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TWENTY-FOUR

DAYNA

I cast a sidelong glance at Dash, my heart pounding. His hand has been resting on my belly from the moment we got in the van, like he’s claiming and protecting us in the same beat.

Riot drives, one hand on the wheel, the other sitting on the gear stick. He hasn’t said anything and I’m too tired to try.

My stomach feels tight and heavy from puking, from fear, from all the emotions still clawing at me. I also have a headache, and I have something I didn’t expect.

Hope.

A future laid out before me that didn’t seem possible this morning.

“You okay?” His soft question burns my throat.

“Yeah.”

He lets go of my belly and seizes my chin. “Dayna.”

His eyes are sharp, his words too, but I see the weight of care behind them.

“I’m still nauseous,” I admit.

“Do you want me to open the window?”

My lips twitch. “Sure. I’ll stick my head out like a Labrador.”

His thumb strokes over the apple of my cheek. “I’ll get you a collar.”

I poke his side, but my heart feels full. It feels easy with him.

“You two are so fucking sweet, it’s making me feel sick.”

I glance at Riot, letting out a laugh, one that doesn’t feel trapped in my chest for a change.

“Please. I have to watch you and Ivy practically dry humping each other every time I’m in your presence. You can cope with this.”

Riot drops us off outside the front of the hospital. He asks Dash if he wants him to stay. Surprisingly, he declines.

It feels like it takes forever to get seen. I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, and he doesn’t comment when I lean my head against his shoulder and let myself drift. When he shakes me awake, my back is throbbing, and I’m pretty sure I’ve fused with the plastic chair.

Dash takes control of everything. It feels amazing to have someone take care of me, to carry the mental load.

The cubicle we’re led to is similar to the one he was in when he was hurt. Small, with a curtain separating it from the rest of the unit and equipment stuffed into every available space.

Dash guides me onto a narrow trolley, adjusting the pillows behind me until I’m comfortable, and then he pulls a chair up to the side of the bed. One hand slips into mine, the other rests over our baby. The solid weight of his palm there eases the swirling panic within me.

“You still feel sick?”

“I’m more tired than anything else.” I close my eyes for a second, the exhaustion making it hard to focus. “We’re probably just wasting everyone’s time. I’m sure the baby’s fine.”

“Then they’ll tell us that.”

I drop my hand on top of his, both of us holding the baby beneath his palm.

No longer in fight or flight mode, my body forces me to sleep.

I’m startled awake by a voice that sounds far too fucking happy. I prise one eye open as a young doctor grabs the chart from the end of the bed, flicking through my admission notes—the ones Dash filled in because I could barely keep my eyes open.

“How are you feeling, Dayna?” he asks, glancing up from the paperwork. He’s older than me, but Dash is eyeing him like he’s fresh out of medical school.

I smile faintly. “Like my insides are possessed.”

“That’s pretty standard in the first trimester. How many weeks are you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.” I’m about to relay the saga of the birth control shot, but Dash interrupts.

“She fell. We’re worried she might have hurt the baby.”

Sympathy dances across the doctor’s face. “Okay. Let’s get a full history, do some tests, and we can see what’s going on.”

Full history turns out to be an interrogation over my medical history and life choices—and my sex life.

He takes blood, has me pee in a cup, and then disappears to get the ultrasound machine.

While he’s gone, I turn to Dash, who hasn’t left my side for even a second, his hands still grasping mine, still holding me as if he knows I need to feel safe right now.

“Seriously, murderers are interrogated less,” I mutter.

His thumb strokes over the back of my hand. “It’s good that he’s being thorough. Means you’re both in good hands.”

If I wasn’t lying down, I may have swooned. Both of us. Me and the baby. Why does that sound so good?

I clamp my mouth shut when the doctor returns with the ultrasound machine.

“Based on the dates you gave me, I think you’re somewhere between six to eight weeks pregnant. So, if it’s okay with you, Dayna, I’d like to do a transvaginal ultrasound just in case we’re on the lower side of that.”

