28. Rhett
Ientered Scarlett’s hospital room with a heavy weight on my chest. The information I carried felt like a ticking time bomb, and I wasn’t sure how she would react when it detonated.
Scarlett looked up from the desk by the window, instantly frowning when she caught my expression. Guess my poker face wasn’t as good as I would have liked. “What is it? What’s happened?”
I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself. There was no easy way to deliver this, so I figured it was better to do it quickly. “My private investigator found your birth mother.”
The words hung in the air like a guillotine blade. I searched Scarlett’s face, bracing for the impact as the realization sank in. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, but no sound came out. For a moment, she looked as fragile as the pale sunlight filtering through the window.
Then she dragged in a deep breath and pushed the chair back, getting to her feet.
“I see,” she said quietly after a tense pause. “So, what happens now?”
Surely jumping straight into questions about the next steps was a good sign? “Well, someone will need to reach out to Laura and request the family medical history details.”
Ah, standing there, chewing her bottom lip while she stared at me blankly, was not such a great sign.
“Do you feel like that is something you would like to do yourself? Because if not?—”
“Are you kidding me, Rhett? This is such a shitty position to put me in! The first contact I have with the woman that gave birth to me is after you’ve broken the law and breached her privacy! What if she’s pissed as hell? What if she flat out refuses to respond? What am I meant to do, then?” Her voice rose as the words tumbled out in an agitated rush. “You had no right to bribe that adoption agency worker and go behind my back like this. You could have ruined everything!”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Scarlett barreled on, glaring at me with her hands on her hips, her eyes spitting fire.
“Did you even think for a second about how this might affect me? About how I would feel having this bombshell dropped on me out of nowhere?”
“If I hadn’t have done that, we wouldn’t have the information at all. It was the only possible way.”
“You’re such an arrogant son of a bitch. It’s always your way! Everything you want, you get! And you don’t give two fucks about who you steamroll in the process!”
A thousand objections rose to my lips. All perfectly valid arguments, of course. Didn’t she understand I was doing this for her? For the babies? Fair’s fair, though, she was under a lot of stress. “I know you’re upset, and I don’t blame you.” I kept my voice low, trying to sound gentle and calm.
“Big of you!”
So, the soothing tone didn’t work. Fucking hell. “You’re being completely unreasonable here.” Now I was struggling to keep my voice level. “I did what needed to be done to help you and the twins. We can’t afford any delays when their health is at risk.”
She opened her mouth, clearly ready to argue some more, but I held up my hand to silence her. “What else do you suggest? Waiting around for the doctors to run a battery of tests and still come up short? This is possibly the quickest route to getting what we need. It’s also the only route. Just hear me out. We’re in uncharted territory with this high-risk twin pregnancy. Having your biological family’s medical background is critical, not just a luxury. Every doctor has stressed that.”
She folded her arms, her eyes still spitting fire. “Tell me something I don’t know, why don’t you?”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I attempted to organize my reasoning in a way she might actually listen to. “I get that the method wasn’t ideal. But I exhausted all the proper channels first. When those failed, I had to take more... aggressive steps. This isn’t about me disrespecting your boundaries or steamrolling you. It’s about doing whatever is necessary to get the best outcome.” I locked eyes with her, my jaw tensing. “So you can be as pissed at me all you want, but you fucking well know it was the only option.”
I could see the anger simmering behind Scarlett’s eyes as she took in my words, that stubborn set to her chin that told me she wasn’t going to back down easily. But there was something else too - an inkling of understanding, perhaps? A glimmer of acceptance that, despite my tactless approach, my intentions were good? “Just so you know, I fucking hate it that you’re right.” It wasn’t much, but I’d take it. “Here’s how we’ll handle it. So that there’s no pressure on her, we’ll simply invite her to forward the family history details directly to Dr. Morris. I’ll get the lawyer onto it and let you know as soon as I hear back. How does that sound?”
“Great, thanks,” she mumbled flatly, turning away to stare out the window. Dismissing me. But fuck, she looked so worn down, and anxious and vulnerable. All I wanted to do was pull her into my arms, kiss her head and tell her everything was going to be alright.
But then I remembered. I just wasn’t the guy for that. Look how much I’d already fucked this up. I was completely out of my depth here. Just bouncing from one fire to the next, putting them out as quickly as I could. Action man. That’s me.
Scarlett had been through enough trauma in her life already. Finding out she was adopted, then being cut off from her parents for years... she didn’t need me adding to that pain and confusion. I was supposed to be supporting her through this crazy situation, not making it even harder.
But how? How the hell was I meant to do that when I could barely sort through my own bullshit? Caring about someone else’s needs and feelings...it was so far outside anything I’d ever dealt with before.
All I knew was the drive to succeed, no matter what it took. Doing whatever was needed to achieve the desired outcome, consequences be damned. It was how I had operated my entire life - the only way I knew how to function. Because it was so much fucking easier than caring.
The problem was that Scarlett and the babies... they needed more from me than I was capable of giving. The very thought made my chest tighten so hard I could hardly breathe. I was so far out of my depth in this, and I felt like I was wearing concrete boots. There was not a chance in hell I was going to be able to learn to swim.