“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.”