There’s a baby in there. My baby.
I pull back too fast, nearly cracking my head on the doorframe.
Jasmine’s eyes meet mine, and I straighten, closing her door. I walk around to the driver’s side, taking longer than necessary to compose myself.
Jessa and Meesha had shown up at six with a packed duffel bag of clothes and belongings for Jasmine.
My sister had hugged me in the hospital hallway and whispered, “Take care of her, Tony.”
As if I’d do anything else. I climb in and pull away from the curb.
The drive to the lake house should be about an hour and fifteen minutes, but Jasmine doesn’t see the city fade behind us. She falls asleep within the first ten minutes, her head tilted against the window.
The doctor said exhaustion was normal after trauma. Her body needed rest to heal.
I contacted my assistant before leaving the hospital and redirected all tasks that couldn’t be managed remotely. Any meetings requiring my physical presence would be postponed or covered by Jaxon or Kamal.
The highway stretches ahead, and I drive fifteen under the speed limit because I can’t shake the image of her car spinning through that intersection.
Every few minutes, I glance at her.
The bruises look worse in daylight. The purple has spread toward her temple, and there’s a scrape along her jaw I hadn’t noticed before.
She’d come so close to dying. If I hadn’t followed her from the dinner party, if I’d been even a few minutes slower calling 911...
I can’t think about it. I’ll lose my mind if I think about it.
In sleep, the tension leaves her face. The woman who acts as if Vegas never happened is not here right now.
Instead, I see the Jasmine from that night. The one who laughed at my terrible jokes. Who challenged my taste in art, and whose tight muscles clenched around my...
I grip the steering wheel harder.
This isn’t the time. She’s injured, she’s pregnant, and she’s made it abundantly clear that one night doesn’t make us anything. I need to focus on being useful, not on reliving that night.
But the morning after surfaces. I’d come back to the room that morning with coffee and croissants. I had this whole plan—breakfast on the terrace, maybe a walk, and then convincing her to go to Europe with me that very evening.
The bed was empty and her things were gone.
My eyes drifts to her stomach.
Seventeen weeks, the doctor said. The baby is the size of a pear now, with tiny fingers and toes, and a heartbeat we heard on the monitor this morning. I’d stood in that ultrasound room with my heart in my throat, watching the image on a screen, and felt my chest crack open.
I’ve never thought about being a father. Not seriously.
Kids were something that happened to other people. The idea of being responsible for an actual human being, shaping their life, and being the person someone calls pai never crossed my mind.
Now I can’t think about anything else.
A daughter. A girl who will grow into a woman. Who will date people like me someday, if I’m being honest about who I’ve been. The thought makes me want to lock her in a tower until she’s forty.
But beneath the protective instinct, there’s terror. I know nothing about raising a girl. I know nothing about raising anyone.
What if I say the wrong things, give her complexes? What if she needs me and I don’t know how to show up? What if I hurt her somehow, just by being me?
And with that comes the fear I’ve been pushing down since the moment Jasmine said the baby was mine.
What if I’m like him?
