The Deception (Filthy Rich Americans 3)

It had been chilly in the hospital room like they always were, and so after Emily had changed into a gown and gotten into bed, the nurse had put a heavy blanket over her. Now, my sister cast it off and peered down at the soaked bed.

Crimson stained the sheets and blotted her legs. She was sitting in a puddle of blood, making my mother scream and dash toward Emily’s bedside. I reached behind me, trying to find the chair I’d been sitting in, but the horrifying feeling was overwhelming.

I couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

It made my limbs go weak. My stomach flipped, over and over in a dizzying sensation, speeding up until everything abruptly went black.

Emily nearly died.

The doctor didn’t say it in those specific words, but his grave tone and somber expression as he delivered the post-op summary did. When he used phrases like detached placenta and extreme hemorrhaging, I focused more on the way he was saying it than what he was saying, because I worried I’d pass out again. There’d been so much blood, I didn’t know how she or her daughter had survived.

I wasn’t a religious person, but after I’d come to and Emily had been taken away for an emergency C-section, I prayed. I’d held on to my mother with one hand and an ice pack to my side with the other, begging for my sister and Baby to be okay.

When I’d fainted, I’d collided with the chair, catching it right in my ribs, and it ached with each deep breath I took. Nothing was broken, thankfully. Just an ugly red line that would likely turn blue-purple tomorrow. I was upset with myself. When I’d passed out, it caused even more chaos in the room and unnecessary stress for my mother.

But we Northcott women made it through.

And now my mother was a grandmother. Selene Marist Northcott was seven pounds, one ounce, with a full head of brown hair . . . and perfectly healthy. Once Emily had been moved to her suite, we spent hours fawning over the newest member of the Northcott family. We’d called my dad at the office and told him she was going in for a C-section, and by the time he’d rushed over, Selene had been born. The doctors had moved fast.

It was late when the nurse came by to take Selene to the nursery so my sister could get some much-needed rest. She hadn’t been able to hold her baby much, and I knew that was hard for her.

“Em,” I said, my voice filled with awe, “you made another person, and she’s so amazing.”

My sister was exhausted, but a smile lit up her face. “I do good work.”

I laughed, and it felt so good after the day we’d had. “You do.”

Our parents weren’t here—my dad had taken my mother down to get some dinner, and it was nice being just the two of us. I tried to savor it. It’d likely be one of the last quiet times between us for a while.

But I didn’t get to enjoy it. There was a knock on the door at the front of the suite, and Emily and I exchanged a look. I got up, walked through the small sitting area, and opened the door, only for my jaw to hit the ground.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s Brandon,” Dr. Galliat answered back.

He stood in the hallway, wearing an expression of hesitation and carrying a large bouquet of flowers in a vase. I narrowed my gaze at him. I’d had him as a professor my sophomore year for Intro to Psychology, and he hadn’t changed much since. He was still young and handsome, probably with the same dimples when he smiled that made all the girls take a second glance.

“Marist,” he said, recognizing me. “Can I see her?”

“I don’t know.” I asked it louder, so she’d hear. “Can he see you, or do you want me to tell him to come back another time?”

Emily didn’t get a chance to answer. Dr. Galliat’s expression shifted to panic and went over my shoulder to the woman in the bed who’d just given birth to his daughter—the one he’d wanted nothing to do with.

“Please.” He was desperate. “Emily, please. I left her, okay? Can we just—?”

“Fine,” she said.

As soon as I was out of his way, he strode toward her bed, dumping off the flowers on a side table. “How are you?”

She ignored his question and surveyed him from top to bottom. Maybe she checked to see if he was still wearing his wedding ring, but he wasn’t. Like me, her eyes were also narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“Your mother called me.” A strange look filled his face. Guilt? Embarrassment? He closed his eyes and ran his finger over an eyebrow. “She was upset and had some choice words for me.”