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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

REED

My leg bounces uncontrollably as I take in the waiting room. I scan the area, regretting not insisting on a home visit. At the right price, you can make anything happen, even a home consultation with a baby scanner.

Gia strokes my knee as if trying to reassure me, but it’s impossible. The thought of the germs surrounding me and those I love is all-consuming. My skin feels like it’s prickling, and I try but fail to get lost in my mind while being surrounded by the hazards and chaos of a doctor’s waiting room.

“Mrs. Mathers.” My heart plummets on the nurse’s words, and my body stills as a red haze of anger takes over me. She needs my surname. This is our baby. Ours.

Not his.

“Reed, that’s us.” Her voice is a delicate whisper, and all I can manage is a grunt. Then she takes my hand in hers and our gazes collide and every wrong is suddenly righted. “Are you ready to see your baby?”

“Our baby,” I quip back, and she smiles.

“Our baby,” she corrects with an encouraging nod.

“Come on. You’ll love it. Seeing our baby on the screen is a gift.” She tugs me to my feet, and I want to tell her I already do love the baby, and I love her too, but I keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to freak her out; she’ll think I’m crazy, that this is too soon, but I feel it deep inside.

They’re my everything.

My heart pangs in my chest, and I swallow back the rare emotion in the back of my throat at the way she acknowledges our baby as ours, then gift her with an even rarer smile, one she mirrors, with her teeth sinking into her bottom lip.

Tugging her toward me, her bump clashes with my front. “Let’s do this.” I place a playful kiss on the tip of her nose and delight in the hitch of her breath when I pull back. “You can thank me properly for the gift after.” I wink at her, then lead her by the hand to follow the nurse.