Looking around the empty street, I wished that I could just go home and climb into bed, but I knew I couldn’t. Regardless of what had just happened, or hadn’t happened…it was time to face the music. Jenna deserved that from me, at the very least. I wasn’t dead—I was just a little shaken up, and I still had to go and speak to her, and if I was about to die, then I needed to tell Jenna everything before it was too late.
After ringing Jenna’s bell and her buzzing me inside, I took the stairs slowly but all too soon reached her door, which she’d left slightly ajar for me. I could hear her TV set playing and talking and I hesitated on the threshold, wanting to give her a few more seconds of blissful ignorance before I blew her world apart. My thoughts strayed to Lorenzo and his expression as we’d sat in the park in silence, Beast’s bombshell of a revelation settled between us like a third wheel. I felt awful for him, and no doubt we’d have to talk about what Beast had said eventually, because if we were going to work—if he even still wanted me—then we’d need to get everything out in the open and clear the air.
A thought occurred to me that hadn’t before, and it was completely and utterly selfish: if Lorenzo and I didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be able to go back to Dela Roma’s. I sighed heavily, realizing that I was making a mess of my life from all angles.
“Are you coming in or are you going to stay out there brooding all night?” Jenna asked as she pulled the door open.
“Sorry, yeah, I was just lost in thought,” I mumbled, going inside.
“Thinking about Beast?” she asked, and I swung around to face her. She gave me a knowing-but-sympathetic smile. “I heard there was a big drama at the hospital between you and him and then Doctor Collins kicked him out. I warned you about him, didn’t I.”
“It wasn’t just between me and him,” I said honestly, “it included Lorenzo too.”
She tutted and headed to the kitchen. “I think we need wine for this conversation.”
I followed her, watching as she put the coffee mugs away and pulled out wine glasses before pouring us both a glass of red and sliding one over to me.
“Take a long drink and go on,” she instructed, and I did as she asked. Honestly, I could have downed the entire bottle with how I was feeling.
I slid onto one of her bar stools and sighed. “Beast and I…” I let my words trail off, their meaning hanging between us.
She waited patiently, my cheeks growing hot as I willed the words to come out. Slowly her expression changed and she realized what I was about to say.
“Please tell me you’re not going to say what I think you’re going to say, Belle!” she said, her expression souring when I winced and nodded. “Oh, Belle. What were you thinking? Kissing a patient is strictly a no-no, and you know this.” She finished her glass and poured a second one, topping up mine even though I’d barely had any.
“It just sort of happened,” I said, sounding utterly miserable even to my own ears.
“That sort of thing does not sort of happen, Belle.”
“One minute I was taking the bandages off his head and the next we were kissing.” I looked across at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop when she realized it had gone further than that. When the look didn’t come, I knew I’d have to come clean. “And the next, he was pulling me on top of him and…” I waved my hand in the air, not ready to say the words out loud, because every time I thought about it I realized how wrong it had been.
I had taken advantage of a sick man.
I mean, it had felt like a sick man had taken advantage of me at the time, though I hadn’t exactly been saying no to him, but the ethics board wouldn’t see it that way. They’d see it as a nurse sleeping with a patient, and I’d be fired. I wondered whether that might be the better outcome after all. The more I worked at the hospital, the more I began to wonder if this job was right for me at all.
Jenna stared at me like she didn’t know who I was. Her expression was full of horror and confusion. “Jesus Christ, Belle,” Jenna gasped, drinking another mouthful of her wine and nodding toward my glass. “Drink up, I think you need it.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whined, the tears already building in my eyes as I took a long mouthful of wine. Only now it didn’t taste nice; now it tasted like vinegar souring in my belly. I sniffled. “I can’t explain it, honestly I can’t. Working for him has been a crazy, crazy time and everything just got so mixed up, and then I slept with Lorenzo the night before and then Beast the following day and”—I looked up at her the tears flowing—“I swear I’m not that girl, Jenna. I don’t do this sort of thing! I don’t know what came over me, I just…” The tears were full-on flowing then, shame and guilt and just shock finally hitting me at what I had done.
Jenna came around and put her arms around me, because whether she thought what I’d done was the most awful thing or not, she loved me. Yet that only made me cry even harder.
“I leave you alone with that man for a few months and this is what happens,” she mumbled.
“I have something else to tell you,” I sobbed, and she pulled away to look at me sternly. It was time I told her everything. I couldn’t deal with her sympathy while keeping something from her.
“Please tell me you’re not pregnant, Belle!”
“No, no, I’m not,” I replied quickly. But then I realized that Beast and I hadn’t used protection, and neither had Lorenzo and I, so I could be, and if I was…I would have no idea who the father was. My sobs got louder until I was full-on choking on a sob and gasping for breath.
“Okay, okay, breathe, Belle, just breathe. We can sort this out, I promise, we can sort this out and it will be okay.”
But I didn’t believe her, and by the tone of her voice, she didn’t believe herself either.
I pulled myself together, taking a deep breath so I could get my words out properly. I was making a mess of this already and I hadn’t even gotten to the most awful part of why I’d actually come here.
“Jenna, I’m so sorry…” I started, and she frowned as she looked at me. “My mom got in touch,” I said, looking up at her with tear-stained cheeks. Her expression hardened and I almost left it at that, but I’d started now so I needed to just rip the Band-Aid off and get it done quickly. “She’s in prison, but she gets out in a couple of weeks and she needed a place to say.”
“Please don’t say what I think you’re about to say, Belle,” Jenna warned, taking a step back from me. I felt cold in her absence.
“I didn’t know what to say,” I cried.
“You say no!” she yelled, and if looks could kill I’d be dead.
“But she’s my mom and she sounded desperate and—”
“No, Belle, she’s not your mom. She gave up that right when she left you on my doorstep sixteen years ago and didn’t even wait for me to answer the door!” She picked up her glass and downed the remaining contents of it before filling it back up again. She didn’t top mine up and I didn’t blame her one bit.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to say and then I didn’t know how to tell you,” I sniffled. “I swear I wanted to tell you though. Every day I wanted to speak to you about it, but I was so worried that I would hurt you that I just chickened out. I’m so sorry!”