Page 18 of Finding Forever

“What matter?”

She gulped in a deep breath. She couldn’t will this away. She didn’t want to. It was her entire reason for proposing this mad venture to him in the first place. The past twenty-four hours had been crazy and distracting enough to shove it to the back of her mind, but it had never been completely gone. How could it be? When it was so precious to her.

“I didn’t want to push it when you’d so vehemently rejected the notion. I was afraid you wouldn’t help me and I couldn’t risk that, Cade.”

He swallowed and his eyes involuntarily darted down to her stomach, before he jerked them back up to her face. His expression had hardened into stone.

“I wasn’t lying about being pregnant,” she whispered, hating that she sounded so apologetic. She wasn’t sorry about this pregnancy. Not one bit. It had given her hope and a reason to fight. She loved the tiny flicker of life in her uterus fiercely and she’d already taken massive, life-altering measures to protect it.

She picked up her purse from the seat next to her and scratched around in the untidy interior before she pulled out her journal and flipped it open to retrieve the grainy ultrasound image that she’d tucked between the pages. She unfolded it and smoothed her palm lovingly over the crease in the center of the paper, before leaning forward to hand it to him with a badly shaking hand.

He stared at the offering blankly for a few long, agonizing seconds before—with clear reluctance—grasping a corner gingerly between his thumb and forefinger and taking it from her.

“You can’t see much, I know,” she whispered, her voice thready with anxiety. “It’s a six-week ultrasound, taken a couple of weeks ago. I had to sneak out to a clinic to have itdone. Just a little blob at that stage. An embryo really. But it’s there. It exists.”

He stared down at the image, as if not entirely certain what he was looking at. His expression was still stony, but there was a fine, barely noticeable tremor in the hand holding the picture.

“It’s definitely mine?” he asked, his voice filled with gravel the size of boulders.

“Yes,” she whispered, uncertain of his reaction and a little resentful that he was able to disguise his feelings to such an extent.

His eyes snapped up to hers, pinning her to the spot.

“I used a condom. Are you absolutely sure?”

She fought not to be offended by what—to a man like Niall Caden Hawthorne—was a very fair question.

“Yes. I wasn’t… I’m not very experienced. There hasn’t been anyone since you.”

“What about before me?” he asked and she flushed and tugged at the high collar of her blouse in an effort lessen the restriction at her throat.

“No. Never.”

“Ever?” His voice was incredulous. “How is that possible? You’re twenty-seven.”

“I told you, I was isolated from the outside world and rarely left unsupervised.”

“Fuck,” he murmured beneath his breath, his fist closing around the ultrasound image, crumpling it. She bit back a protest at the action—reminding herself that she had a copy—and fought back the urge to snatch it away from him. “Fuck.”

The secondfuckwas loud, angry…and finally gave her some insight into what he was feeling. And it wasn’t anything good.

“So that was your first time? That night?”

“Yes.”

“Goddamnit,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know… I could maybe have made it better for you, even if?—”

“Even if you weren’tintoit?” she completed and he grimaced. She rolled her eyes and continued. “Let’s forget about the sex, okay? It’s not the most important part of this conversation. I’m sorry your pride was bruised because you didn’t deliver peak performance, but that’s not?—”

“Terrible virgin sex that left you pregnant. Fuck me, it’s the world’s worst cliche,” he muttered beneath his breath.

Fern was starting to wonder if all this deflection was because he wasn’t quite ready to deal with the reality of her condition yet.

“Cade,” she prompted gently. “About the baby.”

“I don’t know what—” He swallowed, his fist tightening around the crumpled paper in his hands. “I never gave much thought to fatherhood.”

“I’m not asking you to be my baby’s father, Cade. I don’t expect that. Or want that. I just thought you should know the truth. Because I couldn’t let you continue believing I would lie about such a thing. Not when I’ll start showing soon.”

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