Julia
Chapter Thirty Five
I wake up alone in Ricardo’s bed.
For a moment, I let myself ride on the bliss of not remembering.
The sheets beneath my cheek are fine and smooth, carrying the faint scent of expensive detergent and Ricardo’s skin. The room is dim, curtains drawn against morning, but not completely. A narrow line of pale light cuts across the carpet near the window.
Then, brutally, memory returns.
Dante on the floor.
Blood under my hands.
Ricardo’s face in the hospital.
White roses in a vase.
I sit up too fast, and my stomach churns.
I throw the covers back and stumble toward the bathroom with one hand pressed over my mouth. I barely make it to the toilet before I’m sick.
There isn’t much in me to lose.
Water. Bile. The bitter, empty taste of a body that has gone through too much in the last day.
My knees hit the tile. I grip the edge of the toilet and breathe through the next wave, waiting for it to pass. It takes too long. Long enough for sweat to gather along the back of my neck. Long enough for my arms to start trembling from holding myself up.
When it finally eases, I lower the lid and sit back against the wall.
Ricardo’s bathroom is beautiful, I think absently. Dark stone. Soft towels. A shower large enough to belong in a hotel suite.
I close my eyes.
Dante made it through surgery.
I repeat it.
Dante made it through surgery.
It does not erase the image of him unconscious in the hospital bed, but it gives me enough strength to stand.
I rinse my mouth at the sink, then brush my teeth with the toothbrush that I've been using the past few weeks. My reflection looks strange. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Hair tangled from sleep and damp at the temples. I am wearing one of Ricardo’s shirts because I could not bear the idea of anything tight on my skin last night.
The sleeves fall past my wrists. The hem reaches the middle of my thighs.
The sight of it makes my throat tighten.
I walk back into the bedroom and look at the bed.
One side of it is still turned down, pillow creased from the weight of Ricardo’s head. There is a faint indentation in the mattress beside where I slept. Close enough that if I had reached out in the night, I would have found him.
But he is gone now.
I hear a soft knock.
The door opens a few inches.
Victoria steps in, balancing a tray in both hands. She is dressed in simple clothes now, dark leggings and a soft sweater, her hair pulled back from her face. She still looks tired. Everyone does. But there is a life in her that makes the room feel less empty the second she enters it.
“Oh,” she says when she sees me standing there. “You’re awake.”
“I think so.”
Her eyes move over my face. “You were sick.”
I start to deny it.
There is no point.
“A little.”
Victoria sets the tray on the small table near the window. “A little?”
I wrap my arms around myself and nod.
Her expression softens, but she does not fuss. I appreciate that more than I can say.
“I brought breakfast,” she says. “Toast, eggs, fruit, tea. I thought we'd keep it simple this morning. There’s also a change of clothes.”
She nods toward the armchair, where folded clothes rest in a neat stack.
I look at them. Black leggings. A cream sweater. Socks.
“You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I know.”
She says it so simply that my eyes burn.
I look away.
Victoria crosses to the curtains and opens them halfway.
Morning light spills into the room, gray and cold, revealing more of Ricardo’s bedroom.
The dark wood furniture. The books stacked on one bedside table.
His watch lying near a glass of water. The jacket he wore last night draped over the back of a chair, still marked faintly where I touched him with blood on my hands.
My stomach turns again, but not quite so violently this time.
“Sit,” Victoria says.
“I’m okay.”
“Sit anyway.”
I sit.
She pulls out the chair across from me and lowers herself into it carefully, one hand at her back for a second before she settles.
The movement reminds me that she is pregnant, that she spent last night in a hospital waiting room while Dante was in surgery, that she held me together in a bathroom while I fell apart over a toilet.
“You should be resting,” I say.
“So should you.”
“I don’t think I remember how.”
Her mouth curves faintly. “That makes two of us.”
She pours tea into a cup and pushes it toward me.
I take it because my hands need something to hold.
“Any updates on Dante?” I ask.
Her face softens. “Stable. Still unconscious.”
My breath leaves me too quickly.
“Has Ricardo gone there?”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “He wanted to wait for you, but he wanted to let you sleep. He'll be back shortly, though.”
I nod and take a sip of tea.
I can't work up the energy to be upset.
Victoria picks up a piece of toast and puts it on the small plate in front of me. “Eat.”
“I don’t know if I can keep it down.”
“Just take it one bite at a time.”
I look at the toast.
It seems impossible that I’m expected to eat right now.
But my stomach is empty enough to ache, and the tea has helped settle the rawness in my throat. I break off a corner of toast and put it in my mouth. It tastes like butter and salt and feels too normal.
