Page 30 of Clear Shot (Lauderdale Knights #9)

Aiden

I get home late after being gone nearly a week.

There were weather delays, so I don’t walk into the house until close to two in the morning.

I’d hoped Hana would be awake, but the house is dark and quiet, and I need to get some rest anyway.

We have a game tonight, as well as a morning skate at ten.

I’m going to be exhausted, but the plan is to grab a nap after the skate.

Unless my beautiful wife wants to ravage me.

I will totally forgo rest for that.

I leave the lights off as I walk through our beautiful new house, trying to work through the disparate feelings plaguing me.

For the first time since Hana and I got married, I feel a little of the depression-related darkness lurking in my subconscious.

Sometimes it’s gone when I wake in the morning; others, it lingers for days.

I hope it’s the former and not the latter this time, but a good night’s sleep will go a long way with that.

Sex will help too.

Not that I’m going to wake her up if she’s asleep.

I know she’s been busy turning this place into a home.

It’s only been two weeks, but the kitchen is pretty much up and running, and our bedroom, bathroom, and closet are all set up the way we want them.

As I pass the great room I pause, looking over at the built-in shelving on either side of the fireplace.

There are picture frames lining two shelves and my curiosity gets the best of me so I walk over there to see what they are.

Damn, my wife is pretty amazing.

The main picture is the one I discovered after the hurricane, the one of us on the beach from the day we first met.

Before I knew just how important she was going to be to me.

Well, I probably already had a sense of it, but I love the fact that she took a group photo and carefully edited it so it’s just the two of us.

It’s mostly our faces and tops of our chests, but at this angle, you can’t tell whether we’re together as a couple or just standing next to each other.

We both have big grins on our faces—I think we’d just won a beach volleyball game.

It’s my favorite picture of us to date. We don’t have many but there’s now also a picture someone took on our wedding day.

My arm is casually slung around her shoulders and she has a shy smile.

Mine is more telling—smug, as if I already knew I’d won the marriage lottery by getting a woman like Hana.

And finally, there’s a photo of our extended family, for lack of a better word—Hana and me; Johan, Sloane and Joanna; Decker and Eden; and Anders, Claudia, and Anderson—on Thanksgiving. Glasses raised, big grins on our faces as we waited for the timer on Eden’s fancy camera to go off.

The other shelf is filled with rescued photos from my old apartment.

The one of me at six in my first hockey uniform.

The next is me in my high school uniform, followed by a shot of me shooting a backhander in a championship game in the Major Juniors.

A group shot of the minor league team I played for my first season, and then a shot of me, Jordan, Anders, Johan, Decker, Slava Yegorov, and Felix smoking cigars after winning round one of the playoffs last season.

That was a good time.

I’m a pretty lucky son of a bitch.

My mood lifts a little, and I take the stairs two at a time. Even if she’s sleeping, I can’t wait to climb into bed with my beautiful wife and fall asleep with her in my arms. She moves into them most nights like it’s second nature and we’ve gotten used to going to sleep that way.

To my surprise, there’s a faint glow coming from the bedroom, like she left the bathroom or closet light on, and I call out soft when I get there.

“Hana?”

“Hey.” She sounds…weird. She’s huddled on the bed, half sitting up, hugging a pillow to her chest.

Something’s not right.

“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately, hurrying over to the bed and dropping a kiss on the top of her head.

“I have to talk to you about something,” she whispers without looking up.

Dread fills me, but my bladder is a tiny bit more insistent. “Can I use the bathroom first?”

“Sure.”

I go into the bathroom and quickly do my business. I’ve just turned to the sink to wash my hands when a strange piece of plastic gets my attention.

What the hell is that?

Does she have Covid or something? There was a time during the pandemic when the damn tests were everywhere.

But if that’s the case, why would she let me come into the bedroom where I could potentially be exposed? That makes no sense.

I pick up the test and suddenly my blood runs cold.

PREGNANT.

