Chapter 36 Violet
VIOLET
In Whip’s bathroom, I stood beneath the shower spray for a long time, mentally trying to process what we were going to do with two kids who’d watched me murder someone. I got the impression they were well used to keeping secrets, but I didn’t want to be another adult who asked them to do that.
And yet, what was the alternative?
I still had no answers when I wrapped myself in a towel, and started searching the drawers for a hairbrush.
I felt bad for going through Whip’s things, and I really didn’t want to snoop, but he hadn’t had any conditioner in his shower.
So although I had spent a long time scrubbing the blood out of my hair, and it was now clean, it was a matted, tangled mess that finger combing wasn’t going to fix.
Each drawer held all of Whip’s things. Cologne. Toothbrush and paste. Deodorant. A facial cleanser that I mentally high-fived him for because even I, as a woman, was pretty slack about skincare.
No hairbrush. I supposed he didn’t have much need for one when his hair was only a few inches long.
I’d almost given up hope when I pulled open the bottom drawer.
The contents were very different from all the other ones.
It was filled with bright colors, unlike the grays and blacks with the odd splash of red that branded all the items Whip used regularly.
A lady’s hairbrush sat among a packet of pads, a box of tampons, makeup removing wipes, old, unused pregnancy tests, and an eyelash curler.
My fingers brushed over a headband, some ponytail ties, and a necklace with a J hanging from the end of it.
Whip’s wife’s things. I was sure. Things that had at some point probably littered the countertop, in use every day. They’d probably gotten ready for work, side by side in this bathroom, brushed their teeth, and loved each other in it.
And then someone had taken her away from him.
I could feel her ghost in the room with me.
Could practically see their life together, playing out around me.
Yet there was no jealousy. For maybe the first time that night, there was a calmness in the air. He’d loved her. I knew that. They’d had a family together, a life. That was a part of him I would never want to take away.
Something about being in this home felt right. Seeing her things in that drawer reminded me this had once been a happy house, filled with love and laughter. And my heart whispered that it could be like that again.
I could see myself here, with Whip stepping out of the shower behind me, dripping wet, wrapping a towel around his trim waist and then his arms around me. Placing a good morning kiss to the side of my neck.
I could hear kids’ voices outside the door, and my heart squeezed at the thought of raising a family with him. Not replacing the one he’d lost. But finding solace in the people who were in his life now.
I plucked the brush from the drawer, but my attention caught on the period supplies.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used them.
I racked my brain, thinking back through the weeks and months. Had I even had a period since I’d met Whip? Since Levi had gotten out of jail? Since X had murdered Paul Jedderesen at that house on Olympic Drive?
I didn’t think I had. The days were a blur of grief and fear, of happiness and laughter…
And the nights were a whirlwind of hot sex.
Hot, mostly very unprotected, sex.
We’d been so careless, but I hadn’t really even thought it would matter.
The voice of my doctor, the one I tried really hard to never go see, was always in the back of my mind.
Every time I went there, he reminded me I needed to lose weight.
That I was considered obese. That I would never be able to get pregnant at the weight I was.
I’d gotten so sick of hearing it, I had basically stopped going to the doctor altogether.
I would be dying on the couch, and Toby would beg me to go find a new doctor, but I knew they would all say the same thing, and I couldn’t bear to hear it from someone else’s mouth.
I’d spent my entire childhood hearing people tell me I was too big, too fat, too unhealthy. Too everything.
I didn’t have to hear it as an adult. Didn’t have to subject myself to that sort of shit.
So I just never went.
But my period had always been regular.
And now it wasn’t.
“Stress,” I told my reflection in the mirror, raking the brush through the tangled lengths of my hair with a vicious stroke. “You’re stressed. Nothing more.”
Except my gaze kept straying to that bottom drawer. To the pregnancy tests just sitting there, right next to the tampons.
I forced my gaze back to the mirror. Forced myself to brush my hair until it was smooth and straight. “You have no pregnancy signs…”
I had thrown up a few days ago, but that had been food poisoning, not morning sickness.
