Page 17 of Worth the Risk

“It’s not just about the baby,” I said.

Oh my God. We’re going to have a baby.

“I knew I screwed up days ago.”

Her eyes narrowed, and I had the feeling that I just made things worse. “How many days ago? Was it last Tuesday, when I had to listen to other nurses gossiping about you and Delilah looking cozy at dinner?”

“What?”

“The picture she shared the night you dumped me.” I flinched at the reminder. “Everyone in the hospital has seen it, and I’ve had to listen to all sorts of speculation about the two of you together.”

“Delilah doesn’t mean anything to me-”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever believe that, considering that you went from dinner with her to breaking up with me so quickly.”

“It was dinner with the board and she just happened to be-”

“Or did you realize that you made a mistake on Thursday, when I called my father to ask for a bungalow because the idea of spending a whole week in the room next to you sounded like torture?”

Ouch.

I realized that I was getting a well-deserved verbal lashing, but I didn’t like how flushed she looked in this moment. I was upsetting her.

“Or how about Friday?” She stepped closer to me, poking me in the chest with the tip of her finger. “That’s when I went to my first OB appointment alone.”

“You went to the doctor already? What did he say? Are you doing okay?”

She shook her head and turned away, throwing her arms out at her sides and letting out a frustrated groan that I would have found pretty cute under different circumstances.

“She said that I’m fine.”

I smiled again, even though I knew it was dangerous while she was this upset. Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at me.

“Good. That’s… really good.”

But she was right. I should’ve been with her at that appointment.

“I can’t believe we’re having a baby. I swear, I won’t miss anything else. I’ll be by your side every step of the way.”

Zoey looked at me with something that might’ve been pity. “Ford… it’s not that easy. Things have changed.”

“Don’t do this, Zo…”

“You did this. First, you insisted that we keep our relationship a secret. I never liked it, but I agreed because I wanted to be with you that badly. Until you suddenly decided I wasn’t worth it.”

“No.” The word came out choked, but I pushed through it. “You’re worth everything. I’ll show you, okay? We’ll go public with our relationship.”

That would cause problems at the hospital, but I’d figure out how to deal with that later. All I could focus on at this moment was getting Zoey back.

“It’s too late for that. There’s no relationship anymore.”

She’d moved away from me while we talked, and I took a step toward her, desperate to pull her into my arms again. She stopped me by raising a hand in front of her.

“I’m too tired to continue this conversation right now,” she said. “I want to rest before the bonfire.”

The last thing I wanted to do was walk out of this bungalow, but how could I argue with that? She was pregnant with my child, and I knew that most women needed more sleep in the first trimester.

“I’ll go so you can take a nap,” I said, fighting the urge to kiss her before I left. She definitely wasn’t going to go for that. “I’ll see you tonight. Text me if you need anything, okay?”