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“I know you.” Mason reaches across the table and covers my hand with his. “I know the woman who used to laugh at my terrible jokes. She would stay up all night reading and still manage to be the most compassionate doctor in her class. She talked about building a life, a family, and something real.” His eyes hold mine. “Is that woman still in there? Or has she been warped by a criminal?”
The question leaves me winded. I don’t know the answer or who I am anymore.
Marco’s lover? The ice doctor who’s scared of a simple medical test? Or am I just a terrified woman in a coffee shop sitting across from the detective who used to love her? Though, that relationship also ended in disaster—Mason’s protectiveness curdling into control—and I swore I’d never repeat the pattern.
I pull my hand back and stand too fast. “Thank you for the coffee and for caring, but I have to go.”
“Lucia, wait!”
I don’t wait. I don’t even look back as I speedwalk out the door.
As soon as I start the vehicle, the world tilts sideways. Black spots dance in my vision, multiplying, spreading… My head spins, and the steering wheel swims in and out of focus. I grip it tighter, trying to anchor myself, but the spots keep coming. I’m so tired…so impossibly tired…
Then I hear a crash.
The accident is simple, really. I’ve drifted into a parked car at maybe five miles an hour, resulting in a soft thud of metal meeting metal. The impact still jolts me, snaps my eyes open, and forces me to contend with what just happened.
I’m sitting here, trembling and struggling to catch my breath, when a knock on the window has me jumping up and hitting my head.
Mason’s followed me out, his face creased with concern. “Lucia? Open the door. Are you okay?”
I fumble with the lock, and he opens the door before crouching beside me in the cold morning air.
“What are you doing here, Mason?”
He scoffs. “I came out to see you drive away and saw you crash your car instead. You could’ve died.”
“I’m fine.” My shaky voice betrays me. “Just tired.”
“You’re white as a sheet.” He reaches for my wrist and checks my pulse, an old habit from when we were together. Back then, he’d worry about me working too many back-to-back shifts. “Your heart’s racing. When’s the last time you ate?”
“I don’t remember.”
Mason’s jaw twitches, his expression tightening into one that I know all too well. “Come on. My car’s right over there. I’m taking you somewhere you can rest.”
“I can’t. Marco’s expecting me.”
“Marco can wait.” He helps me out of the car, keeping me up when my knees buckle, his strong arms around my waist. “Right now, you need to take care of yourself. Nothing else matters.”
I’m too exhausted and too scared to argue. I’m aware that I almost hurt myself, and if there’s even a chance I’m carrying a child, I almost hurt that too. I’ve been operating on empty and pretending I’m fine even as every cell in my body screams otherwise.
Mason drives me to a small private clinic a few blocks away, claiming he knows the doctor and citing my right to privacy outside my own place of employment, where every colleague within six floors knows my face and at least three of them would ask questions.
He calls ahead, and a nurse in soft pink scrubs greets us at the door.
“She needs a full workup,” Mason tells her, his voice brooking no argument. “And I need to know what’s going on with her.”
The urge rises to tell him this isn’t his business, that I have people, that Marco should be here. But the words won’t come. Mason moves to follow us into the exam room, and my protests flicker out like a spent candle. I need someone beside me when I get confirmation. Even Mason will do.
After the nurse closes the door, I let them draw blood, take my vitals, and ask the routine questions, answering on autopilot while my mind drifts elsewhere.
I warn the doctor in a voice close to a whisper, “I might be pregnant.”
His eyes widen. “Oh, really?”
Mason’s face cycles through a series of emotions. First there’s shock, then hurt, and then a look that hardens behind his eyes. “You’re pregnant? With his baby?”
I glance at the doctor, who slips out of the room, then I turn back to Mason.
