“Aidan-” Melanie began even as she tried to decide between politely warning him that she was seconds away from making him a eunuch or begging him to stop so that she could catch her breath as they started down the stairs.
“We’ll make a day of it. We’ll go to my office, run tests, take a sonogram, pee in a cup, grab lunch, and while we’re eating you can explain to me why you’ve kept the fact that I’m about to a be father a secret. It will be a great time, you’ll see,” Aidan murmured, giving her arm a gentle squeeze as he helped her down the stairs.
“I don’t need any tests,” Melanie managed to get out before she was forced to grab onto the railing so that she could catch her breath.
“Yes, you do,” Aidan said softly.
“No, I-”
“You left the office before the tests came back from the urine sample you left,” Aidan said, making her realize that she’d never asked how he’d found out about the baby.
Swallowing, Melanie looked down at the railing that she was currently holding onto for support and closed her eyes as she prepared herself for the bad news that she already knew was coming.
“You’re bleeding.”
Chapter 4
“What are you going to do?” his father asked as Aidan leaned back in his desk chair.
“I have no idea,” Aidan said quietly as he stared down at the sonogram image in his hands.
A boy.
They were having a baby boy, he thought numbly, wondering when this was going to start feeling real. This morning the only thing that he had to worry about was missing lunch and now…
Christ, he didn’t even know where to start.
“Does she know yet?”
“That her doctor’s a fucking idiot?” Aidan asked as he shook his head slowly, forcing his gaze away from the proof that things were about to change and placed the sonogram photo back on the desk next to the thick folder that her doctor sent over earlier. “Only what you told her,” he added, sighing heavily as he sat back in his chair so that he could see the disappointment in his father’s eyes.
It wasn’t something that he was used to seeing. At least, not because of him. He’d seen that look on his father’s face more than enough times growing up thanks to all of his siblings fucking up, but never because of him. He’d always been the golden child, the one that didn’t fuck up and if he did, he immediately worked his ass off to make it right.
Not this time.
This time he’d seriously fucked up and he had absolutely no idea how he was going to fix this. He would take care of Melanie and their son, provide for them, make sure that they had everything that they needed, and of course, he would be there to help raise his son, but that wouldn’t fix everything.
“I’m going to give you some time to figure this out and do right by that young lady, but you and I are going to sit down and have a talk real soon,” his father said, leveling a look on him that told him just how badly he’d fucked up as his father stood up and headed for the door only to pause.
“By the way,” his father said, gesturing lazily towards Melanie’s patient file, “if I ever find out that you spoke to a woman like that again, I’ll knock your goddamn teeth out. Understood?”
“Understood,” Aidan said, surprised that his father wasn’t doing it now, but then again, they both knew that he had something more important to do at the moment.
“Fix this,” his father said, and with that, his father was shaking his head in disgust and walking out the door.
Aidan stared at the file for another minute, thinking about just how much of an asshole he’d been that morning. He…
His father should have knocked his fucking teeth out, Aidan decided as he shoved his chair back and headed for the door. He was never going to forgive himself for what he’d said to her. Because of him, she’d gone through this alone. He should have been there from the beginning, biting his fucking tongue and standing by her.
God, what the fuck was wrong with him?
As soon as she’d stormed out of that hotel room, he’d wanted to go after her and apologize, but he’d been too fucking hungover to think straight. His pride had kept him from hunting her down once he’d realized what a bastard he’d been to her. He’d found a thousand excuses not to call her over the next few months, but it never stopped him from thinking about her.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d thought about her, how many times he’d found himself picking up the phone to call her only to change his mind, and how many times he’d found himself halfway to the Fire & Brimstone, hoping to catch a glimpse of her only to turn around with some bullshit excuse. He should have kept going the first time he’d found himself driving towards the Fire & Brimstone, knocked on her door, handed her a baseball bat, and let her go to town.
Once she was done beating the shit out of him and he’d apologized, they could have sat down and talked this through. The outcome wouldn’t have changed, but at least Aidan would have been by her side from the start instead of being the one delivering more bad news to her.
