Page 213 of Always: A Legacy Novel

Twenty.

The number rang around in her head, loud and taunting.

Catherine’s glazed, too-heavy lids lifted so she could look at the man who had loved her from damn near the first time he met her. “I missed your birthday.”

Cross frowned. “I don’t do fuck all for it, Catherine.”

“No, I mean … Cross, I don’t even know what day it is right now. I’m pretty sure I’m late for class, but I don’t think I know what time it is. It’s November, but what day is it? I only know my period is late because my stupid phone kept wanting me to log the start of my cycle. I’m messed up—I’m fucked up.”

He just stared at her.

She couldn’t speak again.

Catherine grabbed her bag on the floor, and decided to show him instead. She dumped the purse out, and all the contents fell across the bathroom floor. Prescriptions that were hers. Over the counter sleeping aids, and sleeping pills that had been prescribed. White pills in a small baggie—thirty all together that she’d picked up just a couple of days before when she was at college. And a new pill, a little blue bitch that literally made her nod off when she dared to toss it back.

“And wine,” Catherine said quietly. “I drink all the time; it feels better. Some of it was supposed to help with the anxiety and depression, but I kept doubling and tripling it just to breathe. I couldn’t breathe, Cross. I’m messed up in my head. I don’t know what to do.”

Cross’s hands tightened on her. “Okay.”

That was all he said.

Okay.

Then, softer, “Check that pregnancy test, babe.”

She did, but the window pane still only showed one line.

It was long past the time for it to show up positive.

“Negative,” Catherine said.

The relief was sweet.

Her guilt and sadness was heavy.

“What am I going to do?” she asked.

“We,” he replied, his dark, familiar eyes turning on her. “We, Catherine. We will figure it out.”

He never failed.

She had never doubted him

It still terrified her.

Cross balanced his back against the bedroom doorframe; one arm laid over his chest, while his other raked through his hair. Catherine slept in their bed, fitfully. She tossed and turned, she kicked blankets off, and then buried herself beneath them again. She mumbled, her lids flickered, and her hands balled into fists at the same time they reached for his side of the bed.

His heart ached.

Like his chest was splitting open.

How had he missed this?

How hadn’t he known?

How?

The knock on the penthouse’s front door sent Cross pushing away from the doorway. He didn’t know how to deal with what was happening to Catherine, never mind what was going to happen when she didn’t try to soothe the shakes or the sickness in her stomach.