Page 80 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

I’m sorry, Jane had mouthed to the woman seconds before.

Had Laura even known why Jane was apologizing?

“Come on,” Nick said, giving Jane a squeeze on the shoulder to bring her back to the present. “Do you remember the first time I met you?”

Jane shook her head again, but only to try to clear the violent images from her mind. The gun. The explosions. The splatter and spray.

“Come on, Jinx,” Nick coaxed. “Have you forgotten about the first time we met? It’ll be six years in December. Did you know that?”

Jane wiped her nose. Of course she knew. The moment she first saw Nick was etched into every fiber of her being: Andrew and Nick home from college, pushing and shoving each other like schoolboys in the front hall. Jane had stormed out of the parlor to complain about the racket. Nick had smiled at her, and she’d felt her heart fill like a hot-air balloon that threatened to float out of her chest.

“Jinx?”

She knew that he wouldn’t give up unless she played along, so she played along, saying, “You barely noticed me.”

“You were barely legal.”

“I was seventeen.” She hated when he treated her like she was a child. Like Andrew, he was only three years her senior. “And you ignored me the entire weekend because you and Andy were chasing after those trashy girls from North Beach.”

He laughed. “You would’ve never given me a chance if I’d fallen all over myself like the other fools.”

There were no other fools. No one had ever fallen all over themselves for Jane. Men had looked at her with either awe or boredom, as if she was a doll inside of a glass case. Nick was the first of Andrew’s friends who had seen her as a woman.

He stroked back her hair. His mouth went to her ear. He always whispered when he told her the important things. “I didn’t ignore you the entire weekend.”

Jane could not stop her heart from doing the floaty thing again. Even now in this horrible moment, she could still remember the thrill of Nick surprising her in the kitchen. She was reading a magazine when he’d wandered in. Jane had said something flinty to make him go away, and he’d kissed her, wordlessly, before backing out of the room and closing the door.

Nick said, “I was practically an orphan when I met you. I didn’t have anybody. I was completely alone. And then I had you.” His hand held the back of her neck. He was suddenly serious. “Tell me you’re still with me. I have to know.”

“Of course.” He’d done this in Oslo, then again on the plane home, then their first night back in San Francisco. He seemed terrified that the three months they’d spent apart had somehow weakened her resolve. “I’m with you, Nick. Always.”

He searched her eyes for a sign, some indication that she was lying to him the way that everyone else had in his life.

“I am yours,” she repeated, firmly. “Every part of me is yours.”

“Good girl.” His smile was hesitant. He had been hurt by so many people before.

Jane wanted to hold him, but he hated when she got clingy. Instead, she tilted up her face so that he would kiss her. Nick obliged, and for the first time in days, Jane could breathe again.

“My darling,” he whispered into her ear. His hands slid under her camisole. His mouth moved to her breasts. Jane was finally able to wrap her arms around him. She didn’t want sex, but she knew telling him no again would hurt his feelings. What she craved most was the after. When he held her. When he told her that he loved her. When he made her feel like everything was going to be okay.

That would be the moment to tell him.

As Nick laid her back on the bed, Jane felt all the words she had silently practiced over the last month rush to her lips—I’m sorry, terrified, ecstatic, overjoyed, anxious, panicky, elated, so scared that you’ll leave me because—

I’m pregnant.

“Hello?”

They both sat back up. Jane gripped the sheets around her neck.

“You guys awake?” Andrew knocked on the door before peering into the room. “Everyone decent?”

“Never,” Nick said. He still held one of her breasts underneath the sheet. Jane tried to pull away, but Nick snaked his arm around her waist so that she could not. He stroked the small of her back, his eyes on Andrew.

Nick said, “Two more agents pulled into the front drive.”

“I saw.” Andrew wiped his nose with his sleeve. He was still fighting off the cold from Norway. He told Nick what Jane dared not. “Don’t be aggressive with them, Nicky. Please.”