The word is clear as day on the test, practically mocking me.

Pregnant?

This can’t be right.

It has to be a mistake.

That happens sometimes, but usually only when there’s something else wrong. One of my buddies’ girlfriends had a cyst that burst or something, and it was giving all kinds of weird hormones.

Is it worse than that?

Is Hana sick?

I walk back into the bedroom slowly.

“Hana? What’s going on?”

“Did you see?”

“The pregnancy test? Yes. I don’t understand.”

“Me either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m pregnant, Aiden.” She finally looks up and her eyes are filled with fear and anger and a few other emotions I can’t quite decipher.

Wait, why is she mad at me? It’s not like I could get her pregnant.

I freeze, my brain suddenly going into overdrive.

I’m not the one who got her pregnant.

So she was either already pregnant when we got married or she…cheated.

“Did you…cheat on me?” I ask in confusion.

Because I can’t even imagine it.

“What?” Now she’s the one who looks confused. “No, of course not!”

“So you were already pregnant when we got married. I’m assuming you didn’t know.” I sigh, running my hands through my hair.

“No, I wasn’t pregnant when we got married. I told you I hadn’t been with anyone in more than six months.”

I stare at her, and she stares back.

“Then you cheated.” I’m starting to feel a little nauseated.

“Stop it,” she says, scowling. “I wasn’t pregnant when we got married and I didn’t cheat. You’re the only man I’ve been with in approximately eight months.”

“You know that’s a lie, Hana. You might as well tell me what happened.” I’m hurt and disappointed and a plethora of other emotions.

She cheated .

In the midst of what I thought was the best eight weeks of my life, she fucked another guy.

I can’t wrap my head around it, but I’m willing to listen to an explanation because our marriage is a lot more complicated than just walking away.

If it was just a drunken night, maybe during that first road trip when we still didn’t mean anything to each other, I might be able to forgive it.

We hadn’t talked yet. Hadn’t made any decisions.

I still want to throat punch the guy but maybe?—

“I didn’t cheat, Aiden.” She sits up straighter now. “It’s your baby.”

I laugh, even though it’s not funny. “Jesus fucking Christ, Hana, you know that’s not possible. I made sure of it.”

“Well, either you lied or your surgeon sucked.”

“I don’t think I’m the liar here.” I shake my head, suddenly defeated.

I thought we were building something real but it’s obvious now I was a sucker. She just wanted the damn visa. Everything else has been an illusion, something I built up in my mind because the hottest girl I know married me.

Obviously, I’m a sucker who fell for the lies of a pretty face and hot body.

Dammit.

I thought I learned my lesson with my first marriage.

“I’m not lying.”

This hurts like a bitch, but I’m not the kind of man who’s going to get violent or make a fuss. If this was nothing more than a visa to her, then so be it.

“Was it a one-night stand?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level.

She lifts hurt-filled eyes to mine. “I told you—I didn’t have an affair.”

“Well, it wasn’t immaculate conception.” I scowl at her.

“You might as well come clean. We’re married so we have to come to an agreement.

I’m obviously not paying for someone else’s kid so you can handle that however you want.

You signed the prenup so the only other issue is the house. Are you going to try to take half?”

Her mouth opens, and she gapes at me. “That’s what you think? You think I want money?”

“I don’t know what I think, to be honest.”

“Aiden, we need to?—”

“I need to go,” I say abruptly. I grab the bag I just put down and turn toward the door.

“Sleep here tonight, but I think you need to move to your brother’s house tomorrow.

If you want me to abide by the terms of our original agreement with regard to your visa, I’ll honor that as long as you don’t try to take half the house.

Beyond that, you’ll need to come up with an explanation for why we’re living separate lives and the details of your pregnancy. ”

I practically jump down the stairs, moving as quickly as I can to get back into my SUV and get as far away from here as possible. I don’t know if there’s anywhere I can go to escape my pain, but I’m going to give it the old college try.