Page 81 of Wicked Ruin

I taste the salt of my own tears between us. When he pulls back, his forehead drops to mine.

“A baby, Bridget.” He breathes it more than says it. “How? I… I thought you were on birth control.”

“I was,” I say into his chest. “Dr. Rosenberg thinks it was the immunosuppressant I was on after remission? It interferes with birth control. He said he should have flagged it more clearly.” A beat passes. “He felt terrible about it. I told him it wasn't his fault.” I manage something almost like a laugh. “I'm not sure either of us believed me.”

“Have you told anyone yet?” he asks, pulling back just enough to look at me. His hands haven't left my face. “Who knows?”

“Me, you, and Dr. Rosenberg.” I shake my head. “No one else. He didn’t even have a nurse in the room because he knew the need for privacy.”

He's silent for a moment. “I don't know what to say,” he says finally. “A baby. A baby that could look like you.”

Oh, Declan.

My hands rest on his wrists. “You don't have to say anything right now,” I tell him. And then, because I can't help myself, “And if you move to America⁠—”

“What? Move to America?” He says it like I've suggested something genuinely absurd. His hands drop to my shoulders.

He lowers his voice when I meet his eyes. “Woman. You are pregnant with my baby. My child. Do you really think I’m the kind of man who walks away from his child?”

Well, when he puts it that way, I feel a little guilty.

“But you’re… engaged to be married.” I hate even saying the words.

He stares at me, his brows knitting.

“Jesus, Bridge,” he says. “I know. But I am absolutely not moving to America.” A car horn beeps in the distance, and nearby, a child laughs out loud, and someone hails a taxi. Around us, the world keeps turning as it always has, while our personal world has been tipped on its axis.

He's pacing, and I've never seen him pace before, not once. Something about that undoes me more than anything else has.

“Declan—”

“Just—” He holds up a hand, not unkindly. “Give me a second.”

I give him a second. Then ten.

He stops, reaches for me, and pulls me to him. His hand rests on my belly, and he inhales deeply, as if taking a cleansing breath.

He stays there for a moment, and whatever was unraveling in him has pulled tight again into something that looks a lot like purpose.

“That's the bitch of it, isn't it?” he says.

“Yeah.” We stay there, his hand on my belly, the street carrying on around us as if nothing has happened. Then something loosens in my chest, and I laugh, just a little, because I love this man, and I am so tired of carrying this alone. “I know.”

But he doesn't move. His hand is warm through my shirt, and he's looking at me with an expression I don't have a name for yet, the one that's been on his face since he read the pamphlet. The one that says I'm his now in a way I never have been before. I don't know what that looks like with all the odds stacked against us, but there it is.

His phone buzzes a third time. He exhales through his nose, drops his forehead briefly to mine with a breath I feel in my bones, and steps back. He takes the phone from his pocket, looks at the screen, and his jaw tightens. He dials.

“I won't be making the fitting.” His voice is completely level.

I can hear her from where I'm standing. Cool. Clipped.

“Excuse me?”

“I said I won't be making it.” He's not looking at me. He's staring into the distance, shoulders relaxed, his jaw set—the posture of a man who has already decided and is simply informing the relevant parties.

“Declan,” she says sharply. “This is the third time you've⁠—”

“Cancel it, Valentina.”