Chapter 219 Paid Actors

Chapter 219 Paid Actors
Chapter 219: Paid Actors 

Lizzie

I was still walking the argument in circles when the knock came. It was not Reese. Reese would not knock on his own door.

“Who is it?” My voice came out thin. The headache behind my eyes had turned the whole afternoon into a pulse.

“It’s me.” Roman.

I dragged the back of my hand across my face and sat up straighter, as if posture could hide the wreckage. “Come in.”

The door opened and he stepped through with Miles against his chest, the baby’s cheek squashed slightly into his shirt, headphones gone now, pacifier absent. 

Roman offered a half-smile that looked almost apologetic. “Hope you don’t mind. Just took him from Ramsey.”

“Of course not.” I shifted over. “Sit.”

He sat with a low groan and, before I could prepare myself, held his son out. “Take him for a second. My arms are done.” The child was in my lap before the protest or excuse could form.

For a full second neither of us moved. 

Miles looked at me. I looked at him. It was a ridiculous, serious little standoff, two strangers deciding whether the other was safe. Then he suddenly smiled, wide. 

My heart did something stupid and painful. “He's smiling at me.” 

“Kids like you,” Roman said. “Look at that.”

The boy was warm and heavier than he looked. I could feel the heat of him through my clothes, the small restless life of him, the way his body trusted whoever was holding it. He wriggled, wanting up. 

I helped him stand on my thighs and took both of his hands. “What’s he doing? What does he want?”

“Put him down. You’ll see.”

I lowered him to the floor and kept his fingers in mine until he found his balance. Then he took a step. Then another. A wobbling, determined little journey toward his father, hands out, feet slapping the rug. Only when he reached Roman’s legs did he stop, pounding the fabric of his pants with both fists.

“Dada.”

My eyes went hot.

Roman lifted him with ease, smirking. “He loves me too much. Drives Sav insane.” He glanced at me. “In a couple of years you’ll know that feeling.”

The tear landed on the back of my hand before I could stop it. “I don’t know how this happened.” I found myself saying. “I had the implant in. It was supposed to stop this from happening.” 

“It already has happened, Lizzie.” His voice was gentler than the driveway version of him. “You should be arguing about baby names now. Unless you want to use mine. I wouldn’t fight you.” 

A laugh slipped out of me. “That doesn’t sound terrible.” Then the thought caught. “Wait. How do you know it’s a boy?”

He smiled. “Who else would make you cry like this and cause this much trouble if not a boy?”

I found myself nodding, one hand settling on my stomach without permission. “I can’t keep it. I don’t think I want to.” The confession felt shameful. “I’m scared I won’t be any good at it. I’m not built for it. And I don’t want to share him. I don’t want to share Reese with anyone.”

“Lucky you. You get to share him with one.” Roman tipped his chin at Miles, who was watching me from the safety of his father’s chest. “I get to share Sav with two of these.”

I looked at him properly. “How do you stand it? It was the two of you for years. Then suddenly there were more. And you hated the thought of having kids before. What changed?”

He was quiet for a moment, one large hand spread over his son’s back.

“This is me,” he said, nodding at the baby. “This is also Sav. When she is busy with them, she is busy with the little parts of us that learned how to walk and how to talk. They are not replacements. They are not competition. The love I have for her is not the same currency as the love she has for them. It does not get spent. It does not run out because someone small needs her at three in the morning.”

I frowned, trying to make the math work.

“No matter how many we have, they do not get to stand between us,” he went on. “They only live around what we already built. They make it heavier. Stronger. Meaningful. When you hold your own, Lizzie, the rest of the noise drops. The love you will feel for that child will not be a thinner version of what you feel for Reese. It will be a different room in the same house. You do not have to burn one down to keep the other.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Then maybe it is true.” A hint of humor. “Or we are all paid actors. Your choice.”

“That is not what I meant.” I shook my head hard. “I just don’t want to look back in five years and realize I made the worst mistake of my life. That I was the problem. That I was exactly as bad as I think I will be. Roman, I don't think I can be responsible for someone else. A whole ass human being.”

Roman studied me. Then he nodded once, as if he had reached a decision he had already been carrying.

“All right. I have a deal for you.”

My head came up. “What deal?”

“You have the baby. If two years from now you still cannot live with it—if the fear does not ease, if you look at that child and still feel like you are drowning—Sav and I will take them. We will make room. We already know how. You would not be handing a child to strangers. You would be handing them to family who already love the people they came from.”

I stared at him.

The offer was insane. It was also the first thing all day that had not felt like a corner. It genuinely made me feel a little lighter.

“I don’t understand how you can say that like it is simple.”

He smiled. “Open the door a little, Lizzie. Trust the part of you that chose Reese. That part is not a fool. It is enough to start with. You do not need the whole speech today. You just need not to slam the door while you are still shaking. Face your fear.”

I looked down at my stomach again. The fear was still there, intact, breathing.

“What if I don’t make it?” The question came out raw. “What if something goes wrong? Sav said it hurts. She said it like a person who remembers.”

“I cannot lie to you about the pain.” He did not pretend otherwise. “I cannot imagine it from this side of the room. What I can tell you is that you are not going to walk into it alone. Reese will not allow it. I will not allow it. Sav will not allow it. This family is a nightmare, but it is a nightmare with too much money and doctors and people who have already survived worse than a delivery room. You are not going to die because you are scared you might. Trust me, Lizzie. You are not alone.”

“And if I hate it?” My voice cracked. “If it cries and I cannot stand the sound? If I look at it and feel nothing? If it won't let me sleep?” 

He laughed. “You will not hate it. Loving a child you made with the person you love is the least complicated thing you will ever do, once you stop standing in front of it like it is a cliff. Do not rob yourself of that before you have even met them.”

I swallowed. The headache had eased without my noticing, or maybe I had simply run out of room for it. “Okay.” The word surprised me. “I accept. But you do not get to take it back.”

He crossed his heart with a solemnity so fake it made me want to hit him and hug him at the same time. “I will not. I cross my heart and hope to die.”

I let my head drop against his arm and stayed there, Miles still watching me from his father’s chest like he had decided I was no longer a threat.

“Why are you like this?” I mumbled. “I am actually jealous of Andie. You are such a cool dad.”

Roman’s laugh rumbled under my temple. “There is always room for one more, Lizzie. No matter how big it is. We'll always make room.”

We sat like that until Miles reached out and caught a piece of my hair in his fist, delighted with himself. I did not pull away.

I still did not know how to want the baby. I still heard Reese’s voice earlier, drawing a line through the marriage. Threatening divorce. I'll never let him leave me. 

“Everything will be fine, Lizzie. I promise you.”