The Bachelor's Baby (Bachelor Auction Book 3)(37)

She shouldn’t be surprised that Liz would want to step up and help or that Linc would bring in a pinch hitter. This was ‘women’ stuff she supposed, but her heart was already splitting down the center. Having him take a step back from what was happening was understandable, but it was a brutal betrayal.

On top of another that she could hardly bear.

“My own baby doesn’t even want me, Linc.” The anguished suspicion crept out of her, unable to be held back.

“No, sweetheart, no.” He tried to draw her into his arms, cradling her the same way he had the minute she’d told him, like he would carry her safely through a rain of Hell’s own fury. She stiffened, not believing he meant it. Not really.

She wished he did. She was so in love with him it was World Record level. She loved him for being like this, willing to hold her when she cried, and ready to change his life and drop everything for their baby.

But this situation was forcing her to remember they were together for the baby. Not because he cared about her. If there was no baby…

She forced back the press of emotion and faced that everything they’d built had been on the fact that she was pregnant. If she stopped being pregnant…

If she stopped being pregnant, they had nothing.

She twisted the ring he’d given her, a pretty solitaire on a platinum band that was his promise to marry her.

“I know you didn’t really want me either,” she began. “That we’re only engaged because—”

“Meg,” he interjected, voice a low protest, like it was punched out of him on a choke of pain, but there was an edge of warning in it, too.

“I’m just saying, maybe this is—”

“A test?” he broke in. “To see what we can withstand? Because we’re going to get through this, Meg.”

She shook her head, licking at the tears dribbling into the corner of her mouth.

“Whatever happens doesn’t change the commitment we’ve made to each other,” he insisted. “You still come home with me. I knew we should have married,” he burst out, pushing to his feet.

“You’re just saying that because I’m being a weepy mess and you feel sorry for me right now,” she accused.

“I feel sorry for me!” he nearly shouted, knocking his fist into his chest.

Beyond their false cell of privacy, someone issued an urgent, “Shh.”

Linc paced a few impatient steps in the tiny area behind the curtain, clawing his fingers into his hair before he hung his head against his palm. Dark tufts of hair poked up from between his fingers.

“I tried damned hard not to get in this position of wanting a family, caring and worrying and facing that I could lose someone again,” he said heavily.

“Oh God, Linc. I’m so sorry,” she croaked, anguished that her miscarriage was going to cause him so much agony. She instantly felt responsible.

“I’m not blaming you. I’m trying to tell you—”

A nurse whisked through the curtain, bringing a wheelchair with her. “I’ll take you for your scan now. Please, keep your voices down.”

Linc only hissed a curse at the ceiling, then wiped his hand down his face and gathered himself along with her purse to accompany them down the wide hall toward the imaging department.

Meg hated how it smelled in here. Hated how the air felt thick and stuffy, the sounds hushed and grave, the vision of her future bleak. She hated that this is what she would think of when she thought about the baby that might have been. Claustrophobic despair.

They entered a darkened room and she was helped onto the table. The technician exposed her barely-there baby bump and squeezed a gob of jelly onto it.

Linc took her hand and met her devastated gaze with a tormented one of his own.

“I’m not going back to living alone, Meg. To being a bachelor and having no one.” He squeezed her hand insistently. “Do that to me and I will be really angry with you. I need you in my life. Not just any woman. You. I want you.”

Shaken, she could only blink. Her nose filled and tears welled again and the hard pressure of the ultrasound sensor pressed into her abdomen, making her jump in surprise.

“Don’t push so hard,” she warned the technician, motivated to protect the baby.

“Are you having a pain?” the woman asked, easing up slightly.

“No. I just… don’t want you to hurt the baby.” She carried Linc’s hand to her heart and covered it with her free hand. “Do you mean it?” she asked him, seeing a tiny ray of hope, but terrified to grasp it.

“Yes.” He gently cradled the top of her head in his free hand, leaning down to kiss her forehead, saying, “I love you,” right before he kissed her lips.

“I love you, too.” The words came out soft and aching, but sincere.

It hurt to say it, hurt that this was where they were finding their love, at the cliff of crisis, but she could face whatever came now. His love gave her strength. It was the saddest, most terrifying moment of her life, but she wasn’t alone. She had Linc. Maybe this baby had only been the catalyst to bring them together, and wasn’t meant to grow up and share their lives. It would break her heart to lose it, but she had Linc to help her put the pieces back together.

“There’s the fetus,” the technician said, pointing to the screen where a glow of white fluttered against smudged shades of gray. “Moving. See?”