Lost to You by - (book club books .TXT) 📕

real estate attorney so I could one day partner in my father’s law firm, Elizabeth would be going into family law, focusing on children’s rights.

She wasn’t in it for the money.

She thought it was the best way for her to become an advocate for those who could not protect themselves.

She still left me in awe every day.

“Are you sure you have to go?”

She grinned over at me. “Aren’t you the one who’s always saying we have to stay focused on our studies?”

I smirked at her. “I changed my mind.”

Light laughter filtered from her mouth. “I don’t think so, Christian. Not today. Besides, I have work first thing in the morning. Matthew will kill me if I end up crawling in that bed with you and don’t show up for my shift tomorrow.”

“Forget Matthew,” I teased.

Maybe I should have been jealous of Matthew. He’d become one of Elizabeth’s best friends, and they studied together often after getting to know each other at work when Elizabeth had started at a small restaurant a couple of years ago.

But I wasn’t.

With the way she looked at me, there was no questioning her devotion to me.

She was good.

True.

I guessed I’d known it that first day all those years ago when I’d listened to the passion that had come from Elizabeth’s mouth.

Honestly, it’d made me question myself—what I believed in and what I lived for.

Over time, that answer had become clear.

Elizabeth.

She made me a better person.

The best part was our goals perfectly aligned.

Our lives planned out.

She was serious about school and committed to her future, but she still took time to enjoy every day of her life, something I’d had a hard time balancing at first.

My father had always pushed me to do the best, to be the best.

Before I’d met her, I’d become arrogant.

Conceited.

Completely wrapped up in myself.

Elizabeth had challenged my self-serving attitude from the very start.

Elizabeth

I laughed at the boy who grinned at me from his bed.

I’d never been one for frivolous things—a fling with a beautiful, black-haired, blue-eyed boy included. I’d thought that was the only thing he’d be.

A fling.

That he’d break my heart.

Now I just shook my head at what he’d suggested, no longer surprised by his demand.

By the fact that he always wanted me to stay.

Still, I fought the well of unease that built up inside of me. Nerves rattling through, wondering how in the world I was going to tell him.

Terrified of the way he might react and excited at the same time.

“I’m not forgetting Matthew. That would be rude. Besides, I need the money, and if I stay here with you, you know what’s going to happen.”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

Another one of those grins.

If I stayed any longer, he would definitely have his way.

I shoved my feet into my shoes. “I need to go home.”

“Then move in with me.”

Another shot of laughter rippled out, but this one with pure disbelief.

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

“I want a different one.”

Christian had asked me so many times to move in with him.

I couldn’t help but find the idea of waking up next to him each morning incredibly inviting.

But that didn’t matter.

I’d always quietly refused, committed to the picture I had painted in my mind from childhood.

It was one of a new house with a new husband, a place where I would become mother and he would become father, though now I found that picture skewed.

Again, I glanced over my shoulder at Christian as I prepared to leave.

A wave of guilt washed over me for keeping it from him for so long.

I’d known for a week.

Every day, I intended to tell him, but each time I opened my mouth, the words just wouldn’t come.

Even with the progress I’d seen him make, growing from the self-centered teenager I’d met our first year here at Columbia to the kind-hearted man I knew now, Christian still had his life mapped out.

A plan he intended to follow.

I wasn’t exactly sure of how he was going to handle this news.

I wasn’t concerned about our relationship. I felt confident in our commitment to one another.

We were solid.

What I was worried about was how much stress this would place on him. This wasn’t exactly what I’d expected of my last year of under-grad before law school, either.

I was just better at accepting what life threw my way.

But we’d figure it out.

I knew we would.

Before I spiraled into worry, I grabbed my backpack, slung it over my shoulder, and leaned down, planting a quick kiss on Christian’s lips.

“Bye. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He returned the kiss, lingering a little longer than I had, stirring those feelings inside of me.

Making me want to say forget it like he’d suggested and crawl right back in bed with him.

“I’ll miss you,” he murmured.

“Miss you, too.”

Forcing myself to turn around, I flew out the door of Christian’s third-floor apartment.

With each step, my feet grew heavier as my mind wandered.

Wondering about the best way to tell him.

How I was going to tell him.

Something in my stomach souring when I thought of it being a betrayal that I hadn’t let him in.

This was just as important to him as it was to me.

By the time I reached the last set of stairs leading to the ground floor, I realized I just needed to get it out.

Tell him before I let it fester. Before I made it dirty. Before it became a sin.

I turned and raced back up the stairs.

I had a key, but for some reason, I felt the need to knock as another rush of nerves wound around my chest.

Sucking in a deep breath, I rapped loudly on his door.

Christian

A loud knock thundered on the main door. I jerked, not expecting anyone, quick to climb out of bed and pull on my jeans from the floor. I ran a hand through the thick mass of my black hair and ambled out of my room and toward the door.

Peering through the peephole, I caught sight of Elizabeth standing on the other side.

Confusion hit me. Why in the world was she standing outside my door, asking permission to enter?

Like she didn’t belong there.

Frowning, I swung open the door. “Elizabeth, what are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you.” The distinct anxiety laced through the words sent a jolt of fear tumbling through me.

Quickly, I pulled her inside and shut the door, spinning around to face her.

“What’s wrong?” Obviously, there was something wrong, or she wouldn’t have been standing in my apartment, staring at her feet with rigid arms held over her chest.

“I’m pregnant.”

It was a whisper toward the floor.

A breath.

I strained to hear her. To decipher them. To make sense of what she was saying.

Because there was no way she’d said what I thought she did.

Dread sank to the bottom of me when she finally brought her gaze to me.

Her honey-eyes watery and afraid.

My hands began to shake, and I ran them nervously through my hair again as I allowed myself to really hear her.

To process the implication of what she was saying.

A baby?

That would ruin everything—everything I’d worked for.

Everything she’d worked for.

Every plan we’d ever made.

My chest tightened, and for the first time in my life, I was sure I was going to have a panic attack.

There was a part of me that wanted to demand to know how she could have been so careless.

That was right before the rational side of me knew it had been just as much my fault as