Page 48 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

He grabs my shoulders and shoves me into the seat behind me. “I already had one fainter on my table. I don’t need another.”

Truth is, my legs feel weak. Like my heart.

He passes me a cup of water from a dispenser at the end of the hall. “Drink.”

His tone says it’s not up for debate, so I drink. It’s the best thing I’ve tasted since Thea the other night. “Thanks.”

He nods once. “You turned green, and falling and hitting your head would not help anyone. Is the water helping?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I presume the patient is yours.”

She wouldn’t word it that way, but “She is.”

“Then I hope you figure out how to make her eat something, because no one wants a feeding tube. I will go check on her. You finish that water, then you can visit, too.” He leaves me there without waiting for a response.

The corridor is very long and very quiet, which is likely what I need right now, even though I do not want to be alone with my thoughts at the moment. They’re unpleasant.

I fucked up. In the worst way possible.

When it comes to sex, I’m usually very careful. Being that Thea is as put-together as she is, I assumed she was on birth control. It never even occurred to me to ask, because I trusted that she had the matter in hand.

I’m as much of a fool as Niklaus, it would seem.

It’s one thing to keep her under guard here. It’s another to put a baby in a target. The pregnancy will not dissuade Alexei’s wrath. If anything, he would be delighted to learn of her pregnancy, because he will know that hurting her now would hurt me even more.

I made her a bigger target. What the fuck do I do now?

19

THEA

Heaven looks a lot like a doctor’s office.

White walls. A vitals monitor blinking to itself. A blood pressure cuff on a hook, cabinets with little steel handles. I’m in a real bed under a quilt that doesn’t belong in a medical facility, and the quilt smells like the estate’s lavender detergent.

So, not heaven. Vernigora country. And the smells are still killing my stomach.

The second thing I notice is Maxim, asleep sitting up in a chair beside the bed. Collar open, jaw silvered with stubble. His right hand rests on the blanket near mine. He looks ten years younger asleep and a century more tired.

I’ve to swallow to wet my throat enough to speak. “Where am I?”

He’s awake instantly and on his feet. “The clinic.”

“What clinic?”

“I keep a clinic on the property. Dr. Rappaport stays in a cottage past the greenhouse, and the clinic occupies its ground floor.” He pours water from a carafe and hands it to me. “You fainted in the orchard. Do you remember anything?”

“Cold ground. Not much more.” I do a body scan. Sore but present, an IV line taped to the back of my hand. “You have a clinic. Of course, you have a clinic. Does the greenhouse have an embassy?”

“The greenhouse has tomatoes and strawberries for most of the year. Not an embassy.” He takes the empty glass. “Men in my work cannot always use hospitals. Rappaport has been here fifteen years. There’s no better doctor within a hundred miles, and before you ask, yes, he has delivered babies. Four. One in a snowstorm.”

My gut tightens. “Why would I ask that?”

“You were going to ask that eventually.”

He isn’t wrong, but I let it go, because something is wrong with him.