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I looked across the room at Andrew, watching as the paleness of his face turned rapidly to blotchy red spotting across his cheeks. I winked at him.
“If you really want to dig in deep,” I added, leaning down toward Vince but keeping my gaze locked on Andrew, “I can tell you that he’s had PIs trailing all of you, not just me. I’m a good enough person that I haven’t looked at those images, but I’ll bet he…”
“I resign.” Andrew shut his laptop with a resounding clack.
I snorted. “Just like that?”
“Don’t talk to me, Adrian,” he snapped, shoving the cable into his back.
“Oh, come on,” I goaded. “You can’t be that easy to break.”
Before I could get another word out, he stepped through the door, slamming it behind him.
Chapter 37
Ava
Istared at the glass door on the other side of the waiting room, watching it like a hawk as I sat uncomfortably in my chair.
As angry as I still was with him, I didn’t want to do this alone.
Adrian had agreed to come, but I didn’t know if he’d meant it. I’d given him a location, a day, and a time four days ago over text, and he’d said,I’ll be there. But the clock was showing my appointment time, and in the haze of everything that had happened and my unwillingness to fully recover, I couldn’t help but think the worst.
“Ava Riley?”
I turned my head to the woman standing at the door that led back to the exam rooms. She stood in blue scrubs, her brown hair braided back and nearly wrapped around the stethoscope that hung limply around her neck. She offered me a soft smile when I nodded to her.
The glass door at the front swung open as I pushed myself to my feet.
Adrian stepped in at three o’clock on the dot, his nose pink, his gaze flitting between me and the woman waiting for me. “I’m here,” he huffed, almost as if he were out of breath. He slid hisgloves off and stuffed them in his pocket. “I’m sorry. There was traffic.”
This is Manhattan, there’s always traffic. I bit my tongue but gave him a tight nod in acknowledgment as I gathered my things and followed the woman through the door, Adrian right behind me.
I tried not to let it bother me that I hadn’t seen him since that day in Washington Square three weeks ago. He’d called me exactly once since then, and I hadn’t answered. He’d texted me a handful of times since I sent the email and each one had felt like an insult to injury.I’m sorry. I fucked up. Can we talk?
“So you’re fifteen weeks, is that correct?” she asked, eyeing my stomach as she pulled the paper sheet over the bed.
“Yeah, approximately.”
Adrian sunk into the chair to the right of the bed, his eyes trained on me. “She had to go into the hospital about four weeks or so ago and they confirmed she was eleven weeks at the time,” he said.
“I thought you said this was your first ultrasound,” the woman said, eyeing me jokingly as she patted the paper on the bed invitingly.
“It is. They didn’t have an ultrasound tech on hand that day,” I explained.
“Gotcha, gotcha,” she grinned. “Have a seat and lay back for me. Dad, if you want to help her get her shirt up, that would be super useful.”
I stared at her. Is she seriously insinuating…? “He’s…he’s not my dad…”
“She doesn’t mean it like that,” Adrian said softly, reaching out a hand for me to leverage myself onto the bed. I glared at him, but took it, hoisting myself up and back into the not-so-comfortable bed. “She’s referring to me as the dad.”
The woman chuckled lightly as she pulled her wheeling stool over. On her chest, a name badge swung loosely that read OB Sadie Langdon. “I’m sorry, I should have been clearer. It’s just what we say in reference to the father, and we usually call you Mom as well. I won’t if you don’t like it, Ava.”
I swallowed as Adrian stood, holding out his hand again and lifting my back just slightly off the paper, enough to slide my shirt up to my bra. “It’s fine,” I said. “Just because he’s older, you know, I thought you got confused.”
He lowered me back before sinking into the chair again, his hand still holding onto mine. “Completely understandable. This is your first time,” he said.
Sadie chuckled again as she squirted something clear onto what looked like a VR machine controller. “Not your first rodeo?”
