“You were leaving work and you fainted. In the parking lot.”
“Oh my God.” My hand rushes to my face. I feel like I might pass out again. Strangely, nothing hurts.
Then I remember?—
My hand touches my belly as every cell in my body is consumed with guilt and worry. “Is the baby okay? Did you check the baby?”
“We ran a full ultrasound while you were sleeping.” The nurse smiles. “The baby is fine.”
“Oh, thank God.” I melt back into the bed, as foreign as it is. But the relief is temporary as I continue to put the puzzle together. “How did I get here?”
“You were lucky. Someone just happened to be standing by your car when you fainted. He brought you in.”
So I was at work. Leaving work and fumbling to put my key in the door, a door that doesn’t always like to open even when it’s unlocked. And someone was standing there…close enough to catch me.
Someone who was towering over me.
Someone in black.
Someone…
“Hello,Erin.”
I barely stop myself from screaming.
I was so caught up in figuring out where I am and whether or not the baby was okay that I didn’t even clock the dark form sitting in the corner of the room.
Something about Ransome’s voice has a way of tipping the nurse off that we need privacy. She quietly excuses herself, though not without meeting my eyes for a hard second while handing me the call light.
“… Or should I say Amara?” he asks as soon as she leaves.
“What are you doing here?”
He comes into light. The outfit is the same as the dream, which tells me it wasn’t a dream at all.
“I heard you’ve been keeping secrets from me,” he answers vaguely.
It confuses me—until I look at where his eyes are.
My belly.
I cover myself up with the scratchy hospital blanket. “How did you hear?”
“I sent Maverick.”
So that wasn’t a dream either. I knew I saw him. I knew I wasn’t just paranoid and my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me.
A lot of things are starting to make sense now. And it makes me mad.
“You’ve been stalking me,” I accuse him.
“I hardly think that’s a word you can throw in my face.”
He’s refusing to look at me any more than he has to, which is fine. I don’t really want to look at him either. Now that I know the baby is fine, I don’t want to be here.
“I thought you wanted me gone,” I say.
“I do.”
