Molly was currently propped up in the bed, her hand on her belly, a beaming smile on her face.
Oh, and he couldn’t forget the little tiara she’d produced from that overnight bag, as well as the silky blanket that she had laid out over the hospital blanket that was covering her legs. He honestly did not want to know what else she could pull out of that thing, but he had to assume he would need to make a run for the store before the baby came home. It appeared as though Molly’s main focus was herself.
What was creepier than that was the fact that she was watching him so intently, as though if she kept her eye on him he would never leave.
“This is going to be lovely,” she said, smoothing out the thin silk. “I wish they would let me wear my own gown though. This one is scratchy.”
Yeah, but it was replaceable for, you know, when she gave birth.
“Could you get me some ice chips, honey?” she said sweetly.
Honey?
Oh, Jesus.
Rather than comment, Baz swallowed the frustration and pushed to his feet. Molly’s contractions were evidently real, but they were spaced about thirty minutes apart. The doctor they’d seen upon arrival said it would still be a while, but because Molly’s blood pressure was elevated, they wanted to keep an eye on her, so they admitted her. Baz figured her high blood pressure was from the panic attack she’d had while she was planning the wedding they would never have and realizing it wouldn’t come to fruition.
“Oh, and maybe some water,” Molly tacked on. “And a straw. Pretty please.”
“Anything else?” he asked on his way to the door.
“I think that’s all I need for now.”
Baz stepped out into the hallway and glanced left then right to locate the nurses’ station. He requested ice chips for Molly then pulled out his phone and shot a quick text to JJ, letting her know the status. At the moment, they were in limbo, but he figured sometime in the next seventy-two hours, there’d be a baby. Regardless, he didn’t see himself making the trek to Dallas with the team this go-round. While he wasn’t worried about that, he was worried about leaving JJ alone. Without a roommate at the hotel, this would be the first time since her attack that she would have to sleep by herself, and that bugged him. He didn’t want JJ to be alone.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Molly and the baby. He did. Well, the baby, anyway. Molly made it really damn hard for him to care about her because her expectations were so high. She had somehow twisted and manipulated their one night into something that it wasn’t. If you asked her, she would likely say they’d made love for hours on rose petals after drinking champagne and eating caviar. The way Baz remembered it … well, the truth was, he didn’t remember it. Nothing past going into Moonshiners that night. Everything else was a blur.
As he was walking back toward Molly’s room, a nurse was rolling a machine in. He followed close behind, but the moment Molly saw Baz and the machine in the same room, she was shaking her head.
“He can’t be in here for this,” she insisted.
“What’s this?” he asked, not even sure what was going on.
“It’s an ultrasound machine,” the nurse replied. “The doctor wants to take a peek, just to make sure everything’s all right.” She smiled at Molly. “It’s perfectly all right for the father to be in here.”
“No,” Molly demanded, her voice holding that weird edge of panic. “I don’t want you in here for this, Sebastian. You need to leave. Right now.”
Baz frowned, met her gaze, held it. “I’d prefer to stay if it’s all the same. I’d like to see the baby, too.”
Molly was visibly trembling. “No. You can’t. Not until she’s born. You can’t.”
Baz set the ice chips on the table and went stone still. “She?”
Molly’s eyes bounced from him to the nurse then to the machine. “What?”
“You said not until she’s born. You told me we were havin’ a boy.”
Her eyes were wide, her mouth slack. “We are. I mean, I don’t know. We won’t know until October eighth. That’s the due date.”
The nurse looked up from where she was placing a tube of gel. “I show the due date to be September nineteenth,” she said kindly, reaching for the chart. “Dr. Tinder says you’re right on schedule.”
Baz paused. He didn’t need to do the math, because he knew a healthy pregnancy was forty weeks, and since they’d only had sex the one time, there was only one day that was forty weeks out. October eighth was exactly forty weeks from January first. Meaning…
“You’re wrong,” Molly insisted. “Dr. Tinder’s wrong. The due date is October eighth.”
The nurse was looking at the chart, as though worried she’d made a mistake. “Due date is September nineteenth,” she said as she read. “And the sonogram done at sixteen weeks shows to be a girl.” She looked up and smiled. “Another sonogram at twenty-seven weeks shows the same thing.”
Baz was staring at Molly, unable to look away. She’d lied to him. About all of it. Yes, she was most definitely pregnant, but she wasn’t pregnant with his baby. Hell, she’d gone so far as to alter the baby’s gender in her stories. Why the fuck would she do that? Did she think he needed to have a boy to be happy?
She was loony tunes.
His cell phone buzzed on his hip, so he grabbed it, saw JJ’s name. He tapped the screen to decline the call.
“I don’t need that machine,” Molly insisted. “No one needs to see the baby. It’s not time yet. October eighth is the due date.”
The nurse looked sincerely confused and perhaps a bit concerned by Molly’s agitation.
“Could you give us a minute?” Baz asked the nurse.
She looked back and forth between them. “Of course. Dr. Tinder should be here in a few minutes to do the ultrasound.”
Baz nodded, waited until the door closed behind her. He remained across the room, not wanting to get anywhere near Molly.
“You shouldn’t see the baby yet,” she demanded, her fingers now twisted in that silky blanket. “It needs to be a surprise.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” he mumbled. “This is definitely a surprise.”
“Sebastian, I can explain.”
“Can you? Can you explain why, for the past thirty-seven weeks, you’ve strung me along and told me you were pregnant with my child when, really, you were already pregnant the night we met?”
“But I didn’t know.”
He barked a mirthless laugh. “That doesn’t make the baby mine, Molly.”
Her eyes turned glassy. “You’ll make a good father, Sebastian. And when I’m not pregnant, you’ll want me. You’ll want to have sex with me. I promise. We can try again. Next time I’ll be better and it’ll work. You just have to give us a chance. You won’t drink alcohol and it’ll work.”
Baz wasn’t sure what the hell she was rambling about. “What do you mean it’ll work?”
“That night … it was a mistake.” Her face was so animated, her eyes wild. “You said so. And I agree. I was too excited and you … well, you were drunk, which is why you couldn’t … you know. But that’s okay. It means we get a do-over. The way you kissed me that night … you wanted me. I know you did, but you just couldn’t…”