Page 134 of Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines 2)

Emma

Emma’s hands trembled, and she clasped them togetherin her lap in an attempt to hide her nervousness and shame. The taste of herrecklessness rested heavily on the back of her tongue, reminding her of themistakes she had made over the last couple of months.

Really, over the last year.

She should have been more careful.

This shouldn’t have happened at all.

Emma hadn’t wanted it to happen again.

“It’s very early,” the doctor said across the deskfrom her.

Emma felt smaller than she actually was, like a littlebug hearing big words it couldn’t understand. She might as well have been amillion miles away and not actually in the moment like she needed to be.

“The routine bloodwork brought it to our attention,”the doctor continued.

How was this real?

How was she supposed to fix this?

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said quietly.

Emma’s head snapped up at those words. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” the woman repeated. “You don’t seem happyabout the news.”

“I don’t know how to feel,” Emma lied.

She did know.

Worried.

Terrified.

Ashamed.

Confused.

Happy …

It was one big jumble inside her body, the emotionscrashing into one another over and over like waves in an ocean. The onlyproblem was that Emma was the ocean, and she wasn’t very good at weathering thewaves until they passed.

“If you’d like, I could set you up with an appointmentto term—”

“No,” Emma rushed to say, cutting off the doctorbefore she could even finish.

After the mistakes her previous doctor had made—errorsthat cost Emma her child’s life—she had found a new doctor. Affonso hadn’t saidmuch all those months ago when Emma told him she would be seeing a physician ofher choosing. She was grateful for the change, now.

Affonso’s chosen doctor would not have treated herwith as much kindness and respect as this one was. He would not have offeredher what this one just had.

The doctor sighed, reached forward, and flipped openEmma’s file. She quickly scanned through the pages of Emma’s medical history, andfocused in on the most recent months.

“I see you talked with a fertility specialist,” thedoctor noted.

“I did,” Emma replied faintly.

“And what came of that?”