“I know.” I raise my eyes from the drain to Demi. “Still hurts a little, though. It’s not our baby, but it is there because we lost our baby.”
Sadness fills Demi’s eyes with tears, but they’re scarcely seen through her pride. The past four days taught us that communication needs to be one of our strongest points. We can have an abundance of sexual chemistry and a mutual attraction fiery enough to start a blaze, but we’ll never make it out of this fucked-up realm unscarred if we don’t start expressing ourselves with more than touch. We’ve been doing that the past four days, and we will continue doing that until we take our final breaths.
After ensuring the blood on Demi’s thighs is cleared away, I turn off the faucet, then step out of the shower to fetch the towel. “Is it crazy for me to admit I was excited about the prospect of becoming a dad?”
It takes everything Demi has not to let the dam in her eyes spill over when she shakes her head, but she does it. She proves she’s stronger than even I could have predicted. “I would have been more shocked if you had reacted negatively.” She steps closer to me with nurturing, sorrow-filled eyes. “That’s why I should have been honest with you from the start.”
It takes me a couple of seconds to realize what she’s saying, but when I unearth the reason behind her remorse, I’m nearly knocked on my ass. “You knew you were pregnant?”
“Not officially.” She scoops my hand in hers like she’s afraid I might bolt. “I had an inkling when Rocco pointed out some observations during your last fight. He was the one who brought me the tests.”
I had wondered how she had gotten them. Now everything makes sense—including Rocco’s protectiveness of her the morning we got into a tussle. He didn’t threaten to throw Demi to the wolves when I pushed him for a fairer compromise. Only my ass was on the line.
“Landon’s words were in my head when I ripped open the first test. I truly didn’t know which way I wanted the results to go.” A faint grin curls Demi’s lips as her eyelids flicker in memory. “I think I broke the Walsh family record.” Her ghost-like smirk turns into a full-blown smile. “It didn’t even take me a second to fall in love.”
I run my index finger down her nose, needing to touch her but so desperate not to hurt her to keep things simple. “Is that why you took the other two tests? To stretch out the timeline?”
She waits for me to wrap her in the towel before she shakes her head, her nose crinkling. “They were to back up my claims I wasn’t crazy for lying on our bed for the next hour with my hands curled over my stomach.”
I grin at the thought of her being in complete awe in under thirty seconds. It was the same for me when she peered up at me for the first time in the second grade. I was a fucking goner, and every member of my family knew it.
The high curve of my lips shifts downward when Demi faintly adds, “Then it all came tumbling down within an hour of me taking a prenatal vitamin.”
I follow her somber walk into the main part of the room while asking, “What vitamin did you take again?”
We’ve had similar discussions to this the past couple of days, but since we were in a hospital room and she had been poked and prodded, I never broadened my inquiries. There’s a time and a place for everything. The hospital that saved Demi’s life by ending our child’s wasn’t the place. I’m not sure now is the right time either, but what can I say? Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Demi shrugs. “It was a generic pharmacy brand.”
“That had your name printed on the label?” I ask after recalling parts of our previous conversation.
She stops halfway across the room before spinning around to face me. She looks worried, but not even a threat of harm would stop her from lifting her chin. “Is that not normal?”
Truly unsure, my shoulder touches my ear when I do a one-shoulder shrug. I’ve never needed a prescription for the vitamins and protein supplements my trainer requested I took when I commenced my boxing career, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone can buy them over the counter.
After taking a moment to gauge the response on my face, Demi snaps down to pick up her jacket from the floor. “Because it was in the packet Rocco left on the porch, I didn’t put much thought into it appearing more like a prescription than an over-the-counter product. But it did say it was a multi-vitamin. I even searched the net to make sure I could take it in the first trimester. It said it was safe. I wouldn’t have taken it if I believed otherwise.”
“I don’t doubt that.” I step closer to her, hating that she thinks I’d ever believe she would put our baby in danger. “I’m just seeking answers. You previously said that you started cramping within an hour of taking the vitamin.”
“I did,” she agrees with a nod before removing one of the sanitary pads and a pair of panties she shoved into the pocket of her jacket before our sprint out of her hospital room. “The bleeding wasn’t immediate…” Her brows furrow as she works through the fog still clouding her memories from that day. From our conversations the past four days, I’ve come to the conclusion that her miscarriage commenced with intense cramping. That’s why she was in the shower, seeking relief from the pain with hot water. The steam from the endless hot water had her missing the soap that slipped from her grasp during a painful contraction-like cramp. She slipped and fell backward, hitting her head on the shower faucet. Although the impact didn’t crack her skull, it was significant enough for her to sit dazed and confused in the shower for several long minutes. The amount of blood she lost was what kept her there for hours. “But the cramps were.” As her eyes bounce between mine, salty blobs of wetness saturate them. “Do you think the vitamins I took had something to do with my miscarriage?”
I shake my head, even with the gurgle of my stomach portraying a completely different answer. A million scenarios have run through my head since I found her bleeding and unconscious in the cabin, but not once did this scenario cross my mind.
I didn’t see the canister of vitamins during my second rummage through the cabin. That could have been because my mind was corrupted with grief, but that doesn’t explain why the vitamins weren’t on the shelf above the vanity sink where I saw them a mere second before stumbling onto Demi. Someone moved them, and it has me curious as to why they would do that.
Upon hearing the gurgles of my stomach, Demi secures the devotion of my eyes by curling her hand over my balled one. “I want someone to blame as well, Maddox. It’s easier to blame than grieve, but Rocco would never be so cruel. He isn’t like the other men in my uncle’s industry. He has a heart.”
The way I tugged on his heartstrings today to get him on our side adds proof to her claims Rocco isn’t heartless like so many men in her family’s ‘business,’ but there are two sides to Rocco. Two very different sides. “He’s a killer, Demi. He can’t be trusted.”
“He is a killer. Aconvictedkiller,” she agrees without pause for thought. “But he can be trusted because if you truly believed otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”
She has a point. I don’t like it, but I can’t deny it. I’m here because second only to me, Rocco will do everything in his power to keep Demi safe. I don’t know where his protectiveness stems from or for how long it has been occurring, but I do trust that he’d never purposely lead Demi toward danger.
I wait for Demi to pull on a pair of panties she preloaded with a pad before saying, “I’d still like to look a little deeper into what you took. If that’s all right with you?”
Her smile would have you convinced I asked her to marry me. “I’m fine with you doing that, and thank you for asking instead of telling me, but can it occurafterwe get Sloane back?” Her question has a double meaning. It not only implies she’s hopeful her best friend will make it out of tonight’s ordeal with only nightmares, but it also hints that she’s convinced I’ll be around after a second death-match to investigate the man I goaded into helping us.
Since I also refuse to consider the possibility our ruse may implode on us, I once again shift my focus from the shitstorm raining down on us, instead choosing to assert my efforts on the one thing I can do even while drowning on land.
