“Excuse me.” I capture the attention of the woman behind the desk.
She glances up, shoving her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Yes?”
“Do you know who’s visiting Brooks Abbott right now? His mother didn’t want the media in his room without special permission.”
The woman scrunches her face and shakes her head. “Media? She didn’t say she was here with the media.”
She stands, but I place my hand out to stop her. “It’s okay. I’ll handle it.”
There’s a dry lump in my throat and a weight on my chest as I stride toward his room. The door is half-open, but his curtain is pulled far enough that he can’t see to the doorway.
Two voices. His and hers. Slightly louder than a whisper.
I crane my neck and prepare for shameless eavesdropping.
The sound of Afton softly sobbing catches my ear, and I have to look. Peeking in, I see her sitting on the edge of his bed, where I once sat, holding his hands in hers. She’s dressed down, leggings and a puffy parka with a fur-trimmed hood. Her shiny blonde locks are swept into a neat bun on the crown of her head.
She’s definitely not on the job.
“I was so worried, baby.” She lifts his hands to her cheek, pressing them against her face. “I thought we were going to lose you.”
Um, we?
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to give you a scare.”
“To think the baby might grow up without ever knowing you.” Her shoulders heave as she sobs, and she dabs the corners of her eyes with a tissue she steals off his bedside table. “It was so hard to stay away, knowing I couldn’t see you, hearing everything secondhand. It killed me.”
“I know, I know,” he comforts her with the soft, cashmere voice of a loving partner. In four years together, he’s never spoken to me like that, not even when Grandma Rosewood died and I was inconsolable for weeks. “Everything’s going to work out, okay? Just be patient.”
“She’s wearing her ring.” Afton speaks with a sick cough in her tone, like it disgusts her. “I saw it when I interviewed her. Does she think you’re still getting married?”
My blood boils before turning into ice water. I’m two seconds from storming in, guns drawn, and calling them out.
But I’m frozen. My feet won’t move. I’m paralyzed as the truth settles into my core. I wanted validation, but I didn’t know it would feel like this.
“For now, the wedding’s back on,” Brooks says.
Like hell it is.
“I have a few matters I need to tend to. Some loose strings,” he says.
“You’ve been dragging your feet for the last six months,” she whines. “This baby’s coming in twenty-five weeks. The clock is ticking.”
I do the math, as if it matters. For someone fifteen weeks along, she doesn’t even look a tiny bit pregnant.
Skinny bitch.
And I bet Brooks loves the fact that she’s the cutest pregnant woman ever to grace the face of the earth.
Asshole.
“Baby, I know. I want to be there with you, rubbing your feet and taking care of you,” he coos. “Treating you like the queen you are.”
I think I’m going to be sick. Bile threatens to rise, but mind over matter keeps it at bay for the foreseeable future.
“There’s one more thing I need to do, and then I’m all yours,” Brooks says. “Our finances were . . . intermingled. Just need to make sure everything’s . . . separated.”
“You didn’t take care of that before you left?” There’s a pout in her tone.
“I was getting ready to,” he says. “Just need to make some phone calls and move some money around.”
The credit cards. He remembers.
I hope to God he’s planning to pay them off and not extract every last dollar he can with cash advances. He should know better than to fuck with the daughter of one of the most sought-after attorneys in the state of New York.
“Are you two through?” My voice startles me just as much as it startles them, but I can’t stand here in tortured silence a minute longer.
Afton sucks in a hurried breath, spinning to face me, her hand clutching the diamond necklace hanging from her neck. It’s in the shape of an anchor, nearly identical to the one he gave me for my birthday last year. A limited edition from Tiffany’s, only available that year.
While I was turning twenty-four, Brooks was fucking Afton. Nice.
“Demi.” Brooks clears his throat, releasing his hand from her lap.
Afton slides off his bed and stands.
Both of their faces are as pale as the moon shining outside his hospital window.
Lifting the credit card statements, I shake them and smile. “A hundred and seventy thousand dollars, Brooks. Really? And I thought you were some financial planning guru. You sure as hell had better have these paid off by the time you leave this hospital, or you’ll be hearing from Robert Rosewood. You can be damn sure I’ll be pressing charges.”
Afton turns to Brooks, her brows contorted. She’s either confused, or she’s refusing to accept this revelation as truth.
“And as for you,” I say to Afton. Her eyes fall to the floor. She won’t look at me. “Thank you.”
Her gaze lifts.
“Thank you for saving me from marrying that pathetic fraud,” I say. “And I mean it, Afton. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I would’ve been miserable. And no one deserves to dedicate their life to a man who can’t keep it in his pants.”
They say nothing, and I almost wish they’d speak up. My mind is going a million miles an hour, and my heart hammers in my ears. I’m ready to go rounds.
“Congratulations, by the way.” I slap a sarcastic smile on my face. “A baby. That’s exciting.”
Afton brings her hand to her lower belly with slow reluctance. Her mouth falls, like she’s seconds from thanking me, and then she realizes I don’t mean it.
Brooks always said he didn’t want kids until he was thirty-five. That was his magic number. The age when he was convinced he’d have gotten “everything” out of his system—whatever that meant. I wonder if he realizes how prohibitive parenting is? Being a dad is really going to cramp his lifestyle, and I can almost guarantee that Afton will talk him into listing his Porsche for sale before the end of the year. It’s not exactly family friendly.
Oh, well. Not my problem anymore.
I’m not sure how to make a graceful exit after all of this, and their shocked stares and void eyes are starting to freak me out. This entire exchange is as awkward for me as it is for them, so I do us all a favor and turn to leave.
The hallway is silent, save for a few nurses making small talk by the nurse’s station and the sound of monitors beeping when I pass certain rooms. It’s business as usual out here.
Just another ordinary Saturday night.
By the time I reach the exit, the automatic doors part and a burst of cool air hits my face. It’s cleansing, and my body shivers as I walk the snow-tracked parking lot. A few loose snowflakes flurry around me. They’re giant and wet when they land on my face, but I almost feel like one of them now.
Weightless.
Free.
Thirty-One