Chapter Twenty-Five
RILEY
The clinic’s waiting room smells faintly of antiseptic and lavender, which is a strange enough combination as it is, but add in a sensitivity to smell and a nervous stomach, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s a miracle I manage to check in without vomiting all over the reception desk.
My hands are clammy, and my throat is bone dry. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this nervous in my life.
What if the heartbeat’s even slower this time? What if there’s no heartbeat at all?
What if I’ve already lost this baby and I didn’t even know it?
I should be getting excited about cribs and tiny socks and arguing with Kieran over baby names.
I glance toward the doorway, half-expecting him to appear and lift me into his arms, promising me that everything will be okay.
But he isn’t here because of the choices I made, and now I have to face this uncertainty alone.
I force myself to breathe, but it’s useless. My mind is a carousel of what ifs that only seems to speed up.
Scrolling through my phone, I try to distract myself, but all that does is lead me back down the dark rabbit hole of pregnancy forums and medical articles I need to stop reading but I can’t.
My thumb scrolls on autopilot, and I continue to torture myself with worst-case scenarios until a message from Ciara pops up on the screen.
Ciara: You’ve got this, Riley. Your baby is a fighter, and so are you! I’m here if you need me. x
Her kind words are enough to trigger my tears, and before I know it, I’m full-on sobbing in the middle of the waiting room.
“Are you okay?”
I look up to find the woman sitting adjacent to me looking at me with concern.
“Oh uh, I’m fine.” I try to subtly wipe my eyes. “Just hormones.”
“Tell me about it.” She rubs at her small bump. “The slightest thing would set me off in the beginning. I’m so glad everything seems to have settled down now.”
“How far along are you?”
“Almost five months, which is crazy. It’s flown by, though I doubt my husband would agree.”
“What wouldn’t I agree on?” A man, who I assume is the husband, appears carrying a cup of water.
He hands it to his wife before taking the empty seat beside her and wrapping an arm protectively around her shoulders.
The small gesture makes my stomach sink.
“That this pregnancy has gone by quickly.”
“Oh, yeah, it’s been a real walk in the park.” When he catches my eye, he subtly shakes his head. “Are you expecting?”
I swallow hard as I try to hold back the tears. “Yeah… It’s my first baby.”
“Oh, congratulations!” the woman says, her eyes bright. “How far along are you?”
I hesitate as my stomach twists. “Only a few weeks.”
“It’s scary at first, isn’t it? All the waiting and wondering?” the husband says. “But babies are so much stronger than we give them credit for.”
It’s as if he can read the unspoken words on my face.
I force a small, tight smile.
“I hope so,” I whisper, chest tightening.
Before they can ask any more questions, the nurse calls out my name, and my stomach flips violently as I get to my feet.
I follow her down the hall to Dr. Rogers’ office.
He’s already sitting on a stool beside the examination table, prepping the ultrasound machine.
The sight of it has me swaying on my feet, and I have to grip the doorway to stop from keeling over.
“Riley?” Dr. Rogers immediately gets to his feet. “Is everything okay? Are you feeling faint?”
“I, uh…” I glance at the ultrasound machine, and my mouth fills with saliva.
“Nurse, could you get Mrs. O’Connor a glass of water?”
Dr. Rogers takes me by the elbow and leads me over to the examination table, forcing me to sit on the edge. “Take a breath.”
“Sorry. It’s just nerves.”
“That’s perfectly normal.”
The nurse appears with a cup of water and hands it to me.
I take a few tentative sips as Dr. Rogers sits back down on his stool and starts pressing buttons on the machine.
“Besides being nervous, how else are you feeling?” he asks.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but can we find out if my baby has a heartbeat or not? Because I’m really freaking out here.”
Dr. Rogers offers me a patient smile that doesn’t ease my nerves in the slightest.
“Of course. Well, I got the results from your bloodwork back, and your hCG levels are still doubling, which is encouraging. But to be certain, I’ll need to perform another ultrasound to check the heartbeat.
I had another machine brought in, which is a bit more advanced, so it should give us a clearer picture of what’s going on.
If you want to get yourself situated on the table, we can get started. ”
Dr. Rogers pulls the curtain around the bed so I can change into a gown. I hurriedly pull off my leggings and almost trip over the waistband when I step out of them in my hurry to change because it feels like I’m carrying a ticking time bomb.
I just want to know if my baby is okay or not. The hCG levels should be encouraging, but I’ve read countless stories where women’s bodies thought they were pregnant and continued producing all of the correct hormones when, in reality they had miscarried.
God, I wish Kieran were here.
When I pull back the curtain, I’m noticeably crying, but Dr. Rogers doesn’t look fazed.
I’m sure he’s seen his fair share of crying pregnant women before. He simply motions for me to lie back while he readies the ultrasound machine.
“This will feel a little cold.” He squeezes some of the ultrasound gel onto the end of the probe. “Just try to relax for me.”
