Is this what a panic attack felt like? Or was it a heart attack? No, no. I was dreaming. That's it! Of course I was dreaming. Harper wasn't really here. She never came to London and fucked me in the bathroom. Nope. My alarm was going to go off any minute and everything would be—

"Jackson? Did you hear what I said?" 

No, I didn't. What did she say? "I—I—" I ran my hand over my face. "Is this real?" I whispered.

Suddenly my legs wouldn't hold me. I started to fall backwards and I felt the bed beneath me. Infertile. She couldn't—we couldn't...

I rested my elbows on my knees and buried my face in my hands. What the fuck was happening? Why was this happening? My mind felt...foggy. Crowded. Not my own. I couldn't even think straight. 

"I'm so sorry, Jackson," she said through tears. "This is all my fault." 

The broken sound in her voice got to me. I looked up at her and saw the tears streaming down her face. She wasn't looking at me. She had her arms wrapped her arms around herself and her eyes were on the floor. 

"Come here, princess." When she didn't move, I leaned forward and gently pulled her towards me and onto my lap. "This isn't your fault. None of it." I kept my voice low and soothing. As much as I was freaking out right now, I didn't want to upset her more. "Tell me everything. Please. We need to talk about this." 

After a minute or two of her crying softly, she cleared her throat. "I found out when little Nate was five months old."

My body went rigid. "What?" Had she known this whole time? That did not sit well with me. At all. That meant that she knew even before I told her I wanted a baby. 

Harper sniffed and wiped at her nose with a tissue. "When I saw you with little Nate, I could tell you wanted a baby. I knew before you even told me. I had my yearly check-up coming up, so when I went to the gynecologist, I told her we may want a baby and I asked her if she could check me for pregnancy. To see if everything was working like it was supposed to and stuff." 

"Why didn't you tell me that you were going to the doctor? I could have went with you." I would have preferred to be there with her. I wanted to be apart of this, no matter where it led, every step of the way.

"I was going to surprise you. I wanted to surprise you." Harper inhaled a deep breath. "Then she called me back to come in for the results." 

When she didn't continue, I squeezed her thigh comfortingly. I didn't want to hear what she was going to say. I knew it wasn't going to be good news. But I needed to hear it. "Tell me what she said, princess."

She fought back tears as she got the words out. "She said that my uterus is abnormally shaped. Heart shaped, is what they called it. She said if I did get pregnant, I'm prone to miscarriages and not being able to carry a fetus full term because of how it's shaped. But she also said there's something with my cervix. I have all the information at home, but she said because of it, it would be hard for the sperm to travel through the cervix to actually get pregnant." 

I tried to follow everything she was saying, but it was hard. There was a lot of information being dumped on me, and I wasn't in the right headspace to process all of it. "Wait, so...there may be a chance? Even a slight chance?" 

She shrugged a shoulder. "I don't know, Jackson. They said 'highly improbable'." Harper got up from my lap and started pacing. "Even if I did get pregnant, my chances of having a miscarriage are very high. I don't think I could handle something like that."

"Is that why you didn't tell me this? Because you thought I would make you keep trying? To make you have miscarriage after miscarriage? Please tell me you know me better than that."

I knew how my voice sounded. I was angry, upset, and honestly...I felt like I was losing my goddamn mind. I wanted a baby so bad with Harper, and now I find out she had been holding on to this information for months. 

"Of course not!" she said in a rush. "I know you wouldn't do that to me. That's not why I didn't tell you." 

"Then why?" I ran my hands through my hair. "Please tell me. I need to know the truth."

She looked away from me quickly, but not before I saw the tormented look in her eyes. It was a look I had seen in her eyes before. It was that night. The night in Hawaii when her mother had hit her. There was a lot more to this than I thought. I got up from the bed and stepped in front of her. 

I pressed my finger under her chin so she would look up at me. "Princess, you can tell me anything."

She squeezed her eyes shut before she finally said the words. "I was scared of losing you." 

My brows drew together. "Losing me? Why on earth would you think you would lose me because of this?" 

"My parents wanted me to help save their business. But because of me, they almost lost everything. The only reason they kept the deal with your dad is because of Ryan. But I lost my parents. They don't love me anymore. At least, not like they used to. They pushed me away because I wasn't the daughter they wanted. You want a family—and you deserve that. But I can't give—I thought that if I told you..."

That's when realization dawned on me. "You thought that if I knew you couldn't get pregnant, that you wouldn't be the woman I wanted? That I would push you away like your family did?"

The tears spilled down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Jackson. I wanted to give you a family more than anything. I wanted to have a baby and raise it with you. I wanted our family. I was planning on telling you, of course. I just didn't know how."

Hearing that she did, in fact, want a baby with me, made my chest feel like someone stabbed me. Even though it was wrong for her I keep that to herself for so long, I could kind of understand it a little better. If she had told me she wanted a baby, then I found out that I was sterile, I don't know how I would have reacted or if I would have told her right away.

This also explained one other thing. "And you wanted a break from me—"

"I needed a break because I couldn't sleep next to you or look you in the eye without telling you the truth. I've always wanted you, Jackson. I was just scared of what would happen once you knew the truth." 

It all became clear to me then. Everything. Even though it hurt that she felt like she couldn't come to me with this, I understood her reasoning. And my heart broke...for her.

Our parents are supposed to love us unconditionally no matter what. But when she wouldn't let them control her life and refused to marry Ryan, her parents pretty much disowned her. They turned their back on her. The two people who are supposed to protect her and love her forever. Her fear of that happening with us made sense now.

I placed my hands on her shoulders and stroked her neck with my thumbs. "Princess, I'm going tell you something and I want you to hear me, okay?"

Her watery eyes met mine and she nodded.

"I love you. I love every little bit of you just as you are. I wouldn't change a thing about you. Does it hurt me that you and I can't have a baby like other people? Yes, it does."

A tear slid down her cheek and I wiped it away before I continued. "Of course it hurts. But it doesn't change how I feel about you. I meant what I said in that letter, princess. You have my heart now and forever. The only reason I left you, was because I stupidly thought that's what you wanted."

My brows formed a deep V and my voice broke when I said this next part. "I could never leave you. Never. I'm not mad at you for keeping this from me. I understand why you did it. But please, princess, don't ever keep something so important from me again. If we're in this, we're in this together. We need to communicate with each other. Agreed?"

She wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. "Agreed. I love you, Jackson Reese."

"And I love you, Harper Lewis. More and more every day." I kissed the top if her head when something occured to me. "You know something, princess?"

"Hm?"

"We can always adopt."

She pulled away from me with wide eyes before she shook her head in confusion. "When I found out I couldn't get pregnant, I kept thinking about what I couldn't have. I never even considered..."

When she trailed off, I got nervous. "Would that be something you might want?"

A huge smile broke out on her face. She gave me a sound kiss before saying, "Are you kidding? Yes! We can find a baby who needs a home and finally have our family."

She started tearing up again and placed her hand over my heart. "How did I ever find you?"

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed the tips of her fingers. "You got engaged to my brother and then went out to get drunk. Then you met some handsome, British bloke who fell madly in love with you."

She laughed and it made me smile. "And I don't regret any of it."

Neither did I. Even though these past few weeks have been hell—for both of us—I felt like it needed to happen. When we first got together, we both agreed that we didn't want children. This is proof that people change over time. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. With us, it seems to be a little bit of both. Even though we couldn't have a baby the normal way, we can still have a family. We can still be a family. That's what I wanted most of all.

And I only wanted it with the amazing, gorgeous woman in my arms.