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Also pregnant, but I’ll figure out how to hide this or brace Dad tomorrow.
My father shook his head. “Fine, you can take a few days to rest. It’ll take that long to get enough favors lined up to have you seen by the specialists at JHU. It’s just we can’t give up on your future because of a little bacterial infection.”
“Mononucleosis.” Mom rolled her eyes. “Honestly, if you could just stop pressuring her so much. We talked about this in therapy just last week.”
I blinked. Whoa. Since when were my mom and dad a couple who needed that?
I sat up again. “Counseling? Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine,” Dad said.
“We’re working on it,” Mom added.
Huh, so I hadn’t been the only one lying a little or a lot while I was in Dublin. Mom and Dad definitely hadn’t been forthcoming about this new extracurricular activity.
“I…I can’t do that right now. I don’t feel well, and I just need to get to my room.”
“We will be talking about all of this when you’re rested and more coherent later tonight,” my father replied.
Mom helped me up from the sofa and let me lean on her to the stairwell. “Baby, you could have told us anything. It’s okay. We’d never be mad at you for being sick.”
“I didn’t feel like I could be honest.” Not a great thing to say even as I was lying my ass off, but I didn’t know what else to do. “It’s hard sometimes.”
Mom shot Dad a dirty look. “You should never have to feel that way. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Tears streaked down my cheeks. No, I’d definitely done everything wrong. Mom just didn’t know it yet. “I think I just need sleep.”
“Sure. David!” Mom shouted.
I winced at the loudness and rubbed with one hand at my stomach. It felt more than roiled up this time. A sharp pain erupted through my gut then, and I rubbed at my stomach. “God, that hurts!”
Bending over, I kept rubbing at it even as David clomped down the stairs in his heavy Doc Marten boots.
“Hey, whoa, I didn’t know Iris was visiting. Isn’t it early for winter break?”
Gritting my teeth, I tried to steady myself on the banister. Another gut wrenching pain tore into me, and my heart skipped a beat. This wasn’t right. Every instinct I had was screaming at me that this wasn’t right.
Pointing to my abdomen, I tried to keep from crying even though with all the pain it was impossible. “Mom, it hurts.”
David shook his head. “Sis…I, you’re bleeding.”
“My God,” Mom said, and both she and Dad stared down at my feet.
I did the same and screamed. A dark stain of blood had coated through my jeans and was dripping down my leg. “I…the baby.”
I swooned, and it was the last thing I remembered.
***
Callum
“Where is she, damn it!”
I swept my arm out and sent my files and quite a few reports on my newest merger crashing to the ground. I stopped short of destroying the desktop. It would be easy enough to replace it, and I could afford it, but the last thing I wanted was Frances coming in. She’d already been scowling at me for the last couple months, and I didn’t need her judgmental glare. I’d have fired the bint if she weren’t the best assistant I’d ever had. What I did with my intern…with my vixen was my own business, whether it was in the office or not. Still, no need to draw attention to things if I could avoid it.
My phone blared to life, and I frowned when I saw that it was Seth Kilshimer. That wasn’t the member of the family I needed to hear from. Confused, I accepted the call. There was no way that Iris would have told her father about us. She might have gone back to America out of nowhere, but she was more paranoid about her father finding out than I was. I didn’t care. I could protect her from any family fallout, any disownment. She, on the other hand, was always so eager to please her family, especially her dad.
So why was he calling?
