Page 60 of Bad Bishop

What was wrong with me? Why was my body doing this?

My husband clasped my chin, tilting my head up so I could see him.

“It’s normal.” His neck strained with veins I hadn’t seen there before. “Your nipples will go down in a sec.”

I stood completely naked before him. The air buzzed and sizzled with an energy that bound us together, vining us in invisible ropes.

I didn’t know what was happening to me, because suddenly, I wanted him to hug me. Tokissme. Show me how to order things from the internet. Take me to see sunsets.

There seemed to be an increasing number of reasons why I should reveal my secret to Tiernan, and none at all why I should keep hiding.

And if he’d want to have sex with me? Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful. If sex really was terrible, wouldn’t mankind be extinct? It seemed to run contradictory to the foundations of civilization.

Tiernan twisted the gown to the other side and covered my chest and stomach. He turned me around and secured the strings tightly around my back. Paused. Took one, deep, enormous breath I could feel in my own lungs, like he was gathering every atom of self-control in his body.

Then I felt him step away.

I scurried back to the examination table, and he opened the door, gesturing for the doctor to enter. It was a woman. She had gray short hair, thick glasses, and a stern face. She asked me if I approved of my husband being present during the examination.

I nodded.

Tiernan sat beside me, readjusting his slacks. He kept folding his legs and changing positions in his seat, like he had ants in his pants. He refused to look at me.

My anxiety notched up another level when the doctor looked over the chart my husband filled out on my behalf. I ping-ponged my gaze from her to him when they spoke.

“I understand Mrs. Callaghan is nonverbal?” she asked.

“Mm.”

Was helping me really putting him in such a sour mood he couldn’t evenspeak?

“Will you be communicating on her behalf?”

“Uh-huh.”

Well, hardly, seeing as he refused to evenspeak. My God, was touching me really so appalling to him?

The look on the doctor’s face suggested she was appalled by the idea he had impregnated me, and she made no effort to conceal it.

“You indicated in the form that her last menstrual cycle ended six weeks ago.” She raised her fist to her mouth, probably clearing her throat.

“Eight days before our wedding.”

That wasn’t true. It had been at least thirteen weeks. But my father and Tiernan must’ve figured out a timeline to coincide with our wedding.

The obstetrician placed the clipboard on a counter, removing her reading glasses and cleaning the lenses with the edge of her white robe. “In that case, I recommend a vaginal ultrasound. It’s unlikely we’ll see anything substantial through an abdominal ultrasound, and I’d like to check for a heartbeat and get your estimated due date.”

“She’ll get an abdominal check,” he replied, unblinking.

“That’s not advisable at this stage of the pregnancy. Besides, she’ll have to endure those further into the pregnancy, when we check her cervix for dilate—”

“Should I go ask for a doctor who speaks English?” Tiernan threw his thumb toward the door. “I said nobody fucking gives her a vaginal check.”

Feeling my cheeks heating, I put a hand on his arm. His gaze jolted, meeting mine. I offered him a brief nod.

She was right. Iwasgoing to have to endure this sooner or later.

His jaw was so tense I was afraid his teeth were about to snap, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was as uncomfortable with the situation as I was.