Page 91 of Rebellious Hearts

I nodded. “I was willing to give it all up for him, and I decided there and then I would never do it again. I would never choose to give up what I care about for someone who claims to love me.”

“Ben isn’t just pretending with you, Sofia,” Amy said gravely. “It might have started that way, but he’s head over heels in love with you. He’s not the kind of guy who will do that to you, trust me. And if he ever does hurt you, know that I’ll be the first one in line to hunt him down and make him pay. But I know he won’t do it, because Ben is the best kind of guy there is out there.”

I shook my head and tears rolled over my cheeks again. “I don’t know how this happened. We used protection every time, and everything was working out so well in my life. Then Ben and all these feelings… and now this.”

Amy frowned and leaned in a little closer, as if she could stare deeper into my soul if she did.

“What do you mean by ‘all these feelings’? Are you in love with him? Or is it one-sided?”

“How could it be?” I asked with a sigh. “Ben is the kind of guy that when you realize who he really is, you can fall madly, deeply, crazy in love with him. And I’m worried that that’s exactly what happened. But this…” I squeezed my eyes shut, not knowing how to say what I felt anymore.

It was just all too much.

“Why don’t you just talk to him? Get a test, be sure of what’s happening, and then you tell him about the baby. And tell him about the job, too. You’ll be surprised how sweet he can be if you’re just open with him. Ben is so sure that he’s not worth anything, that he’s living in the shadows and no one sees who he really is, that it doesn’t take much at all to just reach out and remind him that he’s everything. It will change the way he reacts to you, and when you talk it through, it might change the course of your future, and his.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, maybe you can have it all. Your career. Your family. Your man. You don’t have to sacrifice everything you are for the person you love. If it’s the right person, they willaddto your life, not take away from it.”

I studied her face, mulling over what she said. Could it really be that simple?

I couldn’t imagine talking to Ben about the baby, but so far, every time we’d talked about something—the deep, the dark, the ugly—we’d grown closer and things had changed.

Maybe it really would be that simple. Maybe talking to him was the answer, and if I could tell him what my dreams were, maybe instead of losing him, or my dreams, we could realize them together.

“I don’t know if it will work,” I admitted. “What if it doesn’t?”

Amy considered it. “Then, it doesn’t,” she said. “But if you don’t try, you’ll never know, and that’s a hell of a lot worse than the alternative.”

“What if,” I said dully, staring at my hands. “Always asking what if, right?”

“Right,” Amy said. “The most cliché conversation of all time, but the one thing I believe is that communication is the key to any good relationship, and it has to start somewhere. I know it’s scary as hell to actually do—if I was so good at it, I wouldn’t be in the pickle Luke and I are in with our parents. But still, communication is the one thing that can make this thing work.”

She was right. I knew that, of course. I was always serious about communicating. Hell, that was how I’d gotten where I had with my career. It was one of the big cornerstones of project management.

But a job was so much easier to do than my personal life. A project was so much easier to handle than matters of the heart.

Because if I lost a project, that sucked, but more would come along.

If I lost my heart…

“I’ll try,” I finally said. “I’ll talk to him later if we get a chance. We have to be here a while longer for the project, anyway.”

Amy nodded and leaned forward, hugging me.

“What did you come here to do? When you called me in the lobby.”

“Just to say we’re headed back to Newport. I wanted to invite you to a girls’ night once you’re back there, too.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s really nice of you. I… don’t know if I’ll be able to come.”

“Of course,” Amy said, squeezing my hand. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t see you again. We’ll keep in touch.”

I nodded. “That sounds good.”

Amy stood.

“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”