Page 49 of Laying His Claim
The night she’d had that hideous fight with Justin; said all those awful things. Her decision to terminate her pregnancy. It hadn’t been selfishness, or a hatred of children. It hadn’t been about her or Justin, or how she’d felt about him. It had been stark fear, the terror that rose up in her heart every time she thought of the curse of her father’s disease, and the agony it had put him through.
The agony she herself would go through.
Her world blurred, faded in and out. She sensed Justin near, heard his voice as he called her name.
And that was all.
* * *
Another hospital room. Another hospital bed. God, she hated this.
Two blurred faces hovered within her vision. Justin’s and that tiny woman, Isabelle. The woman who had provided her with the code she’d been searching for, to unlock all her memories.
Oh, how she wished she hadn’t.
Isabelle fluttered and twittered like a hummingbird. “I’m so sorry, so sorry. I didn’t know.”
The sound of her voice pounded in Jalissa’s head. All she wanted right now was to be alone with her swirling, crashing thoughts. “It’s okay,” she murmured.
But Isabelle sputtered on, even as Justin tried to intervene. He put himself between the two women, all the while holding Jalissa’s hand. Jalissa forced the corners of her lips to curve upwards, like a marionette on strings.
“It’s fine, Isabelle. I’m just a bit tired.” Translation:please, go away and leave me alone.
Justin telegraphed the same message with a single look and Isabelle, flushing red, backed away, dropping her business card onto the side table, and practically running out of the room, leaving her alone with Justin.
Jalissa wasn’t sure if that was much better. Her emotions tossed and crashed, memories of the two of them together before her accident, arguing like monsters, blending jaggedly with images of the three of them, playing happy family with Seb. How could both images be true?
His lips gently brushed her damp brow. “How’re you feeling, Baby?”
That was all it took for her to collapse into tears.
“What’s wrong?” He looked horrified, unsure of how to help.
“I remember everything, Justin. You lied to me. We’re not engaged. You asked me to marry you and I refused.”
Desperation colored his words as he nodded in agreement. “Yes, I lied. I lied about our engagement. But what if I hadn’t? What if I’d sat back in silence while the doctors advised Kaiya to authorize a termination? Would Seb be here right now?” His voice cracked with emotion. “Would you rather our beautiful boy had never been born?”
“Seb! Oh, my goodness. What have you done? Seb! Oh my God.”
“Please calm down, Jalissa. Talk to me. You’re not making sense. Seb is fine. I’m s—.
The agony in his voice killed her, but fear triumphed, and her tears flowed anew. “No, he’s not! Don’t you understand? I have Huntington’s disease. I am dying. Seb too.”
Justin paled. “Huntington’s disease? It can’t be all that serious—” he began, but Jalissa cut him off.
“What if I’m pregnant now?” Her mind was frantic with dark possibilities.
He gaped, then grinned. “Are you?”
She shook her head, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I could be.”
He tried to put his arms around her. “That’s wonderful, Baby.”
“Wonderful?” she yelled. “Don’t you understand? I never wanted kids. Huntington’s disease is a life sentence, Justin! My dad died at the age of forty-five, my grandmother before, at the age of fifty. You let this happen with your damn single-minded determination to keep me!”
The incredulity and puzzlement on his face broke Jalissa’s heart, and she sank into sobs. The ghost of Old Jalissa mocked her, threw at her memory after memory of her recklessness. A voice at the back of her head mocked her. This wasn’t Justin’s fault. It was hers.
With great effort, she gasped, “Justin, please leave.”
