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It’s another prod and I don’t make him push me harder. “I didn’t know I was pregnant. Honestly, I didn’t even suspect it. I was late starting my period, but I’ve had that happen on occasion and I was working long and hard hours.”
“You didn’t have morning sickness?” he asks.
“Yes, but I didn’t know it was morning sickness. I was barely sleeping. I had no reason to suspect I was pregnant. I thought I was just pushing myself too hard. We didn’t finish what we started that night. I didn’t think Icouldbe pregnant.” My lips purse. “Of course, I found out in a brutal way how wrong I was on that.” I squeeze my eyes shut and when his fingers brush my cheek, I look at him. “I was cramping, so I thought I was finally going to start my period.”
Suddenly I’m back in the past, back in my office, and reliving that night all over again in vivid color.
“I was sitting at my desk, sorting through a stack of files and I couldn’t find the one that I needed. Frustrated that I couldn’t finish my report without it and finally get out of there, I knew I had to hunt it down or miss the critical deadline for the production department. I stood up and rounded my desk when a punch of cramps hit my belly. I slouched forward as another punch hit me and then radiated through my womb.” I close my eyes and for a moment I’m there. “Oh god,” I whisper, just like I did that night.
Eric’s hand comes down on my hand and he squeezes. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Wedo,” I insist firmly. “We do.” I launch back into the story. “I tried to move, but my feet were heavy, like they were planted in the ground. I looked down and blood was seeping through the skirt of my cream-colored dress. I just stared down at it as if it wasn’t real, as if it was happening to someone else but then the cramps radiated through me again. I tried to get to my desk and my phone, but I just couldn’t. The pain was extreme, and the blood just started pouring like a faucet. It scared me and I started screaming for help.”
“And Isaac came to help.”
“There was no one else in the buildingbutIsaac, and there’s nothing between me and him. There never has been. I wasn’t lying about that. I haven’t lied to you.” Now I’m the one squeezing his hand. “Please tell me you know that.”
“I know.”
My mind goes back to us outside of the Kingston building, and him pretty much telling me to go to hell before he left. “You didn’t know earlier tonight.”
“Ididknow,” he promises. “That’s why I came back.I did know. I told you. I let Isaac fuck with my head. I let me fuck with my head.” His thumb strokes my palm, tingling sensation sliding up my arm. “We would have made a beautiful baby together.”
Tears well in my eyes. “We would have, wouldn’t we?”
“Yes. We would have. We still could.” I can’t even begin to revel in the commitment that statement suggests. “I don’t know if I can.”
“You don’t know you can’t. It wasn’t our time.”
“Do you even want kids?”
“I didn’t. I don’t know, Harper. You’ve made me think about a lot of things in my life a little differently.”
“Well, if you do,” she says, her voice breaking on the words, “then, I might not be the girl for you anyway. They said I had a problem with my uterus.”
“Don’t put that pressure on yourself or us. If you can’t, you can’t. We’ll get dogs and treat them like our kids.”
“Yes, but—”
He leans in and kisses me. “If you can’t, you can’t. I want you, Harper. Just you. Like I have never wanted anyone in my life.” He kisses me then, our tongues colliding in a kiss that is as tender as it is sexy and sultry, and I feel each stroke everywhere. My nipples ache. My sex clenches. My entire body is humming. Some part of me knows I need to talk to him about what happened in Denver. Some part of me knows we need to talk about what he believes hisbrother is really doing. Some part of me knows that if someone tried to kill me tonight, they will follow me to New York City, but right now, I just want him to keep kissing me. I just want him to drug me the way he drugs me with his touch, and when he unhooks his seatbelt and mine as well, I let him pull me into his lap.
I let him turn and lower the seat and ease me into the chair beside him, the two of us facing each other, his lips parting mine, his breath fanning my cheek, my lips. “We can’t do this here,” I say weakly.
“I pulled the curtain to the front of the plane which means we’ll be left alone,” he promises even as he caresses my skirt up my legs. “And since I don’t have a condom,” he adds, “I say we roll the dice.”
“What?” I try to pull away but his hand settles on my lower back, holding me fast and close, “What if I get pregnant again? We just—”
He kisses me and cups my backside, molding me against his thick erection. “Quam quae potest esse diligentissima,” he murmurs next to my lips. “Another one of my tattoos that means—”
“What is meant to be,” I whisper, “And I’m thankful now that my father taught me Latin.”
“Yes,” he replies. “What is meant to be. This is our time, sweetheart.” And then he’s kissing me again, and I have no protest left in me. Thisisour time, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll end up together. What is meant to be might be the end of us, and that thought has me throwing caution to the wind. I kiss him with all that I am, like these will be the last few hours we’ll ever share, and I don’t know why I fear that it is.
Chapter forty-eight
Harper
We’re different now, the events of the day changing us and who we are together though I can’t say how. Every touch and kiss just feels taut with underlying emotion, deeper, more intimate, more vulnerable and yet more confident and sure.
