Page 68 of Wicked Ruin

I want Cormac and Aileen as my parents. I would be so good to them.

My god, these pregnancy hormones are driving me up a wall.

“We just went to get ice cream,” I say, shaking my head. “And then these men came at us—they must have been following us because they just came out of nowhere and picked a fight.” Aileen grimaces, but Cormac nods. “Declan got… protective, and the next thing I knew, the entire ice cream parlor had cleared, and they were on the attack.”

“Oh my god.” Aileen covers her mouth. “What did you do?”

“I texted Cavin straight away. Thankfully, the bodyguards had actually followed us there—they didn't wait for instructions.”

“They did what they had to,” Mr. McCarthy says, his eyes snapping with something cold and certain. This is why they call him the gentle giant. He is kind and protective, and he has that McCarthy edge to him they all share. He reaches for me. “Lass.”

Then I'm crying, swiping at my eyes all over again. Apparently, crying all over the McCarthys is my game plan tonight. “I’m sorry,” I manage to sniffle out.

“Don't you dare apologize for caring about my son,” Aileen says from behind me, her hands warm on my shoulders. “Don't you dare.”

And that's what breaks me properly. Not just Declan's injury. Not just the fear of not knowing. It's the knowledge that he's marrying someone else, and I'm standing in a hospital corridor, carrying his baby. These two wonderful people are treating me like I’m already in their family, and I can't say a single word about any of it.

I pull myself together, even though neither of them rushes me.

“You want to see him?” I ask, stepping back and swiping my face. “I'm so sorry. I've been holding you up⁠—”

“If you apologize one more time,” Aileen says, shaking her head as she tugs a strand of my hair. She winks. “The doctors are running some tests. We're just occupying time so we don't have to sit in that waiting room, imagining the worst. You've done us a favor.”

“Have you eaten?” Cormac asks. “Did you even get your ice cream?”

I smile sadly and shake my head.

“Come on, then,” Aileen says, slipping her arm through mine. “I happen to know the cafeteria is open late, and they do a very respectable ice cream for a hospital.”

Cormac is already on the phone. “Keenan. I'm sorry, I know it's late—” He rounds the corner ahead of us as Aileen and I walk down the hallway together. Then she takes my hand. Just that—her hand in mine.

Right now, it is the nicest thing anyone has done for me in months.

My god, what I wouldn't give to be able to tell her what I just found out, but I can't. It's way too complicated. Ugh, I can't even tell my own sister.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, and when I pull it out, I see a note from Dr. Rosenberg.

Dr. R

I feel the need to remind you that termination remains an option, Bridget. I know it's not my decision to make, and I wish you nothing but the best. But there may be serious complications, and given what I know of the McCarthy family situation, I don't know whether the father is in any position to support you through this.

I shove my phone in my pocket before Aileen can see it. She's very politely studying the menu board above the cafeteria counter and giving me a little privacy. Tactful. Of course she's tactful. She raised Declan.

I think about his message for longer than I’ll care to admit, even as the word complications repeats over and over in my mind.

But I'm already imagining a little face just like his. Those eyes. That chin. A little girl with her daddy's long lashes, or a little boy, larger than life, filling every room he walks into. I can feel it—not the baby, not yet. It’s too soon for that—but the life I could build around this… without him. Because it has to be without him.

Somewhere new. A story about a one-night stand and a man who was never in the picture. No one would ever have to know.

Aileen brings me back a cup of ice cream.

“Here y’are,” she says. “It was Declan's idea, wasn't it? The ice cream.”

“Mine, but he didn’t need asking twice.”

She laughs out loud as I take a spoonful, and there is something about the cold, creamy sweetness that actually distracts me for a moment. Just a moment.

“You wouldn’t believe it. He's been in touch with my doctor—got a response even though he's on holiday.” I shake my head.