“Mitch, I think you two need to clear the air,” he said gently. “Come over to sit with him?”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat and looked up to where Clark towered over me. “After the hearing?”
Clark shook his head. “Reggie called a recess for you two to talk. We have about fifteen minutes but Dane has to stay at the defendant’s table.”
I exhaled hard and pushed to my feet, staring at Clark’s heels while I followed him to the table. Settling into the chair he pulled out for me, I couldn’t find it in me to look at Dane. “We don’t need to do this,” I said quickly. “I, well, I had a hunch that was why you were pulling away. It’s, um, not fine, I guess but I understand.” I forced a laugh. “I mean, we knew it wasn’t forever, right?”
When Dane didn’t respond, I pushed my chair back from the table. “I’m gonna go. Um, good luck with this,” I added, gesturing toward the magistrate’s bench.
No one else spoke and I stood, but Dane caught my wrist in his hand and held it, gently but firmly holding me in place.
“Really?” The warm, gentle tone I was used to from him was gone, replaced with one that was harsh and bitter. “You’re the one keeping things from me, who doesn’t trust me enough to include me in decisions that affect both of us and you’re just going to blame everything on me and walk out?” He snorted in disgust and released my wrist. “Fine. Go dump your milk and eat sushi and get Listeria from fucking turkey sandwiches. I guess you’d already decided it wasn’t forever.”
“Me?” I shot back. “You haven’t even touched me since you all pulled me out of that damned cabin! How is this…” I trailed off when his words registered. “What the fuck? You broke up with me for eating sushi and being lactose intolerant?”
Clark’s head was ping-ponging between us as we snarled at each other and then, without warning, he laughed. Not a giggle. Not a chuckle. A deep, full-on belly laugh that had him bracing his hands on his knees and gasping for breath. Dane and I both turned to him, slack-jawed.
“This is funny to you?” Dane ground out through clenched teeth.
“Yeah,” Clark said, wiping tears from his eyes. “It actually is. You two are so blind that I can’t even believe it.” He took a couple of deep breaths and nodded toward my chair. “Mitch, will you sit back down for a minute? I think I can help clear this up.”
I perched on the very edge of my seat in protest. “What?”
Clark took a deep breath and, in a voice still rife with amusement asked, “Mitch, are you pregnant?”
Dane snapped, “Yes.”
At the same moment, I huffed, “Of course not.”
Dane choked out, “You’renot?”
My head jerked up. “Of course, I’mnot!What the fuck are you talking about?”
Chapter Forty
Dane
The charges against me were dropped after Clark assured the judge that I would pay for all of the damage that the damned drunken bear had caused.
At least, I was fairly certain the charges were dropped, but, honestly, I was staring dumbfounded at the Omega who’d returned to waiting in the gallery, knee bouncing as he seethed and refused to meet my eyes. Judge Becker had been smiling broadly when he shooed me out of the courtroom, blithely announcing that I could keep the prison scrubs at no charge.
The ride to the clinic was silent. The tension in the Uber was so thick that even the driver was side-eyeing us in the rearview mirror. While the nurse tweezed rock salt out of my butt cheek, I could see Shelly leaning against a wall outside, not even willing to come into the waiting room. The clinic was only three blocks from the apartment, so we walked home but Shelly still never spoke to me. It wasn’t until the front door closed behind me that he turned to face me, eyes flashing.
“What the fuck got into you?”
I held in a sigh and leaned against the door. “Can I sit down?”
Shelly stepped to the side allowing me to pass but stayed by the door.
“Come sit with me?” I ventured hesitantly.
“No.”
Okay, then. “It was something that Leia said when we were trying to find you,” I started to explain. “After she had her vision, she told me to go and get my family.” I chanced a look up at Shelly, but he was still stone-faced. “Not myOmega,” I stressed. “Myfamily.”
Shelly was staring at me like I’d grown a second head. “And?”
I shrugged. “That was all.”
