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She joins me on the bathroom floor, on her knees, and slips her arms around my neck, cuddling my clueless form. I want to ask. I don’t want to ask. The unknown is driving me crazy.
And this moment, this scene on the floor in our bathroom, her crying, me comforting her, brings back a whole load of memories that I really don’t want to remember. If she tells me anything like what she told me that day, if any man has touched her, violated her, assumed she’s fair game, I will lose my fucking head. Those thoughts run circles in my mind, along with every serious illness that Doc could have missed, until I’m shaking in her fierce hold.
“Rose, you need to talk before I blow my stack,” I warn, struggling to breathe, let alone talk. I feel her nod, pulling back, sniveling. I take her hair and push it over her shoulders. Take her chin and direct her face to mine. Take her hand, holding it firmly. “What’s going on?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know how this has happened.”
“What?” For the love of God, what’s happened?
She roughly wipes at her face and stands, and I look up at her, blank, lost.
Worried.
She tugs me to my feet, leads me to the vanity, and points.
On a frown bigger than Miami, I look.
And step back.
Away from the pregnancy test.
The pregnancy test with two lines in the window. I’m no expert, but something tells me those two lines are significant, because why the fuck else would she show me a pregnancy test? “Rose, help me out,” I murmur, dazed, my eyes unmoving, my hand flexing in hers. Another step back. My heart begins to thud relentlessly. My breathing is getting too fast to be safe. I peel my eyes away and look at her. My beautiful wife. My fierce, loyal, warrior. And my eyes fall to her stomach. “Are you . . .” I point a limp finger, taking another step back. Her tears seem to have vanished, and in their place, amusement. She finds this funny. She finds me funny. “Please talk.” She needs to confirm what I’m seeing because I think I might be going around the bend. Rose can’t get pregnant.
“I’m pregnant,” she all but whispers.
I gulp. I swallow. I blink my hazy vision clear. The relief I feel is untold. She’s not ill. No one’s touched her. But . . . “How?” I murmur like an idiot.
“Well, you see, your dick—”
“But you couldn’t . . . it was . . . I thought . . .” I can’t even string a fucking sentence together. “What the ever-loving fuck?” I murmur, going to the sink and picking up the test, staring at the lines.
“Danny?”
“I just need . . .” I blow out my cheeks. “Air. I need some air.” I leave the bathroom, my legs far from stable, and take myself to the terrace, flopping down in one of the chairs and lighting up, drawing on my cigarette urgently and exhaling, my foot tapping the ground, my knee jumping fast, my eyes still on the two little lines. This. I never in a million years thought about this. Why would I? She couldn’t carry. Being a father never featured in my plans before I met Rose, and it certainly didn’t after. When she told me every detail of her wretched past, how she lost Daniel, how she was treated, I was too consumed with anger and a need for revenge to consider the possibility that she was wrong. That she could get pregnant again. I took her word for it, put it to bed—after I’d killed the fucker who was the root of Rose’s pain—and got on with a life loving Rose. Just us. Us and Daniel. And after three years of fucking like rabbits with no protection, the thoughts disappeared altogether.
Now? Now I’m staring fatherhood in the face?
I puff my way through my cigarette, savoring every hit of nicotine while willing my mind to untangle and give me some clarity. Some clear thoughts. I have only one.
This changes everything.
It also makes me love her more. Admire her more. Need her more. I’m sitting out here on my own, shellshocked. How does Rose feel about this?
I rise abruptly and turn. She’s standing in the doorway, arms folded, her shoulder resting on the jamb, watching me. A small, amused smile gracing her face. And suddenly, my mind unravels. My thoughts clear. All I can see is her smile. Her happiness. A second chance that I never once dared dream I could give her. A pregnancy without fear. A birth without dread. A life without apprehension.
A baby that no one can take away from her.
“Fucking hell,” I whisper, overcome with every emotion imaginable. And the biggest, most prolific one?
Determination.
Only I can ensure her stability. Her calm. And I will.
