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“What?” Rage and fear tear through me like an assassin’s bullet. “No!” I attempt to jump over him and open the limo door, but my protruding baby belly land me clumsily on his lap.
He holds me there, his hand on my stomach. Our eyes lock in a nerve-wracking stare, and my heart beats differently. “What are you doing? Were you going to jump out of a moving car with my baby?”
His words slap me in the face. “Your baby?”
He bites his bottom lip. “Cormac is my identical twin. We share DNA. That makes your baby, technically my baby, too. You’re carrying my family’s bloodline. That’s why I bailed you out.”
Dread chokes me like a wave pulling me under. “I’m not going back to Astoria. I can’t.”
“No shit, you’re not,” he bites out, but his warm hands settle around my large stomach. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you. I didn’t want you falling out of the limo.”
I take a few deep breaths and don’t feel anything different. I’ve seen women this pregnant in the casinos and on the strip pick up older kids who wrap their legs around the swollen tummy with no issue.
Sliding off Darragh’s muscular thighs that feel like marble, I mutter, “I’m fine. Where are we going then, if not Astoria?”
“To Seattle.”
“Why?” My breath hitches, remembering that’s where he lives. My plan… Maybe I can get away to Canada after all.
“I told you. You’re carrying my family’s blood. My stupid brother was too fucked in the head to realize that. I, however, know better.”
“You… You want my baby?” I cradle this thing growing inside me. I’ve felt so detached from it. Without any ultrasounds to see its little shape swimming all this time, it hasn’t felt real.
I just know he or she is alive because it moves around and kicks.
One month. The baby is due in one month. I’m going to be a mother in one month.
“We’re going to figure something out. You and me. Right now, we have to get home. My daughter…” He glares at me, eyes trained for my reaction.
“Sophie,” I mutter, remembering Cormac telling me about his niece.
“Yes, her name is Sophie.” Darragh goes to say more, but his phone rings, and he takes the call.
It sounds like medical business. Perhaps he’s talking to another doctor. I lean back and zone out until I see the airport lights off in the distance. Landing here over two years ago flashes through my brain. It’s so jarring how so much went wrong in that mere span of time.
“I’ll call you back tomorrow, Dr. Lowe. I mean Monday. Have a nice weekend.” Darragh looks at me like he’s just realizing I’m still here. In the past, Darragh threw money at Cormac and turned a blind eye to his problems. He can’t do that now.
Because I’m his now…
That idea ignites a flame between my legs.
“Tomorrow is Saturday?” I ask, adding up his conversation.
“You didn’t realize that?”
I can argue it’s because I was in a major car accident and spent the night in jail, but that’s not it. “Your brother took away my phone and hovered over everything I did. If you told me it was Wednesday or Sunday, I would have believed you. Don’t even bother asking me what month it is.”
The weather here in Vegas doesn’t help with the perpetual heat and sunshine. Casinos are designed to be disorienting, too.
“It’s early November.”
“November?”
“I’m going to kill him,” Darragh grumbles.
“I know you want to get home to your daughter, but can we please stop so I can buy something else to wear?” I pinch the ugly dress. “Don’t make me sit on a plane and have other passengers look at me with—”
“I have a private plane waiting,” he says astutely. “That was the only way to get here so quickly.”
