Tate put his hand up, confusion on his face. “What game, Fallon? There is no game. I questioned what was right for my future and my priorities once. I just did it in not the best way. I made a mistake in how I handled it. I promise you, I am not going to hurt her. Audrey believes me, why can’t you trust her? Audrey is a smart beautiful woman. You need to trust in her ability to make the right choice for her.”
Fallon let out an empty laugh as her gaze held his. “Really? You want me to believe her when I have watched her go from asshole to asshole?” She yelled as she stood up. “I believed her when she said Derek Rambles was the sure bet, the one she was gonna marry. Look what happened. He got her pregnant, left her to my father, and you know the rest.”
Tate looked away as she went on, counting on her fingers, “Then we have Ken, Jerrod, Mike, Leon, Jordan, and in between all those winners were more winners, but then we come to the biggest one of all, Levi Moss. She lied to me. Told me not to worry about it. She wouldn’t tell me who he was, but that he did horrible things to her. Did she tell you he used to hurt her? That he would call her a fat cow, when my baby sister is not fat! Did she? I detested that man, wanted to kill him for the things he did to my sister. I hated him so much that I knocked the fuck out of him when I found out that it was Levi doing all those things to her.” Tate shook his head, looking up as anger boiled inside him. He already hated Levi. But let him run into Levi again and his fist would be visiting Levi’s nose. Looking over at Fallon, he saw the tears pooling in her eyes as she held her ground. “No, she didn’t, so before you ask me to trust her judgment, look at her track record, Tate, and then maybe you’ll see that I have just cause for doubting you now.”
“No, you don’t,” Tate shot back. “I have never hurt her. I have done everything to make her happy. I am good to her. I care about her. I would bend over backward for her. I treat her the way Lucas treats you!”
Fallon paused, her lips quivering as she said, “Yes, now you do, and I have no doubt that you love her, but what’s going to happen when in ten years, Audrey can’t give you that baby you want. The one with the big blue eyes and brownish blond hair? Are you going to be honest then, and leave? Or will you cheat maybe?”
“I would never do that, and you know it! I love her, Fallon! I love all of her, the damaged part, the beautiful part, and everything in between. Yes, there is a chance she can’t give me a baby of my own, but what if one day she can?”
“And what if she can’t?”
“Then we’ll have a lot of dogs until we can adopt. I don’t care about anything but her and helping her live her dreams,” Tate said, pounding his chest, his own tears springing to his eyes. He didn’t know if it was his anger or if it was the fear of not connecting with Fallon. He loved her, he thought of her as the older sister he never had. But she was pissing him off, and he felt like he was failing. He thought she was going to be easier to convince, but man, was he wrong. “My heart is hers, Fallon, what else can I do to prove that to you?”
Fallon shook her head, looking away. “Tate, I want to believe you, I do, but I am just so scared for her. She loves you,” she said meeting his gaze again, “so much, more than any of those other guys, and it will crush her if you ever leave her.”
“I’m not going anywhere. She is everything I need, and I don’t need anything else, just her. She is enough.”