*-*-*-*
“Melanie? Shit! Melanie, wait up!” the jerk that had scared the hell out of her before showing her to a small exam room with an air conditioner on steroids and handing her a paper-thin exam gown that didn’t actually fit her before mumbling something about calling her doctor and promptly pulling a disappearing act on her, which had lasted for five hours, thirty-two minutes and fifteen seconds, said.
Not that he’d left her completely alone. He’d been kind enough to send a nurse in to take her medical history, two different medical assistants in to take her vitals, four to take her blood, three to ask her to sign more release forms, two more to help her prepare for an exam, which to her surprise had been performed by his father, and then another medical assistant to help her after the very thorough examination that had left her on the verge of dying of mortification, before sending in four nurses, two medical assistants, a secretary, and the office manager to tell her that it would only be a little bit longer.
When one of the nurses popped her head back in a few minutes ago to ask her if she could put the paper-thin gown back on so that the doctor could double-check something, Melanie decided that she’d had enough for one day. After somehow managing to pull her shoes back on and tying them without falling over, she’d grabbed her bag, headed for the door, and decided that she’d rather walk the fifteen blocks to get home than ask the lying jerk for a ride.
Okay, so she’d also decided to take the long way home so that she could stop by Dixon’s bakery and reassure herself with eighty-five dollars and fifty-five cents, the amount of money that was in her bag, worth of baked goods that everything was okay while she tried to get her doctor on the phone so that she could find out what was going on with her baby. What she hadn’t planned on was the jerk, who’d made her stupidly believe that he’d cared before he’d handed her over to his father, running after her.
“Melanie, wait!” Aidan yelled, and because she was six months pregnant and stuck at an intersection, she did just that.
“What is it?” Melanie asked, sighing heavily as she turned around to face the man that was clearly screwing with her.
As she watched him jog towards her, she couldn’t help but note the similarities between him and Lucifer. They were both ruggedly handsome, kept their dark hair cut short, had killer green eyes and a flawless tan, they were tall and well-built, and she couldn’t help but wonder how two brothers could be so different.
While everyone thought that Lucifer was an asshole, and okay, she’d admit that he had his moments, she didn’t really think that he’d earned the title. His brother, on the other hand…
“I need you to come back to the office,” Aidan said when he finally reached her side.
“So that you can stick me in another small room where I can catch pneumonia, have my blood drained, and maybe this time you can ask your mom to give me a pelvic exam?” Melanie asked brightly, wondering why he was wasting her time when they both k
new that he didn’t want anything to do with her or this baby.
At least he had the decency to wince, Melanie noted as she turned around and decided that she’d more than earned a side of buttercream frosting to go along with her cupcakes. She didn’t get far before she found her path blocked by the man determined to…to…
Well, she honestly wasn’t sure what his game was, but she was done playing it. Sighing, Melanie moved to walk around him, but since she couldn’t exactly waddle that fast, Aidan managed to step in her way and block her again.
“Look, I’m sorry about that, but we need to talk.”
“Is the baby okay?” Melanie asked, cutting to the chase because that’s all she really cared about.
“Yes,” Aidan said and since that’s all that mattered, she stepped around him only to come to a complete stop with his next words. “But you might not be.”
Chapter 5
“So, this is it,” Aidan lamely said as he opened the door to the semi-empty apartment that he’d somehow persuaded Melanie to look at after he’d broken the news to her that she was now officially back on bed rest.
“Yeah, umm, no,” Melanie said, barely glancing at the apartment before she turned around and headed for the front door.
“We talked about this,” he reminded her as he reached past her to close the front door before she could walk out and make him spend another two hours arguing about this.
“No, you talked and I listened,” Melanie explained, trying to move his hand away from the door.
“We agreed that this was for the best,” Aidan reminded her as he quickly maneuvered around her and put his hands on her shoulders so that he could steer the stubborn woman back inside the apartment that was the perfect solution to their problem.
Well, it would make things easier at least, he amended a split second later after deciding that nothing was going to fix this.
“Just think of the possibilities,” Aidan said as he managed to get her inside, hoping that she ignored all his shit thrown everywhere and the damage to the walls that the last tenants left behind and focused on all the possibilities.
“I already have an apartment,” Melanie pointed out, which they both knew was a bullshit excuse to get out of this.