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Chapter Thirty-Three
The scenethat met Leo’s eyes as he walked into Lucy’s doctor’s office told him he had been right to worry. Lucy had been standing stock still in the middle of the room, and Harper had been rushing at her to knock her down.
Lucy was now showing her pregnancy under the white sweatshirt and black leggings. Her chocolate locks were in a ponytail.
Before he could get to her, Harper grabbed Lucy as her body dropped lifeless to the floor. Harper’s body hit the ground first, letting her sister fall on top of her. The nurse at the desk was on the phone and watched everything that was happening.
“Lucy!” Harper yelled at her sister and slapped her cheeks. Lucy was laying on her, unmoving. “Wake up, Lucy!”
“What happened?” Leo fell to his knees beside them.
“I don’t know. She was pacing and then stopped. I knew she was fainting; I just knew.” Harper was rubbing Lucy’s arms as she spoke, and tears of concern were running down her cheeks. It was a different side of Lucy’s older sister that Leo had never seen, the concern and caring.
“Is it the babies?” he asked.
Before she could answer, emergency workers rushed into the room and lifted Lucy onto a stretcher with Leo and Harper following close behind. But when they pushed her into a room, neither were allowed to follow.
“I don’t know what happened. I was right there watching her.” Harper started to kick at the wall between her and her sister.
“Has this happened before?” His eyes were on the door, not the sister.
“No, but Agatha said she hasn’t been eating much. I even stopped making food so that she would eat, but she doesn’t. I’m worried for her and the babies.” He could hear the tears in her voice, but she didn’t look away from her foot, still kicking the wall.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you see her that week.” No need to say which week, they both knew.
“It was better I was not there. We used to be best friends. I don’t know if we will get that back again.” She turned and leaned against the wall, then slid down it so she was sitting on the floor, her knees up to her chest.
“What happened?” He had to know. Lucy said she didn’t know, but Harper had to.
“When I was working for Kaine, I made her do too much—so much she wasn’t even getting to sleep some nights. So, I hired people because I didn’t want her to work all the time. Then Kaine and I agreed to cut back on our workloads. I dropped events. But I just did it; I never asked her about it. I should have talked to her.” Harper had stopped kicking but was still looking at the wall.
“Yes, you should have,” he agreed, wondering if miscommunication could have been all it was.
“For years she never cared. When did she start caring? I’ve messed up everything for Lucy, and now I will never get her back. I’ll never get to work with her again, she says she doesn’t ever want to cook again.”
“She will cook again.”
“No, she quit because she thought I didn’t want her. It’s been months, and she never talked to me about it. She was my best friend once, but now she barely talks to me. Or anyone. I think she’s going to run away after the babies are gone.” She started kicking again.
“I think running away is extreme, Harper.” He touched Harper’s arm, and the kicking stopped.
Harper turned and looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Lucy is extreme, Leo, she always has been. Since the beginning, she’s been that way to hide who she really is. Since she was very young, she acted out, got in trouble. Even before Sera showed up, she smoked and drank and hung out with boys, acting out in ways that wouldn’t make people look at the real reason why she is the way she is. When it came out that she has dyslexia, she let us think she had fixed it. That she had changed. She got her job and stopped partying. But she didn’t fix it, because you can’t fix it. You can only manage it, and she was only pretending to do that. And now she’s stopped pretending.”
“She was an excellent personal assistant, Harper. I never even questioned whether or not she could read. It never crossed my mind,” Leo said. Though looking back, he saw the little things that she hid, that she adapted to help herself. She had done it so well he hadn’t noticed it.
“Maby says Lucy thinks she is a danger to the babies. But what happens when Mom and Buzz have their babies? She’ll take off. That’s what I would do if it were me.” Harper leaned against the wall.
Across from them, a door opened, and a man backed out telling everyone in the room, “I’m going to take a leak.”
He turned and clearly wasn’t happy to see Harper in the hallway. With the door securely closed, he smiled what Leo assumed the man thought was a flirty smile at the blonde. “Where is Luce?”
“Exam room.” Harper pointed at the closed door.
“This your husband or the baby’s dad?” He nodded at Leo.
“The baby’s dad,” Harper confirmed, then grinned for the first time since he had seen her. She got to her feet. “Leo, Kevin says his dick is bigger than yours.”
“Really? Why?” Leo looked at the man, who was staring at Harper in disbelief.
