It was a valid argument, one that would have worked on anyone else, but it didn’t work on Nick Hunger because he’d been raised with much higher expectations. “So you just run away?” he demanded, surrendering not an inch of ground. “Abby, you already know my world’s crazy. Hell, you’ve lived in
it with me for the last two years. You agreed to continue living in it with me in a different way, as the woman I love. You knew what you were in for, but now here we are again, me having to chase you. Why?”
People were starting to stare, but both of us were too incensed to care. The gloves were off, and tempers were running high. Thus, instead of calming down and talking rationally, instead of realizing we weren’t really mad at each other and taking a moment to figure out the source of the underlying tension, as any good shrink would have told us to do, we simply stood there, squaring off in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Why?” I repeated, incredulous. “I just told you why!”
“No, you just fed me the same old bullshit we went through just a few days ago in South America! What the fuck is going on, Abby? I can’t keep chasing you every other week if you’re going to—”
“I never asked you to chase me!” My eyes flashed in the sun as I threw back my waves of curly hair. My ensemble hadn’t changed much since the previous night either, since we’d both fallen asleep in our clothes, and in that pricy gown, every inch of me seemed to literally shimmer with rage. “Perhaps I wasn’t explicit enough, but the whole sneaking-out thing kind of implies that I don’t want to be followed!”
Nick took another step forward, just as furious as I was. “You know I’ll always come after you, Abby. I love you, and—”
“And I’m pregnant, damn it!”
The entire street fell abruptly quiet, and it seemed that even traffic stopped.
Well, blurting it during an argument? That’s one way to tell him, I guess.
There wasn’t a single shred of emotion on Nick’s face, not a solitary expression to cue me in as to how he felt about the truth. He was simply blank, and that certainly didn’t put me at ease.
“I found out the day of the merger,” I said softly, my voice gentling the longer I looked into his eyes, “at Stacy’s ultrasound. That was why I ran off the way I did, because I kind of freaked out. With everything going on, I just didn’t know what to do, and I just...panicked.”
Still, he offered no response; truth be told, I wasn’t sure he was even hearing me.
“You were so...certain last night, saying you don’t want kids, that they just won’t fit in your world.” My eyes filled with miserable tears, but I shook my head, trying not to cry. “I guess you’re right about that. This is no way to raise a baby. I don’t know what I was thinking, hoping we might actually try—”
“You’re really...pr-pregnant?” he finally stuttered, as if he couldn’t get past the word. He had yet to even breathe. His golden skin had paled to an impossible shade of white, and while his body was frozen, his hands were trembling.
“Yes,” I said softly, “I’m pregnant, and you’re the only person I’ve slept with. We can do a DNA test if you don’t believe me, but I’m 100 percent certain the baby’s yours.” My eyes swept him up and down, growing more and more worried with each pass because he looked as if he might black out right there on the street. “Nick, are you okay?”
He looked up suddenly, as if he noticed me there for the first time, then nodded slowly, his staggering blue eyes locking onto nothing in particular.
I tried to hold it together. “I get it. I do. You’re shocked and stunned.”
“Yeah, but I-I’m fine, totally fine. I just—”
In the next second, I saw his shoes leave the curb, moving him in one step backward, only for a taxi to send him flying into the air.
Chapter 15
My red-rimmed eyes stared unblinkingly at the gaudy tile floor of the waiting room as the horrible image of the collision played through my head over and over again, in graphic detail. It was like being trapped in a nightmare from which there was no escape. I remembered the way his body turned just as the yellow cab barreled into him, the deafening honk that filled the air as he was knocked completely off his feet and tumbled up over the roof of the car, the red smear of blood left behind on the shattered window, and the impossibly quiet impact as he landed in a heap on the other side.
When tragedy strikes, it strikes us all, I thought. There is no privilege when it comes to car accidents, no gold-plated card he could pull out and play. If only his dear old dad could buy him out of this!
In the slow-motion events that followed, I had to elbow my way through the crowd just to reach him. I was lucky, because about a dozen people who were gathered around knew who we were and helped me wrangle the others out of the way. “She’s with him,” they said, over and over again.
When I finally made it off the curb, that little bit of good luck ran out. I saw instantly that Nick wasn’t moving and didn’t appear to be breathing. His eyes were closed, and even as the world erupted in chaos around him, he simply lay there, his blond hair spilling over the pavement.
Nick? It took me a second to realize I didn’t say his name out loud.
Every inch of my body was shaking, and despite everything going on around me, I kept my eyes locked on his face, expecting him to open his eyes any moment so everything would be okay again.
“Nick?” I said in a half-whisper, half-scream. I sank to my knees beside him and lifted a tentative hand to his cheek. “Nick, please...”
“Don’t touch him!” someone shouted, someone beyond my line of sight. “The guy’s pretty damn lucky we just happened to be the next block over.”
There was a sudden flurry around us, and a pair of uniformed EMTs shoved me out of the way. An ambulance was waiting behind them, blocking the street, so I assumed one of the onlookers had the sense to call 911, which was more sense than I could muster at the moment.