Unconditional

I’m opening my mouth to reply “yes” when Juliet speaks up. “I’m her sister.”

The doctor comes closer. My heart stops beating, waiting for her next words.

“She’s going to be OK,” she tells us with a reassuring smile.

“Oh, thank God.” The terror drains from my body and I stumble back, collapsing into a seat.

“Dizziness and fainting are common at this stage,” she continues, talking to Juliet. “Especially if she forgets to eat. Her blood pressure is high, so I’d like to keep an eye on that, and we’ll need to talk about reducing stress and emotional distress.”

“Absolutely,” Juliet nods eagerly. “But she’s going to be OK?”

The doctor smiles again. “She and the baby are doing just fine.”

The blood rushes to my head. I stare dumbly as the doctor walks away, my heart pounding in my ears.

The baby?

I look to Juliet, certain I must have heard wrong, but then her eyes meet mine. Guilty.

“She’s…she’s pregnant?” I manage to stutter in disbelief.

Juliet looks away.

“She was going to tell you,” Emerson steps in, his jaw set with tension. “She had the first ultrasound today.”

The world falls away.

I hold on to the chair for dear life as the truth ricochets around my mind. The truth she’s hidden, alone, all this time.

“But why…?” I stumble, still in a daze. A baby. She’s having a baby.

Mine.

But it doesn’t make sense, that she’d hide this. “How far…?” I ask, trying to think back to when I saw her last. When we…

“Fourteen weeks,” Juliet replies quietly.

“But why didn’t she tell me?”

“She thought you wouldn’t want it,” Juliet’s voice comes, clear, and edged with accusation. “She said you made it clear. You don’t want a family.”

I gape at them as it all comes crashing into place. Why she left, and never came back. Why, after everything, Carina couldn’t reach out and call my name when she needed me at her side.

I did this. I told her I couldn’t be a husband to her. A father. I swore I wouldn’t put myself through it again.

I broke both our hearts rather than risk the pain.

And so she did what I asked of her. She stayed away. She didn’t come to me because she didn’t think she could. Even when she must have been scared, and nervous, and full of a million questions about the future. She bore it all alone rather than go against my wishes—the wishes I made clear that terrible night after the show.

I did this. Me.

“I have to see her.” I meet Juliet’s eyes, fierce with determination. She glances to Emerson, then nods.

“She’s sleeping now,” she tells me. “They gave her medicine to get her blood pressure down, to stop stressing the baby.”

“I don’t care,” I vow. “Take me to her, please.”

Juliet leads me down the hall to a small room. I push the door open and step inside.

Carina is lying asleep on the bed. She looks so pale and still I have to rush to her side to check she’s breathing, to hear the reassuring beep of the machines hooked up to her.

“I’ll be outside,” Juliet’s voice comes, but I don’t turn. Nothing in the world matters but the woman in front of me.

Carina. My love.

How could I have ever thought I could live without her?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling a sob choke in the back of my throat. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I take one of her hands and hold it between my own. Small, cold. Too cold. I hold it to my chest, wishing I could somehow breathe life back into her, put color in those cheeks, a smile on those cracked lips.

I will, I swear. If I get the chance, I won’t screw it up again. It’s simple, so f**king simple, I’m a fool for not seeing it clearly. She’s everything to me. That’s it, the only thing that counts now, and it’s taken me this long to realize.

I’ve come so close to losing her.

I still might yet. And not just her.

My gaze slips down over her body. The blankets are pulled up over her, I can’t see any sign of the pregnancy, but just knowing it’s there—that she has my baby growing inside of her—fills me with a new kind of clarity. A purpose that cuts through my shock and guilt like a ray of clear light, pointing the way through the darkness.

And I know now what I need to do.

I lift her hand to my lips and press a kiss into her palm. “I’ll be here,” I whisper. “I promise, no matter what.”

I back away quietly, closing the door behind me. I find Juliet and Emerson in the waiting room with Brit.

“I need the keys,” I tell her, holding my hand out. She passes them over without a word.

“Call me when she wakes up,” I tell them.

“Wait.” Juliet frowns. “Where are you going?”

I take a short breath, bracing myself. “There’s someone I need to see.”

29

After all this time, the address is easy to find. A couple of calls, and one wrong turn, and I find myself on a quiet city block, just a few minutes from the hospital.

I sit in the driver’s seat, trying to get my head around the task ahead of me. I swore I’d never come down this road again, but if I’m going to be the man that Carina can depend on, I need answers. And this scribbled apartment address is the only place I’m going to find them.