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I was out for a while. How long, I’m not sure. All I remember is that the sun, bright and unrelenting, started to bother my eyes and finally I had to open them.
The ache was dull, low in my abdomen. It wasn’t so bad at first, just like I was having a period.
For a while, I forgot I was pregnant. Must’ve been from when I knocked my head against the tiles.
Then I started to notice a dampness between my legs, like I’d just peed my pants.
And then the pain, sharp knives stabbing into my womb, one after another. I gasped at the intensity as I struggled to sit up, wetness flooding between my thighs. I winced, one hand to my stomach as I came to a sitting position, and it was only then that I saw the blood streaking my thighs and pooling onto the floor beneath me. And I knew.
I expected to feel sadness, grief at losing the baby that had gone undetected by anyone else so long inside me. I knew immediately that there was no hope for the tiny creature who’d been a part of me for three short months. I watched, nauseated, as she bled from me and onto the stark white tiles.
He did this, I thought to myself. He killed his own child. For nothing.
Dornan would be back at the clubhouse by now, now that he’d kidnapped his secret son and dragged him back to Los Angeles, a son who would no doubt hate his father for ripping him from the only life he’d ever known. And in doing so, inadvertently, Dornan had killed something that hadn’t even lived.
There was a knocking at the door. Three sharp raps at first, then a yell.
Was he back already? God, no. Not now. Not like this. Another yell.
Relief flooded through me.
John.
I heard the lock hiss and the front door open.
‘Jesus,’ John said, falling to his knees beside me. He pulled my head into his lap, taking out his phone. His voice calling for an ambulance sounded so far away, it was like I was listening to someone in another universe.
‘Mariana!’ I heard him yelling. The sound was so faint. I opened my mouth and tried to respond, but the pain was too much, and the sound came out as a whimper.
I blacked out again.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
MARIANA
I was awake for bits and pieces of the ambulance trip. The emergency line operator had tried to convince John to drive me to the hospital, telling him that a miscarriage wasn’t life-threatening, but he’d been insistent. And with good reason. I wasn’t just having a miscarriage, I was haemorrhaging, and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. I came to in an operating theatre, my legs in stirrups and a kind-faced nurse stroking my cheek as I closed my eyes again.
Later, when I woke up, I was in a regular hospital bed. I tried to sit up, but the pain was excruciating. Even though no one had told me, even though I had no real way of telling, I knew the baby was gone.
John was dozing in the seat beside my bed, and when I tried to move he woke up, his bloodshot eyes finding mine. He reached for my hand, and I let him because I couldn’t bear not to touch him any longer.
‘Don’t sit up,’ he whispered. ‘You’ve just come out of surgery. You lost a lot of blood. Here, I’ll move the bed.’
He took a remote in his other hand and pressed a button, slowly inclining my head. The change in pressure made me dizzy, and I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning.
‘Where’s Dornan?’ I asked immediately, and John’s face fell.
‘Not here,’ he said, his mouth twisting. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
I nodded, squeezing his hand.
‘What did he do before I found you?’ John asked. ‘He says he hit you, but not hard enough to hurt you.’
I laughed mirthlessly. ‘It was hard enough,’ I said.
‘You lost the baby,’ John blurted out.
I nodded again. I looked at the ceiling for a moment. When I looked back to John, I saw angry tears in his eyes.
