Sweet Sinful Nights(47)
“You’re dating him?” he said, as if she were speaking in tongues.
She nodded.
“I thought you were just doing business with his clubs,” he said, taking time with each word, as if he could restitch them into a pattern that made sense.
“I thought so, too. But then it turned into something more.”
“How? How did it turn into something more?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
“We started spending time together again,” she said, keeping it PG.
“Why would you do that? You were pretty damn clear ten years ago you never wanted to see him again. You told all of us—me, Ryan, Colin. You made it abundantly clear he was persona non grata.”
“I didn’t want to see him then. But that was ten years ago, Michael. Things changed.”
“What changed?” he asked through gritted teeth. “I can’t imagine what could have changed in the last week or two that would erase what you went through.”
She bit her tongue. She didn’t want to serve up all her feelings for everyone to judge. It was hard enough to say them to Brent, let alone to her big brother. She didn’t feel she needed to defend her heart. Some things were personal. Some things were private. Like the fact that she was falling again for someone who was tender and kind, rough and fiery, funny and sexy, and who only had eyes for her.
Someone who was putting her first.
“He’s different. I am, too. That’s what has changed,” she said in a crisp voice.
Michael closed his eyes, gripped the side of the table, and breathed out hard. “I have no idea why you would want to do this. After everything that happened,” he said, opening his eyes and staring at her.
“Nothing that happened was his fault.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “If it wasn’t his fault, whose f*cking fault was it?”
“Both of ours,” she said, holding her ground, even as something darkened inside her.
“Shan,” he said in a heated whisper, as if that was the only thing keeping him from shouting, and Michael Sloan never shouted. Michael Sloan never raised his voice. Michael Sloan stayed in control of his emotions at all times.
Except when it came to his sister. “I was with you in London. You were devastated,” he said, his eyes black and hard.
“Of course I was.”
“You were torn in pieces,” he said between gritted teeth.
She slammed a hand on the table. “I know! I f*cking know. I was there. It was my body. Goddammit, Michael. I’m sorry you don’t like him, but I’m seeing him again and I care about him. And I’m not asking for your approval. I’m simply telling you because I don’t like to keep secrets from you. So if you could just chill out, that would be great.” She pushed back from the table, the legs of the chair scraping against her wood floor in a shrill shriek. The sound jolted her brother.
“Shan,” he said gently.
She held up a hand. Don’t come closer. Not now. “I need to get changed,” she said, and tipped her forehead to her bathroom. She wasn’t ready for him to say he was sorry for getting mad.
“I’ll be done soon,” he said, in a gentler tone.
She shut the door to her bedroom, headed to her bathroom, and stripped off her clothes as she turned on the shower. As she stepped under the hot stream, the water pelting her, she closed her eyes, returning to ten years ago.
*
Brent had been gone for a few weeks, and she was six days late. She’d hoped and prayed and bargained and bartered with the universe that she was simply that—late. Women all over the world were late, and it didn’t mean they’d been stupid. It didn’t mean the pill hadn’t worked. It only meant they were late, but that red was coming.
Right?
Right, she told her freaked-out brain.
While they’d stopped using condoms a long time ago, she was on the pill. She’d switched prescriptions, though, since the one she was on had been giving her headaches. They’d used condoms during that time, but something must have gone wrong. Hell if she knew when the little bastard sperm had breached her body.
She pressed a hand to her belly, alone in her tiny Brooklyn bathroom in a room she rented for one month from an older couple, fingers crossed behind her back, trying to remember if a condom had broken during those times they’d relied on them. But when the two pink lines appeared, churning her stomach and stabbing holes in her future, it didn’t really matter if she could recall the moment when the protection failed.
Her body had spoken, changing her life yet again.
Twenty-one, pregnant, and alone in her first job out of college. With the father of the baby on the other side of the country and out of the picture. Without a clue what to do, how to feel, what to think.
She sank down onto the toilet seat, dropped her head in her hands, and asked the universe for a redo. She waited for the tears to roll from her eyes, to saturate her cheeks. But, strangely, they didn’t come. Maybe she’d used up her lifetime supply when her daddy had died. Maybe whatever droplets were left had been reserved for the re-opening of that wound with her mom’s letters.
She did what shocked women around the world have done for years when confronted with two pink lines: retraced her steps to the drug store, glanced furtively around in case she saw anyone she knew, and grabbed another test from the shelf. She bought it, ran home, then peed on the stick again.