Page 46

“Ow!” I yelp, jerking away.

Pace gives his brother a look. “She’s got a knot on her head.” Lex immediately shoots to his feet, face stony and focused as he cradles my jaw, forcing me to face him.

“What happened here?” he asks.

“It’s nothing,” I insist, letting him look his fill. Anything else would be too suspicious. “It’s just a zit.”

Lex’s jaw hardens. “Do I look like an idiot? Pace, get me one of those wipes. Let’s see what’s beneath all this makeup.”

“Fine, okay?” I relent, dreading the ensuing fuss. “I fell out of bed this morning and hit my head on the nightstand.”

Pace palms my cheek, tilting my face as he runs a wipe over the tender area. “Likely story,” he mutters, his dark eyes honing in on what’s revealed beneath Stella’s cover-up job. “There,” he says, looking all at once pleased and incensed. “That’s a bruise.”

When I dare glance at Lex, I find the anger I’ve been anticipating. “Fuckingliar.”

“I knew you’d make a big deal out of it,” I snap, swatting Pace’s hands away, “and it’snothing. Just a tiny bump!”

But it’s like they don’t even hear me.

“This is so fucking typical of him,” Pace says, face tight. “Making us jump into a commitment he can’t keep.”

It’s only then that I realize their anger isn’t being directed at me.

It’s for Wicker.

“And making more work for me while he’s at it,” Lex grits out, pulling a tiny penlight from his lab coat pocket. He shines it invasively into my eyes. “Jeopardizingmyjob.”

I spend this exchange trying to figure out why Pace has even been invited to our appointment. Annoyed, I ask Lex, “Why is he even here?”

“Because I want to hear it,” Pace says, overhearing. He raises his chin, dark eyes lingering on my breasts. “Because it’s my right.”

“Hearwhat?”

Lex snaps, “I’m checking for a fetal heartbeat today, and if you’ll both be quiet and let me work, maybe I can do it before Father returns and demands to be in here, too.”

The room falls so silent that we can hear the hum of the ultrasound machine when Lex flips it on. It’s bad enough that Pace is here watching. The thought of Ashby standing at my bedside, his creepy eyes assessing my nude body…

It’s all I can do to not retch.

There’s a strange shift in the air with Pace here, a change in the routine. I’m never quite sure which version of Lex is going to show up: the cold, methodical doctor, or the dirty-talking Lagan. But Pace? He likes to be in control, and this isn’t his realm. Lex grabs the bottle of gel and shakes it before squeezing out a glob on my stomach.

“What’s the lube for?” Pace asks.

“It allows the monitor to glide smoothly over the skin.” Lex picks up the wand and presses the end to my belly. “It also helps the sound waves carry.”

He rolls the end of the wand over my belly, using various levels of pressure.

“Why don’t we hear anything?” Pace asks, moving closer. His eyes dart from my stomach to the speaker, brow knitting up. “Is it broken?”

I wasn’t worried coming in here, since the baby I’m carrying is still something of a foreign concept, but the sound of a hollow void makes me almost as anxious as Pace sounds. The only thing in this palace that’s worse than being pregnant isnotbeing pregnant.

“Shh,” Lex says, tone soft. His eyes are fixed on my navel but unseeing as he prods two scant millimeters to the left. “The fetus is the size of a bean. It takes a minute to locate it.”

He pushes down hard on my lower belly, and my bladder screams. The result is a sudden wave of noise.

“Is that it?” Pace asks, coming closer.

“No,” Lex grinds out.