If It's Only Love (Lexi Ryan) novel Chapter 31

Scarlett Lashenta is sitting on my front porch.

No. Pretty sure that can’t be right.

I drag my hand over my eyes, trying to rub the sleep out of them. But when I open them, she’s still there—sitting on the front porch of the off-campus two-bedroom I’m renting with friends for the summer. “Can I help you?”

Scarlett tucks a lock of silky red hair behind her ear and gives me a weak smile. “You’re Shayleigh Jackson?”

“I am.”

“I’ve seen Easton’s pictures of you two in Paris together. You’re even prettier in person, though.” She bites her bottom lip. Her perfect bottom lip. If I tried to wear red lipstick like that, I’d look like a clown. This woman looks Photoshop-perfect in real life. “I was hoping we could talk? About Easton.”

My stomach cramps. I haven’t seen him since he left Mom’s house the night of Dad’s funeral. He’s texted, saying he wants to talk. I’ve ignored him. “Is he okay?”

“Oh, yes. He’s fine. Well, as fine as he gets. You know Easton. Every time there’s a major change in his life, he struggles a bit, so the new QB coach is getting to him.”

I didn’t know he had a new coach. I guess we didn’t talk that much about his life, now that I think about it.

“You seem like a really nice girl, Shayleigh. At least, that’s what I’ve come to believe from Easton’s stories.”

“Thanks.” This is so surreal. Scarlett Lashenta is sitting on my front porch telling me I’m a nice girl. Two nights ago, I was climbing onto her husband’s lap and trying to seduce him.

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who’d set out to tear apart a family.” Her blue eyes fill with tears. “I don’t believe you’d want a little girl to be without her daddy. That’s why I’m here.”

Maybe this is a dream. Or a nightmare. It was bad enough to have Easton push me away. I don’t need to hear it from Scarlett too. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I know what happened between you and Easton in Chicago.” She waves her phone as if this explains everything. “But when he slept with you, he didn’t know what he knows now.”

“Okay?” Why is she here? Easton made his plans clear. He wants to stay with Scarlett because he seems to think I’m just like whatever woman he claims my dad fell in love with. He was drunk and talking crazy. Dad never loved anyone else.

With a sigh, she cocks her head to the side. “He hasn’t told you, has he?”

“My father just died.”

“About Abigail.” She toys with her pearl necklace. “She has leukemia.”

My stomach drops to my feet. “What?”

She turns away, staring into the overgrown rosebushes lining the front of the porch. The blooms are brown and dried, and the whole flowerbed looks atrocious. When she turns back to me, tears glisten in her eyes. “She needs us to be a family right now, and I’m here to ask you to stay out of his life.”

The words are a knife to the gut. “That won’t be a problem.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Why are you here? Easton already told me he’s not going through with the divorce.”

She wipes away a stream of fat tears. “Between you and me, I don’t think our marriage stands a chance if you’re in the picture, and I need it to work. Abi needs it to work.” She drops her gaze to her shoes and shakes her head. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m hoping for your mercy. I’m hoping you’ll understand why I’m asking you not to make it harder than it is for him, why I’m asking you to let him focus on his child.”

Shay

The first person a woman should want to see after she finds out she’s pregnant is the father of her baby. And yet I find myself on the steps of Easton’s beautiful home, the lulling sounds of the lake behind me.

When I ring the doorbell, I’m not sure what I plan to say, but my body is locked up with worry. Whenever I get him, something pulls him away from me again, and it looks like this time isn’t going to be any different.

The second Easton opens the door and he smiles, though? A strange sense of calm washes over me. He drags his eyes down my body and slowly back up before taking my hand and pulling me into the house.

“Abi and Tori are spending the afternoon at the library,” he says with a grin. And just like that, his mouth is on mine. His hands are sliding up my shirt and mine up his. We don’t even make it past the foyer before we’re naked and on the floor—greedy hands and mouths and desperation the backdrop to the breathy sounds that fill the air.

I’m not sure I could ever get used to the fact that Easton wants me like this—that I can have him anytime I want him. Or I could, before.

I push the thought away and focus on the rough grip of his hands on my hips and the wet sweep of his tongue across my nipples.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he murmurs as he kisses his way down my stomach. “I don’t know if I actually slept last night. I wanted you in my bed.”

I slide my fingers into his hair and tug him up. “Easton.”

He lowers his smile to my mouth and kisses me until everything else falls away. He only stops his touching and kissing—his worshipping—long enough to put on a condom and position himself between my legs. He pauses there, so close to where I need him, and frames my face with his hands. “We’re really doing this,” he says softly, reverently.

I lift my hips, seeking him, needing him. One last time.

He slides into me and moves so tenderly that tears sting the backs of my eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you.” All I can do is bury my face in his neck and hold on, because it’s only love, and that’s never been enough.

And when we’re spent and breathless, once my tailbone feels tender from the hardwood floor, he rolls us over so I’m on top of him and wraps his arms around me.

“Sorry about that,” he says.

I close my eyes and focus on the rise and fall of his chest with his heavy breaths. “Why sorry?”

“I was thinking about you, and then there you were.” He chuckles. “I don’t know, Shay. After years of thinking about you, of missing you and wanting you, it’s going to be hard to pace myself now that you’re mine.”

Emotion clogs my throat at that, and I can’t reply. I can hardly even breathe. Now that you’re mine. But for how much longer?

He rolls us to our sides before standing and helping me up. He scoops our clothes into a big pile in his arms. “Coffee?” he asks with an arched brow.

I bite my lip and shake my head. “I’m good.”

He smacks my bare ass. “Then go get in bed. We have three hours until Abi gets home, and I want to spend it all naked with you between my sheets.”

I try to smile, but this morning’s news weighs heavily on me and I can’t quite make my lips obey. This is all a preview of what could have been, and I’m being sliced apart from the inside.

“Hey.” He cups my jaw. “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

“You didn’t hurt me.” But I’m not okay. “Come on.” I don’t want to share my news while we’re standing naked by the front door. “I’m going to go upstairs and clean up. I’ll meet you in bed.”

Easton

“I grieved a little, I guess. Now it truly doesn’t matter to me. She’s my daughter, but when I first discovered she wasn’t biologically mine, I had to rearrange my perception of everything. Including my marriage and how hard I was willing to bend to make it work and how long I was willing to continue what felt like a ruse at that point. Scarlett and I were married in name only. When she moved back in after Abi’s diagnosis, I insisted she sleep in a different room until we figured out what we really wanted. The day of her confession, I went from wanting to stay married for my three-year-old daughter’s sake to wanting to stay married because I was afraid she’d take Abi away from me if we divorced. What claim did I have if she wasn’t even my blood?”