Then they’re gone, and the room feels twice as large and twice as quiet.
Outside the door, a nurse calls out a room number. Footsteps pass. Someone laughs down the hall. The world keeps moving, indifferent to the silence stretching between us.
Finally, he speaks. “The doctor said two weeks of bed rest,” he says. “No screens, no stress, limited activity.”
“I heard.”
“You can’t go back to your apartment alone.”
I bristle at his tone. “I’ll be fine.”
He stands, and there’s a determination in his posture that makes my stomach flutter with something other than nausea. “I have a lake house an hour from here. Five bedrooms, fully stocked, and I can work remotely.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Jasmine.” He breathes my name into the space between us. “You’re carrying my child. You almost died tonight. Let me take care of you.”
“We’re not together, Antonio. One night doesn’t make us... anything.”
He flinches, and I immediately regret the words. But I can’t take them back.
I woke up in his bed in Vegas, naked and alone. And I’d lain there for ten humiliating minutes, waiting like an idiot, before I finally left.
So he doesn’t get to sit here now talking about taking care of me. Like he hadn’t already shown me exactly what I was worth to him.
“I know,” he says. “But you’re still the mother of my baby. And right now, you need help. Let me give you that.”
I want to refuse. Every self-protective instinct screams at me to maintain my distance, to handle this alone the way I’ve handled everything else in my life.
But I’m exhausted. My body aches, my head throbs and the doctor’s words keep echoing.
I can barely sit up without the room spinning. How am I supposed to manage alone?
This isn’t about him. It’s about her. The baby I almost lost tonight.
And she matters more than my pride right now.
“Fine,” I finally say.
Antonio
It’s just after sevenin the morning when the nurse wheels Jasmine to the entrance. I’ve been awake for thirty-one hours, running on vending machine coffee and takeout.
My eyes burn. My back aches from the chair I tried and failed to sleep in. But none of that matters because Jasmine is alive, and I’m about to take her to my lake house.
Deus me ajude.
I pull my car around to the pickup zone and shift into park. The nurse is already wheeling Jasmine toward the passenger side, so I step out and circle the hood to meet them.
Jasmine moves carefully as I help her from the wheelchair, wincing when she twists wrong. The bruises on her face have deepened overnight, blooming across her cheekbone.
The cut on her forehead is held together with butterfly bandages. Her left wrist is wrapped in a brace, and she holds it close to her body.
I open the passenger door and guide her inside. Once she’s settled, I lean across to grab the seatbelt before she can protest.
“I can buckle my own...”
“Got it.” My knuckles brush her stomach as I click the belt into place, and I freeze.
