“I won’t be long. You two have a lot to catch up on …” The nurse gave Henry a pointed look before strapping a blood pressure monitor to my arm and shoving a thermometer into my ear.
“We do?” I asked, confused. I glanced at Henry, who suddenly seemed very interested in something out the window. “I feel like we’re pretty well caught up, now.”
“Oh, so you told her?” the nurse asked. Henry’s head shot in her direction.
“Not everything,” he admitted sheepishly. “To be fair, it’s been an eventful forty-eight hours, and she only just woke up.”
The air felt suddenly charged with tension.
“You know,” I mumbled, taking another sip of water, trying to alleviate the weird vibes. “This is the first time I’ve been a patient inside an actual hospital. Isn’t that insane? I had my IUD inserted in a grimy little clinic out the back of a real estate agency in Bucharest, on a fold-out table … I can look back at it now and laugh, but at the time …la naiba, why am I telling you this?”
“No more secrets, Catnip.” Henry murmured, as the nurse scribbled on my chart. “But, uh … speaking of your IUD …”
He glared at the nurse, who was standing by the foot of the bed, eyes wide and trained on me. “Any chance you can get my wife a sandwich, maybe some orange juice? She hasn’t eaten in a day.”
The nurse’s expression turned from excited to business-like. “Yes … well, I’ll just be on my way. Good luck!” She winked at Henry before she darted out the door, closing it firmly behind her.
“Why is she wishing you luck?” I asked, taking another drink. “And why do you want to talk about my IUD?”
Redness crept up his neck, spreading to his face. “It’s been removed.”
I blinked. Was I still out of it? I watched his face, but aside from looking flustered, he was clearer than ever. No, I was definitely not hallucinating this.
“Why?”
“Because you’re pregnant.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Those Three Words
IRINA
Iinhaled mid slurp, coughing wildly. Henry leapt to his feet, sitting me up, patting and rubbing my back until I managed to suck in a proper breath.
“You didnotjust say what I think you said,” I blathered, setting down my water on the little wheelie table that hovered over my legs.
Henry climbed onto the bed, taking my face in his hands. “I have never been more serious in my life, Ri. You were concussed, drifting in and out of consciousness when we got here. It’s routine procedure to do a pregnancy test when a woman presents with any form of trauma.”
“But … I am—I was—on birth control …” My stomach churned, and I swallowed back the nausea.O Doamne, was this morning sickness? No, it couldn’t be. I’d had a head injury; they made people feel sick!
But I had been queasy for days before the concussion. And hadn’t I noticed I’d been so much more emotional lately? Pregnant people’s emotions went crazy, didn’t they?
“It’s rare, but IUD’s can fail,” Henry explained. “And given what you just said about how you got it in the first place, it’s no wonder.” He pulled in a deep breath. “They removed it because there are risks, to you, and … the baby, but none of this means you have to … we don’t have to keep it. You have options, Catnip.”
I swallowed again, this time around a lump in my throat. My head was swimming.
“There’s a baby growing inside me?” I asked, my voice a tiny squeak. “Like, you’re not joking. I’m baking a tiny human … right now?”
Henry’s expression softened. “You are.”
“Wow.” My vision blurred, and I closed my eyes. “This is …”
“It’s unexpected,” Henry finished, fingers grazing my cheek. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, and I was there when they came in with the test results.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted quietly, finding Henry’s hand and winding our fingers together. “I didn’t see my mother for the whole of her pregnancy with Andrei, but I was there, in the room when my mother had just given birth. There was so much blood! And she just … slipped away, while my uncle watched.”
Henry’s lips brushed my forehead, warm and comforting. “I would never let that happen to you. But you don’t have to go through with the pregnancy. If you don’t want this, just say the word. I’m with you no matter what you decide.”