“Whatever you need to do.”

He tells me to take off my pants and underwear. Dash helps me then he guides me back onto the trolley bed, grabbing the sheet and covering me again.

I smile weakly. “You know in a minute he’s going to be all up in my womb without so much as buying me dinner?”

The doctor purposely keeps his attention on setting up the machine.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to lie there uncovered until then.”

I kiss him. He wants to give me dignity, respect—things that others have stripped from me over the years.

“Thank you.”

He strokes my head. “Always, baby.”

“I’m ready,” I say to the doctor.

“Put your knees together and then let your legs fall open.”

I stare at a spot on the ceiling above me as I spread open for him.

Dash’s hand slips into mine, squeezing.

I let my breaths slow, my mind clear.

There’s pressure at my entrance as the probe is pushed inside my body.

It’s not uncomfortable, but it is a weird feeling of pressure and fullness.

He keeps one hand between my legs, moving the probe around where he needs, pressing buttons on the machine as he stares at the screen.

My lungs feel like they’re being strangled as the seconds tick by.

“The good thing is at this stage in pregnancy, baby’s fairly protected, but let’s just have a peek and see what’s going on.”

I glance up at Dash, my fingers locked tight in his, but his eyes are locked on the screen.

“Okay, I can see the sac…” He moves the probe inside me, and I wince a little at the pressure. “And there’s your baby.”

I turn my head so quickly, I nearly snap my neck. The image is grainy, like there’s too much static, and I squint at it.

“I don’t see anything.” I should be able to tell my baby, right? I’m its mother.

He makes a sound in his throat. “It’s difficult when the foetus is this small, but this here,” he points to a spot on the screen that looks like a speck, “that’s the sac, and this little bean shape here is the baby.”

My world tilts on its axis. I stare at the screen. There’s something growing inside me, something that Dash and I made.

Dash’s fingers tighten in mine, and I lift my eyes to him. I’ve never seen that look before. Completely and utterly reverent.

“You seeing this?” he murmurs.

“Yeah. Our baby is modern art.” A tear escapes. “Abstract, doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to, definitely costs more than it should.”

This time when he squeezes my hand, there’s warning behind it that has me smirking.

“Everything looks good?” Dash asks. “She went down pretty hard.”

I want to tell him it’s not his fault, that he didn’t know I was pregnant, and that he saved us anyway.

The doc clicks the keys before he says, “Everything looks good so far. I’d guess baby is closer to eight weeks than six, looking at the measurements.”

If the dates are right, eight weeks would mean I conceived the night of Ivy’s engagement party. I was pregnant our entire relationship.

Dash lifts my hand, pressing a kiss to my knuckles, and the look on his face says he’s worked the same thing out. We were always destined to be here.

He removes the probe before he turns to me. “If you have any bleeding, any abdominal pain, come back in. Oh, and congratulations on your pregnancy, Miss Harrington.”

He leaves the cubicle, and I try to sit up. “At least you clean me up after you’ve been inside me,” I joke. “He didn’t even give me a tissue.” Dash grabs some roll from the dispenser on the wall and gently parts my thighs. “What are you doing?”

“Babe, if he tried to clean you up, he would have been spitting teeth.”

He wipes away the mess made by the lubrication.

Tears prick my eyes when he’s finished. And they choke my throat as he helps me sit up and gently slides my underwear up my legs.

Nobody has ever taken care of me the way he is right now. And I don’t know what to do with it. He’s always been attentive, but this is soul-deep care.

Once I’m dressed, he wraps an arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss to my temple. Then another to my cheek and finally he claims my mouth, his hand wrapped around my throat lightly.

Mine.

That’s what it screams.

And for once, I’m not scared by it. By this. By him.

If this is what it feels like to be loved—real love, not lust or loneliness playing dress-up—then I’m already too far gone. Because I don’t know how to go back to surviving without him.

“I’m going to take such good care of you both,” he promises.

And for the first time, I let myself believe it.