Sweet Sinful Nights(71)

And at truth.

That was why she wanted to tell him the story there. At home. Not in a hotel room. Not in an office. Not in a cab, or a car, or a plane. But in her house, where she could tell the story the way she needed to.

As the car wedged itself next to the curb, Brent paid and tipped the driver, then grabbed their bags.

“A sleepover at last,” he teased as they walked up the three flights, the sound of their footsteps echoing in the creaky silence of the building after midnight. She unlocked the door, both grateful and nervous that the moment had arrived. She spotted a lone spare key amidst the mail she’d tossed on her table in a rush when she’d left yesterday.

“Crap.”

Brent turned around, and shot her a curious stare.

She smacked her forehead with her hand. “My friend’s cat. She’s out of town, and I said since I was only gone for twenty-four hours that I could feed him.”

“He’s probably hungry.”

She snatched the key from the table. “Be right back. Sorry if the place is a mess. I left in a hurry.”

Racing upstairs, her heels clicking against the wood, she unlocked Ally’s condo to find the silver and black tabby meowing indignantly at her.

“Hey Nick,” she said to the feline.

Now, where was his cat food?

*

So this was her place. This was her home. He’d caught a glimpse of it on Saturday, but hadn’t taken it in. Her home had an open, airy feel, even at night. The couch and chairs were light shades of yellow and beige, with gold pillows tossed on the cushions, and billowy curtains by the windows.

Her house was hardly messy at all.

As he wandered through the kitchen, he spotted that frame again on the counter. The bright sunflowers. He peered more closely at it, and wondered again what the stone was by the flowers. Maybe a garden wall?

Wait.

She’d called him a sunflower, hadn’t she?

He snapped his fingers, remembering. On the phone the other night, she’d said he was her sunflower. Maybe this was her way of thinking about him when they weren’t together—with a picture of a sunflower. The corner of his lips twitched up. Fine, he wasn’t a flowery guy, but when the woman you love says you’re the sun in her life, you gladly take the compliment. He tapped the frame once, then set it back in place and strolled down the hallway. He stopped short at her bedroom door, opened wide. He couldn’t resist peeking. That was where she’d spent her nights. That bed, right there, with the orange and purple pattern on the cover.

That was where she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. He could picture her perfectly, on all fours in the middle of the mattress, her back bowed, hands tied to the headboard. He’d take her like that. Fuck her hard on her hands and knees. Grip her hips and sink into her. Smack her ass as he made her cry out in a pleasure.

A barely audible groan escaped his throat as the reel played before his eyes of her naked, lithe body trembling. Ready for him. He strolled into her room and brushed a hand over the corner of her bed. A few more minutes, and he could have her like that. That was his plan. He turned around to leave, when a flash of yellow caught his eye once more. Something about it felt familiar. He walked to her nightstand. The drawer was open and a small book appeared to have fallen off the nightstand into the drawer.

Or been shoved in.

Some part of him knew better. But another part was intrigued. Curious. Then far too curious when he saw the cover.

It was a photo album, and the cover image matched the picture in her kitchen frame. Another close-up shot of a sunflower. Somewhere inside of him, a warning bell told him maybe not to cross this line. He shouldn’t even be in her bedroom without permission. You don’t just walk into a woman’s bedroom, uninvited. And you don’t take a photo book out of a drawer without permission. But when you spot a black-and-white image slip out of one of the pages, and that black and white image has a name and a date, you might not be able to control yourself.

The name Paige-Prince, Shannon was printed in small letters on the edge, along with a date ten years ago, and then the words that knocked him to his knees. Highgate Maternal Fetal.

His heart sped in his chest, spinning wildly out of control. Blood pounded in his ears, and his throat went dry.

He inhaled deeply, as if the air would steel him, but his breath still came erratically. Then he did it. With traitorous fingers that dug into her privacy willfully, he pulled out the black-and-white image. He blinked. Once, twice, then he let it register. An ultrasound picture of a baby inside the womb.

His eyes returned to the date again, and he computed quickly. This was four months after they graduated from college. Four months after they split. A strange, sick fear descended on him, and his nerves frayed like the ends of a rope as questions assaulted him. Where was the baby? Did she give up a baby for adoption? Have an abortion? Have a kid somewhere? Was her grandma raising her baby?

Their baby...?

That thought was too foreign, too bizarre. He sat on the edge of her bed, frozen, holding the image, the private medical record.

His fingers itched to open the book.

His sense of right and wrong told him to let it be.

But selfish desire won. He flipped to the beginning. The album was scant, containing only a handful of images. The first was a shot of her in a mirror, and his heart tripped back in time as he gazed at Shannon, his Shannon, from ten years ago. Her hair was short then and still blond, her face so fresh and young, her expression a half-hearted smile. She had taken the photo of herself sideways, capturing the small swell of her belly in a mirror.