an go, Lila.”
She pulled the bag off her head, exposing a miniscule bump and a barely-there smear of blood. “I can’t drive like this. I can’t even be seen like this.”
“Why are you even here? I told you not to come back.”
Lila sat up, a pout distorting her expression. “I need something current in the papers. I told you, Brendon is coming around again, harassing me.”
“Where is Trey?”
Lila sniffed. “He quit.” She waved the statement away. “Better anyway. He was so damned high-maintenance.”
That made Chase laugh. Not a humorous laugh, more of a disgusted, heartsick huff. He’d missed seeing his kid for this. He’d missed being there to support Zahara for this.
God, he was such an idiot. Everyone saw her scam for what it was—everyone but Chase.
He found her purse on the bottom rail of the gurney, fished out her phone and tapped into her apps to order her a ride, then put the phone in her lap. “Uber will be out front in ten minutes. If you come back to this set again, I’ll have you arrested. Are we clear?”
“What? Don’t be—”
“No more, Lila. Our friendship is over. Friends don’t use friends, and you’ve been using me far too long. We’re done. Don’t come back here.”
He started for the door, his mind already on Zahara.
“Chase.” The determined, dark tone of her voice shot a chill down his spine. “If you ruin my life, I’ll ruin yours.”
He turned back. “Don’t threaten me.”
“That’s not a threat. A threat is Brendon coming after me.”
“You have plenty of other options where Brendon is concerned, but you’ve used none. I won’t be your excuse anymore. I have my own life, Lila, and it doesn’t revolve around you.”
He was at the door when she said, “I know. It revolves around Zahara.”
Unease pinched his gut. He swung toward her. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re—”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. All I have to do is leak the idea to the media and watch everything in your life crumble.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You—”
“I’m desperate, Chase. I don’t want to do it, but I need you to hold out, just a little longer. The divorce will come through any day. That will change Brendon’s outlook. I know it will.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Then you should think twice about how you treat me, because I could end your career before it ever gets off the ground. All it would take is one well-placed rumor.”
Zahara sat cross-legged on a bench in front of the medical offices, looking at a new picture of the baby. She kept thinking about the character Novalee Nation in the movie Where the Heart Is, pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend at a Walmart.
Comparing herself to that character was ridiculous, she knew, but she couldn’t help but have a whole new empathy for the pregnant girl and how lost she’d felt when she’d come out of the store to find herself alone.
“We’ll get by,” she told the baby in the image, still looking much like a kidney bean. “No matter what happens, I’ve got you.”
She was determined to be the mother she’d never had. There would be nothing easy about this season of her life. Her hours, her work, finances, she couldn’t even fathom fitting a child and all his or her needs into that picture. But she’d figure it out. She had to.
A car turned into the circular driveway in front of the medical center at a speed that made Zahara look up. It was Chase. He came to a stop and jumped out, rounding the hood.
“I’m so sorry, Z.” He stopped in front of her and cut a glance at the building. “Are you done or waiting to go in?”
“Done.” She offered the picture. “You missed it.”