Walk of Shame
Page 53

It ran in the family.
Andrew rubbed his hands over his face. “Short version? Her mother hired my firm to handle her divorce.”
“Ouch. Well, she’s just pissed because you had to deliver the bad news. She’ll come down. Realize it’s not your fault.”
“Ah . . .”
Peter grunted. “She didn’t find out from you?”
Andrew shook his head.
“How much time between her mom contacting you and the girl finding out?”
“Couple weeks.”
Peter sighed and shook his head. “That’s forever in chick time.”
“Well, what would you have done?” Andrew asked, glaring at his brother, but also oddly desperate to hear what Peter had to say. “It wasn’t my news to tell.”
In looks, the two were nothing alike. Peter was taller, a veritable giant of a man. Soft where Andrew was toned. His hair was more red, and more often than not he forgot to shave. Or maybe that was intentional; Andrew didn’t really know.
But on the inside, despite their age difference, despite the fact that Andrew was an attorney and Peter was a car mechanic, he’d always felt that they got each other on some level. And Peter had always been the one he turned to when he needed advice on the personal front.
“Maybe not,” his brother granted. “But I’m guessing you handled it like an asshole.”
“She’s impossible to talk to,” Andrew muttered. “Not thinking straight.”
“Like I said,” Peter said, picking up a magazine. “Asshole.”
Andrew couldn’t even argue. He was sort of an asshole. He just . . . didn’t know how to be anything else. He didn’t know what Georgie wanted from him.
He leaned forward, tangling his hands in his hair.
His brother threw the magazine back on the table without opening it. “I always knew this would happen.”
“What? Me dating a girl whose mother hired me for her divorce?”
“No. Your too-high IQ biting you in the ass.”
Andrew looked up. “Really? You haven’t given me shit about that in years.”
“That’s because your big-ass brain quit causing problems for you once you got out of school. Till now.”
Andrew rolled his eyes, but his brother leaned forward, waiting until Andrew met his gaze. “You’re smarter than me on most things,” Peter said quietly. “But you’ve got to trust me when I say I know better than you on stuff like this.”
“Stuff like what?” Andrew grumbled.
His brother grinned. “Love.”
Andrew went still, eyes narrowing on his brother, his mind automatically rejecting the word. Love was a fantasy—a culmination of the brain’s chemistry making you act crazy.
“See?” Peter pointed at him. “That right there. That’s where you’re fucking it all up. You’re thinking about it instead of simply feeling it.”
Andrew opened his mouth to argue, but he remembered Georgiana’s parting shot—that she wanted a man who could use his heart as well as his head.
He cracked his knuckles—a nervous habit he thought he’d grown out of in college.
“Can’t I do both? Think and feel?”
“You tell me.” Peter gave an indifferent shrug as he said it.
Andrew glared. “Really, big brother? This is the extent of your advice?”
“No. But you’re not going to listen to what you really need to hear.”
“Try me.”
“Fine,” Peter said, picking up the magazine once more. “You’re not clinging to logic because it’s better, you’re clinging because it’s safer. The problem isn’t that your girl’s not thinking straight, it’s that you’re scared.”
“Bullshit. Of what?”
Peter flipped a page. “Losing her. Your big brain is worried that if you let yourself care too much, it’ll hurt more if it doesn’t work out.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve already lost her, haven’t I? With or without my big brain.”
“True. And how do you feel about that?”
Andrew opened his mouth to reply just as Pam came back into the waiting area.
Peter leapt out of his chair with surprising agility for a man of his size and went to his wife, his hands reaching for hers.
“Pam?”
Andrew stood, but averted his eyes from the intimate moment. He wanted to be here no matter which way the news went, but if it was bad news, he was prepared to give them their space.
“I’m not eligible for the treatment,” Pam said in a tiny voice.
Andrew felt his shoulders slump, saw his brother’s do the same.
Peter reached for his wife and drew her close. “Then we’ll find something else, sweetie. Another solution.”
Pam took half a step back and reached up to frame Peter’s face with her palms, her eyes bright. “I’m not eligible . . . because I’m already pregnant.”
“What? What?” Peter asked, his whisper turning into a shout.
Pam nodded happily. “They were doing the preliminary exam, then did a blood test, and . . . oh my God. We’re having a baby, Pete!”
Andrew swallowed a lump in his throat as two of the most important people in his life held each other and wept.
They were so damned happy. Of course they were.
And that’s when he realized.
The happy moment unfolding in front of him wasn’t the result of playing it safe, of sticking to facts and logic. If they’d done that, they’d have listened to the dozens of doctors who’d told them that they couldn’t conceive. Instead they were happy because they’d been willing to put everything on the line to fight for what they wanted. Each other. A baby. A family.
And that sort of pursuit of joy was what Georgiana Watkins did every day. He’d been wrong. She wasn’t blindly waiting for some fairy tale; she was just smart enough to believe that she deserved it.
And she did deserve it. She deserved a happily-ever-after more than anyone else he’d ever known. But fuck, so did he. More important, he wanted it. He wanted the happily-ever-after. He wanted it with her.
Andrew had been wrong to imply that Georgiana didn’t have a brain, but she’d been wrong too. He was no Tin Man—he had a heart.
And it belonged to Georgiana Watkins.