Page 144 of Crimson Tears

She scrunches her brows and shakes her head. “It’s just some bad food, Killer. I’m fine.”

“Answer me, Ness.” She can live in denial all she wants, but if she is pregnant with my child, I need to know.

“I don’t know.” She glares at me. “But I can’t think about that right now.”

I grit my teeth but understand her resistance. She feels like shit, and the thought of becoming a mother is probably the last thing she was planning and even more overwhelming when you’ve been vomiting.

Can you imagine me as a father? That’d be a disaster.

“Fuck you, Killer.” Nessa groans, staggering out of bed and walking slowly to the bathroom with her IV pole.

She slams the door behind her, but we can still hear her as she yells at us. “It’s food poisoning, but now I’m up to check the strings on my IUD while I feel like shit because you decided to panic over nothing!”

I would laugh if this were actually funny, but the fact that she goes silent after a minute makes my body feel hot all over.

Not in a good way either. This is like full blown panic, my face is turning red because my heart rate just skyrocketed, kind of hot.

She opens the door, eyes wide as she looks between us.

“They aren’t there.” Tears stream down her face as trepidation sets in. “Why are they not there, Cillian?”

I can see she’s about to fall to her knees, but Boris beats me to it and scoops her up. He carries her to my side of the bed and sets her down gently between us.

“We’ve had so much sex. So so so much sex.”

She starts rambling the same words over and over with her head in her hands. Doc comes into the room looking concerned.

“I need to speak with Nessa,” he says, but all three of us shake our heads.

“I’m pregnant, aren’t I?” The solemn look on her face tells me everything I need to know.

He nods, and it’s as if all of our fears were unleashed with that one simple gesture. In the matter of a few minutes, our world is tilted on its axis.

Nessa starts to cry, but I shake my head, needing some space to deal with this. I never wanted children, neither of us did. And now that she is growing a baby inside of her, one that could very well be mine, I’m terrified.

I bolt, leaving my girl’s side because I remember the look on her face when she swore to me she would never bring a child intothis world. But all I want right now is for her to promise me that if it’s mine, she’ll keep it.

And that’s not fair to ask.

Chapter 42

I hold onto Nessa as she cries in my arms. It seems her nausea has subsided but has been replaced with something new. Something terrifying.

Nessa is pregnant. We are going to have a child. A baby.

Cillian gets up and leaves, only making matters worse. Doc explains that the really bad period she had in the hospital must have been a sign that the IUD was displaced. He’s going to bring some equipment to the house to see if she passed it or if it is still inside of her.

Nessa doesn’t hear any of this though. The moment the tears stop, a silent resolve overtakes her.

“Why did I just start vomiting now? Is that a sign it’s still early?”

Doc shakes his head. “Not really. It could be a number of things. When you’re pregnant, you’re not supposed to have massages because of the release of lactic acid build-up. It can trigger extreme nausea and discomfort or send you into labor. That, combined with getting in and out of the hot tub probably sent you into some sort of shock. Once your body processed it, you began vomiting. The choice of food and alcohol was probably not a helpful factor.”

Nessa presses her lips into a thin line. She hasn’t had a period in almost five months, she could be four months pregnant easily.How did I not see this?

“I don’t want it,” she says to Doc before he can leave the room, and my heart skips a beat, breaking a little inside.

“First, I need to check how far along you are and whether or not it’s viable with the IUD placement. Then, I can give you the best course of action.”

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