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Dominic knew he should be fine with it. He had accepted the idea that they weren’t going to be together. He didn’twantthem to be together. But now the idea felt unthinkable. It was something about the removal of possibility from their future. They had been separated, it was true — but that didn’t mean reuniting wasimpossible.
He made himself calm down.
This wasn’t like what had happened to his mother. She wasn’t going to be suddenly snatched away. She wasn’t dying.
But he had to see that chart.
“Let me see,” he said.
Emily looked pained, but she said nothing, and he took that as consent.
Dominic flipped the chart open and scanned it.
When he saw the results, it hit him like a two-by-four. He had to put a hand out to brace himself against the wall. “You’re pregnant?”
Her voice shook as she answered. “Apparently.”
“This is news to you, I take it?”
She nodded.
“Who’s the father?” He had no right to ask her that and he knew it, but he couldn’t help himself.
She stared at him.
“What?” he asked.
“I haven’t been with anybody else in months, Dominic,” she said quietly. “It’s you.”
All sorts of stupid responses came to his mind. He wanted to argue that it was impossible, to protest that they had only been together one time. But of course, one time was all it took. It was perfectly possible. And she had no reason to lie.
She waspregnant?
He swallowed hard. He couldn’t cope with this. He didn’t even have space in his life todate, never mind to become a father! He had told her right from the start that this was something he couldn’t do. And now…
Emily covered her face with her hands. It was as if she couldn’t even bring herself to look at him.
She’s the one who separated us,Dominic told himself. She was the one who had drawn the line between the two of them. The fact that he couldn’t seem to cope with what they were facing now was his problem, but it was a problem that she had shown herself to be ready for.
She wasn’t asking him for anything. She probably didn’t want him for anything. When had she ever needed anybody?
The panic that had taken root on seeing the results gripped him hard.
He had to get out of here. Emily would be fine. She was safe in the hospital, and she had always been capable of taking care of herself. But he had to go.
He put the chart down on the edge of her cot, turned, and walked away.
Guilt roiled in the pit of his stomach as he climbed the stairs out of the blood lab and back to the emergency department. He knew that what he was doing was wrong. Emily had just told him she was pregnant — pregnant withhischild. He owed her a conversation, at the very least. He knew that.
But every time he thought about that conversation and how it might go, it made him want to run as far and as fast as he could.
He should never have gotten involved with her. He had known it from the start. He had allowed himself to forget, and to be distracted by his feelings for her, but he wouldn’t let that happen again. He wasn’t going to let his whole life be thrown off the rails.
Not even by this pregnancy.
He wasn’t ready to be a father, he reminded himself firmly. He had known that from the start. And that was something that hadn’t — would never — change.
CHAPTER 21
