To the Stars (Thatch #2)(47)

My eyes shot over to Collin, and I watched as his chest stopped moving and his body quickly locked up. Long moments passed before he started breathing again, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the screen on the wall, where he’d been expecting a baby . . . where there was nothing. Collin’s hand started squeezing mine harder and harder, but he never moved to touch me anywhere else, and his eyes never left the screen.

After another few minutes, the doctor stopped the ultrasound and sighed sadly when I sat up.

“She lost the baby?” Collin asked softly, a hint of darkness in his tone.

“No, I’m sorry. It uh . . . it looks like Harlow was never pregnant. The test must have been a false positive. Not as common as a false negative, but it can happen. Old tests, defective tests, prescriptions you may be taking, that sort of thing.”

A high-pitched ringing filled my ears, and I didn’t hear anything else the doctor or Collin said after that. Collin continued to dig his fingers into spots along the inside of my wrist, forearm, and elbow, but I’m not sure I was even reacting to them. All I could think about was what was to come.

Maybe if I had been pregnant and lost the baby, Collin would have gone easy—well, easier—on me. But to not have been pregnant at all? To get his hopes up even more than I’d planned to with my original lie? It didn’t matter that I didn’t take prescriptions. It didn’t matter that Collin bought all the tests, gave them to me, and watched me take them; I knew he would see this as my fault—as something I’d done.

I was suddenly slammed back onto the table, and Collin’s finger was digging into a pressure point on the bottom of my abdomen. My mouth opened and a soft gasp escaped my throat before his face was directly above mine.

“Shut up, Harlow,” he gritted out.

My eyes darted around the room, but I didn’t see the doctor. I hadn’t even realized she’d left.

“Where’s the baby?” he asked in a soft, dark voice.

My head shook quickly, and I tried to repeat the words that the doctor had said, but all that was coming out were squeaks of pain.

“Do not show your pain.” He emphasized his demand by digging in harder, and moved his other hand down my leg to press his fingers into the inside of my thigh. “Where is the baby?”

“C-Collin, p-please. I-I-I”

He removed his hands and paced away from me. “Get dressed,” he ordered without looking at me. As I dressed, he spoke. “We’re going to go home. You’ll drive in front of me, and you will stay in front of me. I don’t think I need to tell you what could happen if you tried to get away from me, do I?”

“No!”

“Good; dress faster.” He continued pacing and clenched his hands into fists over and over again. “I will use that time to calm down, and you will use that time to come up with a damn good explanation for what happened Friday night and today, you understand me?”

“Collin, how can—”

He closed the distance between us so fast, I started falling back. “Do you understand me?” he seethed.

“Yes! Yes, of course I do!” I whispered frantically.

Collin nodded and gave me a once-over, then brushed back my hair, which must have gotten messed up when he slammed me down. “Good. Let’s go.” We walked quickly out of the office and the building, but just before we got to my car, he stopped me and held out his hand. “Give me your purse.”

I knew better than to question him when he asked for something, and normally I wouldn’t have thought twice, but now all I could think of was the secret phone. On shaky legs, I handed over the purse and tried not to gasp out loud when he reached inside.

“You won’t need this. I don’t need you making any calls, and you shouldn’t be driving stupid enough to get pulled over.” He handed over my keys and stalked away from me.

I blew out a ragged breath once I was in my car, but the fear only grew with each passing moment on the drive home. I was supposed to be meeting Knox in half an hour, and not only would that not be happening, but I wouldn’t able to let him know that I wouldn’t be there, or why.

By the time we got home I was doing everything not to throw up, but thank God Collin didn’t seem to be any angrier than when we’d left, which hopefully meant he hadn’t found the other phone.

Collin put his arm around me as we walked up to the house, but I knew it was all a ruse for anyone who might be watching us, as everything was. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that the drive home had actually given him time to calm down. Collin only calmed down when he was done teaching me a lesson.

As soon as the front door was shut behind us, Collin grabbed my hair and flung me back against the door.

Putting a hand on either side of my head so he was caging me in, he leaned close. “Where is the baby?”

“You heard her, there was no—”

“Then how the f*ck did you get that test to say positive? How have you been magically feeling like this may be our time, Harlow?” he screamed.

“I don’t know why it said that. You heard her!”

Collin grabbed my shoulders and shook me once before slamming me back, making my head smash against the door. “Not good enough, Harlow!” When my head rolled forward, he grabbed the top of my hair and yanked my head back. “You are worthless,” he spit out. “You mess up time and time again, I’m constantly having to correct you, and you can’t give me what a wife should. After two and a half years, we should at the very least be past me having to correct you, don’t you think? Shit, we should have been past that after the first month!”