Page 55 of Twisted Empire

“You may have had some sort of bug at the time. Or it may have been a symptom of the cyst as it developed and grew larger over the weeks. Like I said, ovarian cysts are filled with hormones. Progesterone, estrogen, and so on. Too much of that in your system can throw you off balance and make you feel strange. The cyst would’ve caused the cramps before today, too. But that’s all it was. Just a cyst.”

“Just a cyst,” Tatum repeated softly. She shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”

I caught her eye. Something skimmed over her face, swift and shadowy. Fear.

“Could Tatum and I have a few minutes alone?” I asked curtly. The doctor nodded and left the room.

I waited for the door to close, and then I reached out and touched a hand to Tatum’s face, tilting her chin up so she was forced to look right at me. “I know what you’re thinking right now, but before you go down that road, let me tell you: I didn’t just help you escape and bring you here because I thought you were pregnant with my kid. Baby or no baby, I was always gonna get you the fuck out of that place. I love you for you, not just because I felt like I was being forced to.”

She nodded and gave me the faintest of smiles. “I know. I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

“But you seemed afraid,” I said, brows drawing together. “When you looked at me.”

She shook her head. “I was just thinking about how close I came to being murdered over being pregnant, when I was never even pregnant to begin with,” she murmured.

“I see.” I leaned over and pressed my lips to her forehead. “You don’t have to worry about that ever again. You know that, right?” I muttered against her warm skin.

I drew back. Tatum nodded. “I do. I just feel so…” She stopped midsentence and sighed. “I really thought we were having a baby, and now…”

She trailed off again, too choked with emotion to continue. I nodded. “I know. It was never there. But it was still real to us. That’s what matters.”

“So it’s not weird that I’m sad?” she asked, her eyes wide and watery.

“No. I feel the same,” I said gruffly. I stroked her cheek as a tear spilled down it. I hated seeing her like this, so pale and miserable. “Let’s try and look at it another way, Doll.”

“How?”

“We both know we want to have a baby with each other one day. Now we can choose when and where it happens. We can wait until we’re not on the run. Wait until my father and the rest of those scumbags are rotting in fucking prison. We can do it the right way. Like you said earlier, if we were in a different situation, without all this…” I swept my hand around me. “We’d be happy. Excited. Doing it all on our own terms.”

She nodded slowly. “Our choice.”

“Exactly. Not forced on you like this was in the first place.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she murmured, another tear slipping down her cheek. “It helps.”

“Good.” I leaned forward again, pressing the tip of my nose to hers. “It’ll happen, baby girl. We’ll have our own family, and we’ll be happy.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I can’t wait.”

I pulled back again, casting my gaze over her weary face. “You should probably get some rest.”

She nodded and took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering half-shut. “Could you thank Dr. Paulson for me?” she asked. “I was wrong about him.”

“It’s fine. I’ll go and get you some fresh clothes too,” I said, motioning toward her blood-soaked jeans. “I think these are beyond repair. I’ll just throw them out.”

Tatum nodded and yawned. Then she sat up straight all of a sudden, wincing at the movement. Her eyes were wide open. “Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” I asked, trying to get her to lie down again.

“The clothes. Don’t throw them out.”

“Why?” I glanced at her with a perplexed expression. Perhaps she wanted to keep them around as a reminder of what we felt we’d lost today. The baby that never was. That didn’t seem healthy to me, though. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to keep looking at them. It’ll just make you feel morb—”

She cut me off in a hurried voice, one hand in the air. “It’s not that. Remember we were talking earlier about finding a way back into the Lodge to get that stash of stuff from your dad?”

I frowned. That wasn’t what I expected to hear at all. “Yeah.”

Tatum swallowed hard and went on. Her voice was shaky, but her eyes flashed with determination. “I think I might have a real idea now.”

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