Yet that pregnancy test felt like it had been left there for me. A little gift from Whip’s wife, rather than a leftover from when they’d been trying.
I gave in to temptation and picked up the box, flipping it over. It was definitely out-of-date.
Clearly not a sign from a dead woman that I might be pregnant.
And yet I couldn’t put it down. My fingers shook and clenched around the box.
My other hand came to my belly, resting there, like my heart already knew if I took that test it would be positive.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Part of me knew, that deep down, the reason I hadn’t been at all careful when we’d had sex was because I desperately wanted a family of my own.
That despite what doctors had told me, I still had belief in my body.
That if just given the chance, it could bring me the family I’d always dreamed of.
Guilt plagued me. What I’d done wasn’t fair to any of those three men out there in the kitchen.
And yet none of them had brought up contraception as more than a passing thought either.
“This is stupid,” I whispered to myself in the mirror. “You don’t even know you’re pregnant.”
I tried to force myself to put the test back down.
To walk out of the bathroom and deal with everything that had happened tonight.
I had to be in shock. I’d murdered a man tonight, and there were two very traumatized children out there who’d watched me do it, who I needed to deal with.
Yet here I was, standing in a bathroom, daydreaming about babies I probably couldn’t even have.
I ripped the packaging off the test. Read the instructions three times before my brain comprehended the words and worked out what I was supposed to do.
I peed where I was supposed to pee. Then set the test down on the counter and stared at it, counting seconds in my head because I didn’t have a watch or my phone and didn’t dare stick my head out of the bathroom door and ask for one.
The test said it would take up to five minutes for a result to show.
Mine showed up positive in under sixty seconds.
I stared at the two pink lines until my vision blurred. And then I blinked a few times fast to clear them and stared at it some more.
But there was no mistaking the bright-pink lines that said I was very definitely pregnant.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I whispered. The test was years out-of-date. It could very well be a false positive.
Yet my heart whispered that it wasn’t. My head screamed in excitement, and my entire body trembled with the adrenaline that coursed through my system, wiping away the memory that I’d done a horrible thing tonight and taken a man’s life.
I should have cared more about that, but I couldn’t. Not when I was standing here, holding a test that told me I was going to be a mom.
I’d never had the full tour of Whip’s house. It was nothing fancy. A master where he obviously slept. A second room had nothing in it except the unpleasant smell of bleach.
Whip had closed that door, saying no one was to go in there. He’d exchanged a look with X as he’d said it, and my gut instinct knew that room had seen things I probably didn’t want to know about.
The last bedroom had a set of bunk beds, a closet full of kids’ clothes, and a chest full of toys.
I’d gasped when Whip opened the door. Ari and Will ran in like someone had just opened the gates of Disney for them.
Whip and I stood in the doorway, his arms wrapped around me from behind, the exact same way I’d imagined him doing in the bathroom. The pregnancy test burned a hole in the pocket of the sweats I’d borrowed from him.
Despite it being the middle of the night, and the fact they’d both had a warm shower which I’d thought might settle them down, Ari and Will tore through the toy chest, pulling out everything and exclaiming over each toy with excitement.
“Is this okay?” I asked Whip quietly.
All I could think was this room hadn’t seen children since the day he’d lost them. Someone had clearly come in here afterward and tidied up, but Whip had never gotten rid of their things. Not their toys or their clothes or their beds.
I couldn’t blame him. My hand hovered over my belly. I’d known about my child for literally less than an hour and I already couldn’t imagine the pain of losing him or her. How Whip had gone on after having his babies in his life for years, and then just not…I couldn’t even imagine.
I twisted back to look at him.
He let out a deep breath and then nodded. “Yeah. It really is. I never really knew why I couldn’t get rid of their things when I moved my wife’s clothes.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. “But maybe this is why.”
When the kids finally tired of the toys, they explored the clothes hanging in the closet and then finally moved on to the beds.
“I get the top bunk!” Will shouted.
Ari couldn’t stop stroking the soft fabric of the quilt covering the mattress. She stared up at us. “I sleep here?”
I nodded. “Sure. At least for now, until we work out if you have family to go to.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Oh.”