I pressed a shaking palm to my chest. It felt like it was caving in. My breath became shallow and useless. My skin prickled hot, then cold raced down my spine. The floor tilted.
A voice broke through the ringing in my ears. “Kate? Kate…what the hell’s wrong?”
I tried to answer, but the room was collapsing in on itself. The last thing I felt was the floor dropping out and his arms catching me before I hit it.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Jordan
“Kate? Kate!”
Her knees buckled before I could even process what the hell was happening. One second she was standing there with her phone clutched tight in her hand, the next she was folding in on herself, gasping like she couldn’t breathe.
I barely caught her in time. My heart fucking stopped.
“Jesus. Katie, breathe, babe, just breathe.” Her skin was clammy, her chest heaving under my hands, eyes wide and unfocused. I didn’t think it was the baby, but she was for sure having a panic attack.Shit.My stomach twisted hard.
I eased her down onto the side of the bed, crouched in front of her, trying to get her to look at me. “Hey. In through your nose, out through your mouth, yeah? I’ve got you. Nothing’s gonna happen to you, I promise.”
Her phone slipped from her hand. The screen lit up on the carpet.
That’s when I saw it.
The headline. The stupid, fucking headline.
Exclusive: JORDAN TAYLOR’S FIANCÉE’S PAST UNEARTHED.FROM IVF TROUBLES TO TRAPPING THE TENNIS STAR WITH NEW BABY.
My vision went red.
I snatched the phone up, scanning the rest. A grainy shot of us in Melbourne, her hand over the bump, right next to a goddamn wedding photo of her and that smug bastard. Paragraphs dripping with bullshit. How she’d “moved on fast,” how she’d “trapped me with a baby.”
I could feel my pulse pounding at the base of my skull.
“Un-fucking-believable.” My hands shook around the phone. “They think they can do this to you? To us?”
Kate whimpered, pressing her palms over her ears like she could shut it all out. That sound near broke me. I dropped the phone, grabbed her face instead, forcing her eyes to mine.
“Listen to me. None of that shit is true. Not one word of it. You hear me?” My voice cracked with the sheer force of it. “You are not their fucking story. You’re my fiancée, the mother of my son, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And I swear to God, Kate, I will burn every single one of these parasites to the ground before I let them touch you.”
Her chest was rising too fast, too shallow. Her hand clutched at the front of her T-shirt, like it was restricting her breath.
“Kate,” I said sharply, dropping to my knees in front of her. “Babe, look at me. Breathe with me, yeah? The baby needs you to be okay. Our son needs you to be okay right now.”
She shook her head, gasping, eyes frantic. “I can’t…I can’t…”
My stomach dropped. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” I murmured, catching her hands, pressing them flat to my chest. “Right here. Feel that? That’s me. Just breathe with me. In and out. That’s it, Katie-girl.”
Her breaths stuttered against mine, her nails biting into my skin, but slowly the rhythm evened.
“Good. You’re safe. I’m right here,” I kept whispering until her body started to soften in my arms. My shirt was damp from her tears, my pulse still going a hundred miles an hour.
I wanted to break things. I wanted to burn that article to the groundand throttle Andrew with my bare hands. But right now? None of that mattered. All that mattered was her, tight against me, shaking like the world had caved in.
The phone buzzed again. Gwen’s name. I snatched it up before Kate could even flinch.
“Gwen…” My voice was rough.
“She hasn’t called me back.” Gwen’s voice was sharp and anxious. “Jordan, what’s happening? Is she?—”