I close my eyes and try to take a deep breath as I focus on the slight hum of the fluorescent lights and the distant chatter from the waiting room down the hall.
My fingers grip the edge of the table as I try not to think the worst.
Just as Dr. Rogers is about to insert the probe, there’s a loud commotion down the hall, and my eyes fly open.
“Where is Riley Sullivan? Where is my wife?”
I bolt upright at the sound of Kieran’s voice. “Oh, no.”
“What on earth is going on out there?” Dr. Rogers glances over his shoulder toward the door just as it bursts open, and Kieran appears.
His broad frame fills the entire doorway.
Every inch of him is tense, and his face looks like it’s been carved from stone.
For a moment, he’s no longer the Kieran I know. The man I was falling in love with, who held me as I slept and wiped away my tears, is gone, replaced by someone I barely recognize. Someone who, quite frankly, terrifies me from the sheer force of his anger.
“Can I help you?” Dr. Rogers gets to his feet.
“I don’t know, can you?” Kieran retorts without looking away from me.
I flinch at the iciness of his words.
“Kieran, please… Let me explain—” I choke, but Kieran shakes his head, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he tries to keep a lid on his anger.
“We’ll talk.” His voice is almost trembling with undiluted rage. “But not here.”
There’s no warmth in his tone, only the sharp edge of authority that leaves me swallowing hard.
I know he’s only saying that to prevent a scene in public, but deep down, I know he has no intention of hearing me out. My actions, my choice to keep this from him… they’ve already spoken louder than any words can.
“Kieran—”
He cuts me off, his voice low and measured. “We get through this appointment first. Then we’ll figure out where we stand.”
I blink. “What’s that supposed to mean?” My voice cracks with panic as I feel him start to slip out of reach. “Kieran, what do you mean ‘where we stand’ ? We’re married. We’re having a baby. Where else could we possibly stand?”
His gaze cuts into me, sharp enough to wound. “You made choices, Riley. Choices that shut me out. Choices that told me I don’t get a say in my own child’s life. So, yeah, maybe we do need to figure out where we stand, because right now, I’m not sure I even know who I married.”
His words are a physical blow.
My heart lurches painfully in my chest, and I want to reach for him, to make him see that this wasn’t about keeping secrets or shutting him out. It was all out of fear, nothing more. But I know nothing I say will matter right now.
Dr. Rogers is still standing. “Would you like me to continue?”
Kieran nods. “Yes, let’s get this over with.”
I have to clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle my sob.
“Riley, we don’t need to do this today—”
Kieran folds his arms over his chest. “Do the damn ultrasound.”
“If you continue to speak in such a tone, I will have you removed.”
“You can try.” Kieran’s voice goes low as he pulls back his jacket to reveal the gun tucked into his waistband.
It’s not a threat but a reminder of exactly who he is and what he’s capable of.
“Please,” I choke out, looking back at Dr. Rogers. “Just do the scan. I need to know if the baby is okay.”
“If?” Kieran snaps, making me flinch. “What do you mean, if?”
Dr. Rogers hesitates, clearly unsettled by the tension sparking between us. His eyes dart between my tear-streaked face and Kieran’s furious glare.
“Are you comfortable with me discussing the details of your care with your husband?” he asks carefully.
I nod, because what choice do I have?
Despite the secrecy and the distance I’ve put between us, Kieran is the father, and no matter how much he hates me right now, he deserves to know the truth.
Maybe part of me even hopes that knowing the truth will make him understand why I did what I did.
“Your baby has a slightly slower heartbeat than I would have liked to see at your wife’s previous scan,” Dr. Rogers says gently.
The blood drains from my face as realization dawns on Kieran’s face.
His eyes go wide, then narrow into slits as anger flashes behind them. “Previous scan?”
“Yes,” Dr. Rogers replies cautiously. “Normally, I wouldn’t perform scans so close together, but given the high risk of miscarriage, I wanted to keep Riley under closer supervision.”
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Kieran’s jaw locks as his knuckles turn white from where he’s clenching his hands into fists.
If he was angry before, this is something else entirely—a darker, deeper rage I’ve never seen before.
“There was a risk of miscarriage, and you didn’t think I needed to know?”
My mouth opens, but no words come out because, what can I say? That I didn’t want him to worry? That I wanted to spare him the pain I was barely holding together myself? It all sounds hollow now.
“Do the scan.” His voice is terrifyingly calm, and Dr. Rogers nods quickly, adjusting the ultrasound machine with slightly trembling hands.
The air in the room feels heavy, pressing down on my chest until every breath hurts.
Lying back on the table, my pulse hammering in my ears, I stare up at the ceiling because I can’t bring myself to look at Kieran.
All I can do now is hope there’s still a heartbeat, that the baby inside me is still fighting.
Because if there isn’t, if this ends here, then so do we.