Normal feels wrong.
I swallow carefully.
Victoria watches me and doesn't bother to pretend she isn’t.
That kindness nearly undoes me.
For a few minutes, we sit in quiet. I manage another bite of toast. Then half a strawberry. The tea warms my hands through the cup. Outside the window, Ricardo’s property stretches out beneath the pale morning, the driveway watched by people I can barely see but know are there.
Extra security.
Because of me.
No.
Because of Harrison.
I try to remember Ricardo’s voice saying it.
Because of Harrison.
The toast turns heavy in my stomach.
I set it down.
Victoria does not push.
She eats a little fruit, then leans back, one hand resting lightly over her stomach. The gesture is unconscious. Protective.
My eyes stay there too long.
She notices.
I look away quickly, heat rising in my face even through the sickness.
The silence returns.
Then, suddenly, the question comes out of me.
“How did you know you were pregnant?”
Victoria goes very still.
I stare at the tea in my hands, horrified by myself, by the timing, by the fact that I said it out loud when I have barely even let the thought form in my own mind.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I don’t know why I asked that.”
Victoria does not answer right away.
When she does, her voice is gentle. “Do you want to know why I knew, or do you want to tell me why you’re asking?”
My throat closes.
I look down at my hands wrapped around the cup.
They are clean.
They still feel marked.
“I’ve been sick,” I say.
“I know.”
“No, I mean…” I stop and swallow. “Before last night. A little. On and off. I thought it was stress. Or the gala. Or not eating enough. Or eating the wrong thing. Or being in the car. It’s always easy to explain away.”
Victoria watches me carefully. I force myself to continue.
“I was tired. More than usual. And certain smells bothered me. Flowers, perfume. At the gala, I couldn't bring myself to drink any of the champagne. In the car, Dante noticed. He remembered I get carsick when I’m stressed.”
His name hurts to say.
I pause until I can continue.
“He gave me water,” I whisper.
Victoria’s eyes soften.
I press the cup between my palms. “This morning, I woke up and was sick again. Maybe that’s just shock. It probably is shock. I'm being ridiculous.”
“Julia.”
“I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this right now.”
“Yes, you do.”
My eyes lift to hers.
Victoria’s face is calm, but there is no dismissal in it. No easy reassurance. No quick little smile confirming that I'm being ridiculous.
That makes my fear worse.
And somehow eases it a bit.
She leans forward slightly. “With me, it was fatigue and nausea. I kept blaming everything else too. Stress. Not sleeping. A new relationship with someone pretty intimidating.”
A laugh catches in my throat and breaks before it can come out.
Victoria’s mouth softens into a small smile.
“I knew before I took the test,” she says. “I tried to deny it, but it was just confirming what I already knew.”
My hand moves, settling over my stomach.
I realize what I have done and pull it back at once.
Victoria sees.
She says nothing for a moment.
Then, quietly, “When was your last period?”
My face goes hot.
I look toward the window.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t. I’m usually…” I stop, trying to think through the fog of the last few weeks. Ricardo. The gala. Dante’s anger. The move from one crisis to the next. “I’m usually careful about knowing.”
“Stress can make everything irregular.”
“Yes.” I grab onto that. “Exactly.”
“It can.”
But she does not reassure me by telling me that’s all it is.
My chest tightens.
I look back at her. “This is insane.”
“Maybe.”
“This cannot be happening right now.”
Victoria’s expression shifts into one of sympathy.
“It may not be,” she says. “There are many reasons your body could be reacting this way.”
“Shock.”
“Yes.”
“Stress.”
“Yes.”
“Not eating. Lack of sleep. Last night.”
“All of that.”
I nod too quickly.
“All of that,” I repeat.
Victoria reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers.
“And pregnancy is also possible.”
Pregnancy.
My pulse stumbles.
Then too much memory and feeling rushes in at once.
Ricardo’s hands on me.
The storm.
The weeks after.
The way I let myself have him when everything in my life had been built around caution and control and being the version of myself other people could approve of.
I think of Dante in the hospital.
I think of Harrison’s roses.
I think of my apartment door opening and two men lying in wait.
I think of Ricardo at the hospital, at his son's bedside.
And beneath all of that, terrifyingly small and helpless, I think of a child.
Ricardo’s child.
My hand shakes beneath Victoria’s.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
Victoria squeezes gently. “You don’t know yet.”
“I can’t be.”
“You don’t know yet,” she repeats.
“What if I am?”
Her face softens.
“Then we deal with that.”