“It’s not as bad as before.”
“It’s a lot of blood. I’m worried that it’s too much,” he fretted.
“I’m fine.”
“Kenna…”
“I’m a doctor, Smith.”
He scrubbed at his wet cheeks with both hands and glared at her over the tops of his fingers.
“Doctors should never self-diagnose,” he pointed out. He pushed to his feet and held out a hand to her. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
His voice was so painfully tender it brought a fresh well of tears to her eyes. She took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. She was shaky and still bleeding a little. But the wrenching pain wasn’t as bad as before.
An hour later when the obstetrician confirmed their worst fears, Smith folded Kenny into his strong arms and held her tightly against his chest while she wept inconsolably.
Mourning the loss of their baby, as well as the already fragile relationship which couldn’t possibly survive this tragedy.
Day 23
“No. Absolutely not.” Smith folded his arms and glared at Kenny, face set, eyes blazing.
She stared at him with a slack jaw, flabbergasted and fuming at his strong negative reaction to her appearance. She was dressed in a beautifully tailored linen cream pant suit. With flowy wide-legged trousers that made her legs look longer, and a wrap tie vest. It was one of her favorite outfits. She always feltattractive in it and she needed the extra boost to her ego and self-esteem this morning.
“Smith, I have to go back to work today. I have extremely ill patients who need me. And I’ve been away for too long.”
“I wouldn’t call two days too long. That’s a fuckingweekend. You need more time.”
“You don’t know what I need,” she retorted, her voice mild and her tone dismissive. “And you don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. I’m fine. I’m going back to work.”
He raked his fingers through his hair, his agitation adding a tremor to that strong hand. “Kenna, you’ve just been through?—”
She cut him off, not wanting to hear it. Not needing the reminder. “It was nothing. I’m fine. I have more important?—”
“Itwasn’tnothing.” His sharp tone cut through her defensive words with surgical precision. “It wasn’t fucking nothing, Kenna. It was something. And it happened to you. It happened tous. And that’s important too. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself a goddamn minute to grieve and recover both physically and emotionally.”
Her voice dropped to a distraught whisper. “This is the only way I know how to do that.”
His lips clamped shut on whatever he’d been about to say next and his jaw tightened. Those piercing green eyes bored into hers and she swallowed uncomfortably, not sure what to make of that intent stare.
“You’re really going to do this?”
Her hand tightened around the handle of her briefcase. The loaded question confused her because she wasn’t at all certain what he meant by it.
“I’m not?—”
“You’re going to pretend that it never happened? That it didn’t matter? Thathedidn’t matter?”
Her throat seized up at the barrage of questions and shefought hard to keep her expression under control, not wanting him to see the anguish hiding behind her calm veneer.
“I have to go,” she whispered through stiff lips. “Paul is waiting with the car.”
She brushed by him to make her way to her driver.
“You can’t possibly be this cold.”
The words drifted toward her in an anguished undertone and she halted for the briefest of moments, her back to him, as she absorbed the hit. For those few awful seconds she allowed herself to feel, allowed every soul-destroying emotion that lurked just beneath her paper-thin skin to show on her face, before she squared her shoulders. She scraped every errant emotion back into her chest, desperate to escape from the anger, grief, and pain she could hear in his furious voice.
