Chapter 21 #2
It feels wrong to walk away from her. I don’t know if the baby is mine. And yet… I already do.
Not as a fact, but as a truth that settles deep in my bones. Terrifying, and somehow right.
The idea that this child could be mine doesn’t scare me. It claims me.
I wish I knew.
Roxy isn’t careless. She isn’t reckless. She doesn’t move through the world like that.
She spends all her time at work. Or with me. And then it clicks—quiet, brutal, undeniable.
Romeo.
The sex club. The masks. The anonymity. She doesn’t know because she couldn’t know.
I straighten, flexing my hand despite the pain. I need to find out how far along she is.
More importantly, we need to know if the baby is okay. Roxy has been stressed out, eating poorly, and clearly not feeling well.
The anger drains as fast as it came, leaving something heavier behind.
Resolve.
Certainty.
Care.
The door swings open hard enough to rattle the frame. Okay, maybe I need to calm the fuck down.
Pushing the equipment inside, the technician at my shoulder grins, probably assuming I’m an impatient new father.
Roxy sits upright in the hospital bed, pale and sharp-eyed, her spine straightening the second she sees me. Confusion flickers first, followed by anger.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snaps.
“We’re getting an ultrasound,” I announce, keeping my voice calm.
Her gaze flicks to the woman beside me in scrubs. “No, we are not.”
The technician hesitates, glancing between us.
“Now,” I add.
Roxy swings her legs over the side of the bed. “Get. Her. Out.”
I lift a hand to the technician without breaking eye contact with Roxy. “Give us a minute.”
The door clicks shut behind her. Silence slams down between us.
“Leave me alone.” Frustration and exhaustion lace her tone.
It squeezes at something in my chest, making it hard to breathe. Seeing her this defeated makes me want to buy this fucking hospital and chain her here until she is better, rested, safe.
Until she can regain the control she so desperately craves.
“Thunder.” I lower my head.
“I need to think. You don’t get to barge in here and start issuing orders like I’m—”
“Like you’re carrying my child?” I cut in.
Her breath stutters. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” The certainty in my voice seems to surprise her.
“You don’t. You can’t.”
“Let’s find out, then,” I offer, hoping she will see past her confusion.
“You don’t get to decide this for me. You don’t get to turn my body into a problem you need to solve.”
I step closer. Slowly. Carefully. “This isn’t control.” I sit beside her. “This is information.”
She sighs. “I’m not ready.”
I’m not sure if she is talking about motherhood or the ultrasound, but the vulnerability behind her statement shakes me to the core.
“I’m not standing on the sidelines while you do this alone.” I’m not sure if my words provide any solace, but I utter them anyway.
She swallows. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“You didn’t. I’m here anyway.” Tentatively, I touch her pinkie with mine. She doesn’t recoil. Thank fuck.
The silence stretches, thick and charged.
Finally, she turns her head to me. “You don’t get to bully me into this.”
It’s a tired rebuttal, but it’s her. Finally. A little glimpse of the strength that defines this woman.
“I’m not bullying you. I’m insisting.”
She huffs out a breath, rubbing her temples. “Jesus. You’re impossible.”
“I’m not leaving, Roxy.”
Her shoulders sag just a fraction. Exhaustion leaks through the cracks in her confusion.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she says. “You don’t get to rewrite my life because of a maybe.”
This woman will fight for control until her last breath. “I’m not rewriting anything. I just want to know the baby is okay.”
She snaps her head toward me, worry and uncertainty forming a frown on her face. She studies me for what feels like several lifetimes. I don’t waver.
I’m not sure what tips the scales. It might be the determination in my eyes. It might be the calm I radiate that comes from I don’t know where. It might have nothing to do with me, but finally, she nods.
“Let’s do it,” she mutters. “But you don’t get to touch me. You don’t get to speak for me.”
“Of course.” I nod, relief flooding my veins.
I open the door. The technician reappears, scanning the room cautiously.
“We’re ready,” Roxy says, her voice cool, composed, reclaimed.
I stay where I am. Close enough to matter. Far enough not to crowd her.
Roxy lifts her gown, and the technician applies the gel and starts probing Roxy’s flat stomach.
My eyes dart between the machine, Roxy’s face, and her belly. She concentrates on the screen where we see… well, nothing.
My heart hammers in my temples. I flex my fingers, but it does nothing for my composure. Something is wrong.
The technician hums. Then she frowns. She clicks the keyboard a few times. She pushes the probe harder, Roxy’s skin folding.
I’m about to demand explanations when a sound fills the room. A somewhat erratic thump-thump.
Thump. Thump-thump.
It’s not loud. Not dramatic. It’s fast. Insistent. Alive.
The air seems to thicken around us, like the room itself has taken a breath and forgotten to let it out.
“That’s the heartbeat,” the technician says.
The word lands slowly. Not all at once. Heartbeat.
I stare at the screen, at the flickering shape I don’t understand yet, my brain scrambling to catch up with what my chest already knows.
That sound isn’t background noise. It isn’t medical equipment doing its job. It’s a someone.
Roxy inhales sharply. Her fingers curl into the sheet beneath her, knuckles whitening.
I don’t realize I’ve stepped closer until I feel the heat of her skin, until my hand is hovering uselessly near her hip. Not touching, because I don’t know if I’m allowed to anymore.
The sound continues. Steady now. Confident.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Our eyes meet, and something breaks open between us.
Her eyes are glossy, stunned, stripped bare of defiance or fear or strategy. And at least for this monumental moment, which I will never forget for the rest of my life, there’s no accusation in her gaze.
Just the same realization crashing through both of us.
This isn’t hypothetical. This isn’t leverage or circumstance or fallout. This is happening.
I swallow hard. My throat burns.
I have dismantled hostile takeovers, stared down men twice my size, burned bridges without blinking, but this sound reduces me to something terrifyingly simple.
Present.
The technician keeps talking, but her voice fades into static. All I hear is that rhythm. That relentless proof.
Roxy exhales, shaky. “Oh. Nine weeks?”
Nine weeks… That would mean her one-night stand with Romeo resulted in this.
She sounds disappointed. Or confused. Or something.
In her mind, she doesn’t know the father.
I want to send the technician away so I can provide some clarity. I know the truth. I just need to tell her.
Instead, I let my hand settle against the edge of the bed, close enough that if she reaches, I’ll be there.
The heartbeat fills the room.
“But everything is okay?” Roxy asks.
“Yes. At this stage, you’ll need to book your first appointment with your obstetrician. Start taking prenatal vitamins. I will ask the nurse to include some leaflets in your discharge papers. But for now, everything looks great.”
The technician leaves, and Roxy closes her eyes. “Please, let me think. Don’t talk.”
The plea in her voice breaks something in me. There is no avoiding the conversation, but I respect her wish.
After a day full of betrayal, snap decisions, heartfelt confessions, a health scare, and a life-altering discovery, my revelation would let her down one more time.
So I respect her wish and stay silent, delaying the inevitable.
I have to tell Roxy that I kept something else from her. She needs to know I’m Romeo.
Never have I feared the consequences of truth as much as now.