“Fuck,” I bit out as a sheen of tears filled her eyes. I finally noticed how pale her skin was, and the dark smudges underneath them that were a clear indicator of a lack of sleep. She’d been as miserable as me, maybe even more so if she thought I’d bailed on her. I crossed the floor and fell to my knees in front of her, taking her trembling hands in mine. “I swear I left a note. It was brief since I was in a rush, and I shoved it under your door because it locked behind me when I went next door to grab supplies out of my fridge. I wanted to make you breakfast when you woke up, but then I got a call from my mom. My dad had a heart attack, and it didn’t look good. I needed to get back to Chicago as quickly as possible because the doctors were worried he wouldn’t make it through the night.”
“Your dad had a heart attack?” she gasped, tugging on my hands until I moved and sat next to her on the couch. “Did he survive? Is he okay now? Is that why they told me you weren’t available when I called your office?”
“You called me at work?” The knot that had been strangling my heart loosened a bit at knowing she’d tried to reach out to me even though she must have thought I’d disappeared on purpose.
“Yeah, but we can talk about that after you tell me about your dad.”
I brushed my thumb across her knuckles, soaking up the feel of her soft skin. “It was a tough road, but he’s doing okay. He was in the ICU for the first two weeks, but they transferred him to a rehab facility yesterday after he stayed another week in the hospital.”
Her head jerked back in surprise. “It’s only been a day, and you’re already back in California?”
“Of course I am. You’re here.” For me, it was as simple as that—even when I’d thought she was ignoring me. My mom had been right when she’d said I’d been hit by Cupid’s arrow. I was madly in love with this woman.
The tears she’d been holding back spilled down her cheeks, and she sniffled. “I thought you’d gotten what you wanted and ghosted me.”
“That was just one taste.” I pulled her on my lap. “I want a hell of a lot more than that.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” I dropped a kiss against her lips. “And you would’ve known that if my note hadn’t disappeared.”
It really pissed me off that she’d spent the past three weeks thinking I’d abandoned her after she’d had sex with me. Setting her aside, I stalked over to the door. My shoes were still there, and I looked inside them. There was no sign of my note, and I couldn’t figure out what might have happened to it. “I slipped a note under the door. It should’ve been right here when you woke up. The door was locked, so it’s not like anybody could have taken it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, but it wasn’t there. Trust me, if it had been I would’ve found it since I searched this place from top to bottom. Finding it would’ve saved me a lot of heartache.”
I hated the idea of her hurting over me, even though it’d stung a fuck of a lot when she hadn’t called. Bending low, I scratched Fluffy behind the ears as she rubbed against my leg.
She took a shuddering sigh. “You really did leave a note, didn’t you?”
I didn’t have any proof, but I took her hands in mine and infused my voice with sincerity when I answered, “I did.”
She nodded once, and the tips of her lips curved up in a half-smile. “I believe you.”
I crushed her against me and whispered into her hair, “Thank you, angel face.”
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, holding onto each other like neither of us wanted to let go. Eventually, Fluffy meowed in protest from the top of her carpeted tower in the corner of the room. It was six-feet tall, and easy for me to pet her when she was up there since it was eye level for me. “It sounds like Fluffy missed me, too.”
“She definitely did,” Melody laughed. “You’d better go give her some scratches or else she’ll never leave us alone.”
I claimed Melody’s lips in a deep kiss before getting up and crossing over to Fluffy’s tower. When she moved to the edge of the top platform, I spotted a white square tucked into the far corner. “Naughty kitty,” I muttered as I gave her a quick rub and grabbed the missing note. Walking back over to Melody, I unfolded the paper and handed it to her. “The mystery of the missing note has been solved. Fluffy was the culprit. Searching the apartment high and low didn’t do you much good because it was on the top of her tower, where you couldn’t see it.”
“I guess my damn cat wanted a souvenir to remember you by.” She traced my handwriting on the note. “I’m glad you found it. Seeing this makes what I need to tell you a little bit easier.”
My heart dropped as I wondered what might’ve happened while I was gone that would’ve put the fear blazing out of her pretty blue eyes right now.
Chapter Eleven
Melody
The last few hours had been like a roller coaster of emotions. I started out feeling sad because I was still missing Trace. Then I was happy for my friends when I found out that Madison was pregnant. My joy was quickly replaced with fear when I realized my period was late and I might be pregnant. Fear turned to anger when I saw Trace waiting outside my door. And eventually there was the joy of knowing he hadn’t abandoned me…only to be replaced by a new kind of fear. My gaze darted towards the bag on my coffee table. Thinking about what was inside, I blurted out, “I think I might be pregnant.”
Trace’s green eyes widened in surprise, and he looked down at my stomach as he echoed, “Pregnant?”
“I haven’t taken a test yet, but my period is a week late.” I gestured at the bag. “I was out with everyone, celebrating Ethan and Madison’s engagement and bought one on my way home.”
His brow wrinkled and his green eyes lit with a familiar fire. “Who all did that ‘everyone’ include?”
“It wasn’t a big group. Just Madison, Ethan, Aubrey, Nash, and me.”
“Nash?”
“He’s Ethan’s best friend and Aubrey’s boss. Remember? I told you about how they were crazy about each other, but she was trying to resist him because she didn’t want to get involved with her boss?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right.” His shoulders relaxed, and his jaw unclenched. “So you didn’t bring anyone with you to dinner?”
“Of course I didn’t.” I placed a hand over my stomach. “I’ve been too busy missing you to even notice my period was late, let alone look at another guy.”
“Good.” He flashed me a grin as he sat down next to me. “I’d hate to have to kick someone’s ass for trying to make a move on the mother of my child.”
“First of all, there will be no kicking of anyone’s ass.” He just shook his head while he chuckled. “And secondly, we don’t even know if I’m pregnant or not yet.”
“Hopefully you’re right about the ass-kicking part, but I can’t guarantee it because I’ll always do whatever it takes to protect you.” He leaned forward and stretched out one, long arm to snag the bag off the table. He shook out the contents into the palm of his other hand, and handed me the small, pink box. “And you’ve got the answer to the pregnancy question right here. You just need to pee on a stick and wait a few minutes for us to find out if we already made a baby. If not, we can try as often as you’d like until one of them turns up positive.”
“Um, yeah. So...” I trailed off, staring down at my hands as I twisted them in my lap and basically crushed the pregnancy test box. “Does that mean it wasn’t a heat of the moment thing? You know, because we were drinking that night?”
He cradled my face in his hands and brushed his lips against mine. “Not for me, it wasn’t. I’ve wanted you under me since the second I set eyes on you in the grocery store.”
“Yeah, that was kind of obvious.” I smiled up at him and rolled my eyes. “But I wasn’t talking about the sex. I meant the part where we skipped the condom and you did your best to try and knock me up.”
“In vino veritas.” It was the famous saying I’d used during our night together. “It didn’t just
hold true for you.”