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“No. No, she’s not.”
“Fuck. Okay, I’m heading to the hotel now. We’re about a half hour out. Just stay away from the press and the internet until then.”
“English, what the fuck happened?”
She sighed heavily. “Neither of you thought to tell me she’d been pregnant?”
“It was eight years ago. Only her mom knew. How could I have anticipated that the entire world would find out?” I huffed. “How did they find out?”
“Apparently, a Campbell Soup girl snooped through her medical records. There’s even an actual picture of her file that says she had an abortion roughly eight years ago. Which would have been when you were together or had just broken up.”
“A Campbell Soup girl?” I asked, low and furious.
“Yeah, you have some rabid, boundary-defying fans.”
“I’ll murder them.”
“Let’s not let that get on record.”
“I smacked a camera and cussed out a reporter. I’m already in shit.”
English was silent for a minute. “They must have really pissed you off. You always keep your cool.”
“I know,” I ground out. “Everyone crossed the line with this one.”
“Just take care of our girl, okay? I’ll be there soon to pick up the pieces.”
I said good-bye and then just kept an eye on Blaire as we veered through traffic to a back entrance of The Beverly Hills Hotel. She was still silent and looked like she was holding on by a thread.
We took the private elevator up to our suite, and she immediately swept to the window and stared out with her arms crossed.
“Blaire?”
Her shoulders heaved at the sound of my voice.
“Can we talk about this?”
A small, derisive laugh left her. “Now you want to talk about this?”
I bit my cheek to keep from saying anything stupid. Adrenaline still coursed through my veins. I would not take this out on Blaire. It was the rest of the stupid fucking world that deserved my wrath.
“Yes, I think we should talk about it.”
“Which part, Campbell? The pregnancy you didn’t want or the phone call you never returned?”
I froze at those words. The harsh reality of them. I hadn’t wanted a baby at eighteen. I didn’t know anyone who wanted a baby at eighteen. I’d been wrong to treat her the way I had to follow my dream, but the rest…
“What phone call?”
She choked. Her body tensed. “What phone call?”
The room was quicksand, and I felt myself sinking. I had missed something vital here. And I had no clue what it was.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You left Lubbock, and I called you. You were at work. You promised to call me back.”
I shook my head, trying to remember this. It had been eight years ago, and the details of my first few months in LA were fuzzy. I’d worked in a bar, and they’d had me up at all hours of the day. Not to mention the fact that I’d been drunk a lot. I had no recollection of Blaire ever calling me. I’d thought she had completely cut me off after I left. I’d deserved it.
“I don’t remember that.”
She turned to face me, and tears tracked down her perfectly done makeup. “You don’t remember?”
“No.”
“Great. Just great.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I remembered. Those first few months in LA are a blur. I don’t remember much, except exhaustion and alcohol.”
I was the dick who hadn’t called her when she’d been pregnant. I’d been young and so fucking stupid. I wished that I could take it back. When I checked in on her again and saw that she’d never had the baby, I’d known she’d gone through with an abortion after all. I’d been…relieved…and disappointed. I hadn’t known how to reconcile those reactions and figured reaching out would only make things worse.
“But this isn’t about a phone call, Blaire. You’re upset about the abortion. I didn’t know the reporter would bring that up.”
She took a step backward at the word. “That’s what you think I’m upset about?”
I held my hands out to her. “I know it’s upsetting, but it’s not like what the reporter said wasn’t true.”
Her jaw dropped at my words. Then, a split second later, she snapped her jaw shut and looked ready to erupt. Before she even opened her mouth, I realized that I’d said the wrong thing. The absolute wrong thing.
“I did not have an abortion,” she snarled. “I went in for my ten-week checkup, and the doctor said the baby had no heartbeat. I’d had a miscarriage, and the baby hadn’t left naturally yet. The doctor sent me home with pills to speed up the process.”
“Fuck,” I said.
“And I called you that day to tell you what happened. You answered and then promised to call me back. Then, you never did.”
“Blaire, I—”
She held up her hand. “You have absolutely no fucking clue what I went through. You weren’t there, Campbell. You weren’t there when I told my mom about the baby. When she tried to convince me to get an abortion and I yelled at her that I wanted to keep it. She thought I was insane. I only had her. My mom was the only person who knew and who was there for me. And you know she’s the worst person alive with these sorts of things. So, the day when it all happened, she was happy. It was the worst day of my life, and she was happy for me. She told me I could have my life back now.
