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CHAPTERELEVEN

Trinity groaned. She couldn’t bring herself to even blink, much less move. Her entire body ached, and her head throbbed with the worst hangover she’d ever had.

She swallowed and nearly gagged at the wretched taste in her mouth. It was as if she’d eaten food right from a dumpster that had been sitting in the sun for five days and doused with antifreeze.

“Ugh.” She rolled from her stomach to her side and hit something solid with her back.

“Well, hello,” a familiar voice said.

Carefully, as not to upset the precarious balance in her head, she glanced over her shoulder.

Emmett lay propped up on a bunch of pillows with a book in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.

Her stomach churned. She wasn’t sure it was a good one, or one that would send her running for the bathroom.

Again.

“How long have you been there?”

“All night,” he said. “Someone had to hold your hair back.”

“Oh, God.” She covered her face and buried it in the mattress. “I remember drinking wine right from the bottle. I remember we sorted things out, a little bit. But it gets sketchy real quick.”

“You were angry with me, though I can’t say as I blame you.”

The bed shifted.

She placed her hands palm down and made sure her stomach could handle the movement before she sat up.

So far, so good.

She found the hair tie that she always had around her wrist and managed to pull her hair up into a messy bun on top of her head. It almost helped with the headache.

Almost.

“I was hurt and a little humiliated,” she said.

“I can understand.” He set his book on the nightstand and handed her his coffee.

She palmed it and sipped. “Oh. That’s good.” Her stomach accepted it, and that was a bit of a surprise. Her eyes adjusted to the bright lights. She glanced around the room, finding his cell propped up on a charging station. “It’s eleven?”

“You needed to sleep,” he said. “You were vomiting until five.”

“Why are you still in bed?” She glanced down and realized he wasn’t under the covers, and he was fully dressed.

“I’ve been in and out, checking on you.”

“If I weren’t still upset with you, I’d say that was sweet.” She palmed the mug and lifted it to her nose. The scent calmed her stomach. “Why did you automatically assume my saying we didn’t need birth control had to do with you? For all you knew, I could have been on the pill. Besides, you didn’t even let me finish my sentence. You totally interrupted me.”

“You’re right on all accounts. I have no excuse, and I’m not going to make any. What I did was wrong. However, I would like a chance to explain how I was feeling and what went through my mind and why, because it’s not only because I was told I can never father a child.”

“I believe that’s fair.” She set the coffee on the nightstand and twisted her body so she could focus her attention on Emmett.

“Having a family—children—used to be really important to me,” he said. “When Melinda and I got engaged, we didn’t want to wait. We started trying right away. We used to joke she would be waddling down the aisle, and we didn’t care. But month after month, it didn’t happen, and we kept not setting a date as we started to go through the process of finding out why. We discovered quickly that it was me. I saw a specialist who crushed our dreams. But he mentioned a sperm donor, and Melinda was all over that. I was grappling with my emotions and couldn’t believe she wanted to start looking right away.”

“I can understand you wanting to take a beat.”

“I wanted nothing to do with the idea of raising another man’s child.”

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