed. “I’d never forgive myself if something had happened to you.”

“Oh, really?” Nicole rolled her eyes. “Why do you suddenly care about me? What happened to me being a sl*t?”

“I never said I didn’t care!” Evan exclaimed. “I care about you a lot, Nicole. You have to believe me when I say that I regret every single word I said that night, and I’m so, so, so ashamed of the way I acted. I’m really sorry for being such a horrible person.”

“How can I believe you’re sorry if you didn’t even try to contact me in months? As far as I remember, you didn’t believe that I was pregnant with your child. Children, actually. I’m expecting twins, just thought you’d like to know. What made you change your mind?”

“Look, I need to tell you something I never told you before.” Evan inhaled deeply as he gathered the courage to tell Nicole the truth. “I fell in love with this woman once, back when I first moved to New York. She was the prettiest woman I ever laid my eyes on, at first I couldn’t even believe she was real. We met through a mutual friend, my cousin Isaac. He introduced us after she’d been hired as the new manager of his nightclub. I couldn’t stop thinking about her even if I tried. I genuinely believe it was love at first sight. She didn’t seem to know who I was, nor did she seem to care about the fact that I was apparently rich.”

Nicole couldn’t believe Evan right now. Was he really telling her the story of how he met the love of his life? She closed her eyes and mentally counted to ten. There’s probably a point in this whole story. He wouldn’t be that mean. Would he? Nicole honestly didn’t know the answer to that. She had learned to always expect the worst when it came to dealing with Evan.

“When I was younger, I used to spend a lot of money on the most trivial things. I loved showing off that I was a billionaire in my 20s. Lucy, that was her name, she didn’t seem to give a damn about that. She refused to accept my gifts, she refused to let me pay the bill when we went out together…it seemed that, to her, it didn’t matter that I was rich, she was the first woman that treated me like a regular human being. I realize now that I was too naive back then, I moved too fast with her. We’d barely been together for six months and I asked her to move in with me. I was crazy about her. I bought an apartment just for us to live together. I was so in love with her that I genuinely believed she was the love of my life. Back then I couldn’t even imagine being with someone else ever again. She was perfect in my eyes—”

“Evan, is there a point to this story? Or are you just trying to tell me you called me a sl*t because you love someone else?”

“No!” Evan stood up. “Please, let me finish. I beg you.”

Nicole sighed. “All right, go ahead.”

“As I said, I couldn’t imagine life without her. I didn’t think I’d ever meet another woman who’d make me feel what I felt for her. With that in mind, I proposed to Lucy on our one year anniversary. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and I wanted to build a family with her. She said yes, and, God, life was nothing short of perfect then. I was so happy, in a way I hadn’t been since my parents’ death. We were halfway through planning the wedding when she told me she was pregnant. I was beyond happy. To know that I’d have a kid with the love of my life? I cried like a baby…”

“Oh, that makes me feel so good about myself.” Nicole rolled her eyes.

“Nicole, please…”

“Just get on with it, please.”

“One day I came home earlier and I thought she was working. It was too early for her to be home already. I walked into our bedroom and caught her in bed with someone else. I felt like my whole world died that day. She had a lover, no, scratch that. Lucy was already dating that person before she got together with me so, technically, I was the lover. I found out her pregnancy was fake, she wasn’t expecting anyone’s child. It was just a ploy to rush our wedding and then have complete access to my money and properties. She was a scammer, Nicole. The first woman I fell in love with, the only woman I had loved in my entire life was a liar. Do you see why I didn’t believe you when you told me you were pregnant?”

“Evan…I honestly don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything, really,” Evan smiled tenderly. “I didn’t think I’d be able to love again. Until I met you, that is. Everything between us happened differently than how things happened with her. I fell for you gradually with each smile you gave me, each touch of our hands, each conversation we had. I reached a point of no return, and then New Year’s happened…You looked so beautiful, Nicole. You are always beautiful, but that night…I don’t know. Something triggered inside me and I just had to be with you. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t.”

Evan shook his head. “I’m sort of rambling, so let me just go straight to the point. I love you, Nicole. I love you in a way I’ve never loved anyone else, not even Lucy. What I feel for you is infinitely stronger than what I felt for her, so please, believe me when I say that you are the biggest love of my life.”

“You have a peculiar way of showing that.” Nicole scoffed. She was trying really hard to believe Evan, but it was proving to be a very difficult task, considering the way he’d treated her.

“I was scared, Nicole!” he exclaimed. “This love makes me feel like the luckiest man in the whole planet, it makes me feel alive like never before. But at the same time, it can also be my Achilles heel, because it makes me completely vulnerable. I had to protect my heart, protect my feelings. If you did the same thing Lucy did to me, I honestly don’t know how I’d recover from that. That’s why I reacted the way I did. I was a jerk and I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven, but I just wanted you to know the truth.”

Nicole sighed and turned her head away from Evan. She stared at the night sky through the hospital room’s window. The city lights were indeed a heartwarming sight, even if she wasn’t feeling warm at all. Nicole had been honest when she told the blond man she didn’t know what to say. If Evan had said those things to her a few months prior, she would’ve jumped into his arms without a second thought. It was everything she wanted to hear from him. The idea of Evan loving her the same way she loved him felt too surreal. But he’d broken her trust, broken her heart, broken their friendship. He said he didn’t deserve to be forgiven, then why would he come all the way to the hospital to make sure she was okay and to confess his feelings? It didn’t make sense to her.