Page 75 of Forbidden Mistress

Our baby. What right does he have to talk about our baby?

Shaking my head, I step back from him, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “No. No. You’ve betrayed me in the worst possible way. I can’t forgive what you’ve done, not now. Maybe not ever.”

The look on his face is pure pain, and I wish I could feel good about inflicting it. But there’s a heaviness in my chest that makes it hard to breathe.

“Tell me what I can do, Cass.” It’s the first time in our lives that I’ve ever heard real fear in his voice, and it shakes me a little. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. If it’s money, I’ll transfer my whole fucking account to you right now—everything I have. It’s yours. Just…don’t walk away from this. From us.”

I swallow. “Money isn’t going to fix this.”

A year ago, it might have. If only he’d just given me what I was owed from my dad’s estate, then things wouldn’t have been so strained between us. But now, God, so much has happened—and coming back from it…I just don’t think it’s possible.

“I love you, Cass,” he says again. There’s anguish in his voice, unshed tears in his eyes. His bare sincerity guts me.

I swallow. How I wish things could have been different. But as my dad would say, you can’t unring a bell. What’s done is done.

“If you love me, Liam, then you can prove it by walking away right now and leaving me alone.”

Chapter 30

Confessions in the Dark

“I feel like I’m dying,” I blurt out from underneath the covers.

Avery is sitting next to me on my bed, peering under the comforter where I’ve spent the last two weeks, since that confrontation with Liam on the beach. “You need to get out of bed, Cassie. Get some fresh air.”

“I don’t feel well.”

Which is the truth. The first trimester of pregnancy is proving to be brutal, as it turns out. I never went to the clinic appointment Haley set up for me. I decided to keep the baby, come what may. But in all honesty, it’s not the near-constant nausea that’s keeping me in bed. It’s the heavy ache in my chest. I miss Hart. Or Liam. Or whoever he is. I miss the warmth and intimacy I’d found with him. The connection. I’ve never felt that with anyone before, and now that it’s gone…I feel lost.

Sam pokes her head in from the doorway. “We’re worried about you, Cassie. What about your classes?”

“I’ve emailed my professors, and I have people recording my classes. I’ll get caught up.” Eventually. Maybe. Right now, none of that seems to matter. If my grades plummet, then they plummet. I can’t summon the energy to care.

Avery pushes a lock of my uncombed hair behind my ear. “What about your mom?”

“She texted me. My stepbrother delayed his trip back east.” I fight back the tears that form whenever I think about him. At first, it was anger, but over the last week or so, the anger has dissolved into a deep, soul-crushing feeling of loss and sadness that I just can’t seem to shake.

“Well, you’re not eating, and we’re really worried,” Avery says. “Think of the baby,” she adds almost under her breath.

The baby is making me sick as hell with a complete loss of appetite so I’m not feeling guilty.

Avery and Sam share a long look. “Well, sweetie, you have to take care of yourself. At least have some of the juice I brought up.”

To shut them up, I grab the glass, take a sip of the sickly sweet apple juice, battle a wave of nausea, then set it aside. Fighting a shudder, I settle back into my blankets. “I just need to sleep. Please?”

Avery frowns. “That’s pretty much all you’ve been doing. How ‘bout you get up and take a nice hot shower? You’ll feel like a brand-new person afterward.”

I eye my perpetually optimistic roommate. Will that new person she promises I’ll be still be knocked up?

The girls soon get the hint and leave me alone again, thank God. Haley just moved into one of the empty bedrooms, and Avery, I think, has been sharing with her temporarily to allow me privacy in my wallowing.

I only get up to use the bathroom. And that’s all too frequent, thanks to my condition. The girls have brought me plates of food that they’ve had to return to the kitchen hours later, untouched. I know they’re worried about me. I can hear the conspiratorial whispers just outside the door.

I’m too weak and tired to care. I wish I was too dehydrated to make tears. I’ve been crying way too much. I’d say 50 percent of my waking hours are spent crying and sniffling. I don’t even have the strength to read or watch something on my laptop. I just lie here and stare at the ceiling.

It’s nighttime and the room is dark when there’s a tap at my door again. I can only imagine what they’ve plated up for me tonight in order to coax me to eat.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want any!” I call out. “But…thanks anyway.”

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