Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
And said with such spite.
Fuck.
I look up at the rearview mirror, my heart lifting when I see she’s stopped walking away from the car. I hold my breath, wondering if she’s realized how harsh that was. Hoping she regrets it and is coming back to let me talk. But she doesn’t come back. She goes into her bag, rummaging for ages instead. As a man who is familiar with his wife’s handbags, I can attest they’re packed full of various shit, so if she’s looking for something, it’s no wonder she’s struggling to find it.
If she’s looking for something.
I squint, slipping my car into Drive. I quickly check the road in front and pull away, my eyes back on the mirror. She’s stopped searching through her bag. Then she looks over her shoulder. Making sure I’m leaving?
What the fuck is going on?
I slow down, checking the road again before going back to the mirror. She’s walking past all the houses. Why wouldn’t she have me stop directly outside her client’s house?
That feeling in my gut has just worsened.
I pull into the next available space at the end of the road and hop out of my Aston, jogging down the street on the other side, slowing when I see her in the distance. She takes a left, then a right, and before I know it, we’re outside a newbuild. Definitely not a residential property. Ava pushes her way through the glass doors, just as I spot the sign. Medical Center? My mouth hangs open as realization slams into me. “Her period didn’t come,” I breathe.
And she’s doing this without me?
What the fuck is she trying to do? I should be beside her, holding her hand, sharing every minute of this. Is this her way of punishing me?
Pissed off, I yank the door open and walk through the corridor to the large reception area, finding Ava’s sitting on a row of chairs in the middle of the room, flipping through a magazine. Her knee’s jumping. She’s nervous. I go to the chair next to her and lower, talking myself down from kicking off. This isn’t fair. To push me out, it’s not fair.
She doesn’t look up from the magazine she’s reading. Doesn’t notice I’m here. I’m not sure what that means. Immune to me now? Or something massive is on her mind.
Every time the little buzzer thingy sounds behind the counter, I wait for Ava’s name to be announced. What am I going to do? Muscle my way into the room when she’s called? Yes. She’d fucking notice me then.
I turn my head when I hear what I’m sure is a small chuckle.
She’s laughing?
“Something funny?” I grate, incensed.
She slams the magazine shut, stills for a moment, as if wondering whether she heard right, before she swings her eyes my way, shocked. She should try being in my shoes right now. “You followed me?”
Yes, I fucking followed you, because I know you, and I knew something wasn’t right. “You’re a rubbish liar, baby. Are you going to tell me why you’re at the doctor’s and why you lied to me about it?” I cock my head, covering her knee with my palm. I can’t see it jumping now, but I can certainly feel it.
“Just a checkup.” She rids her hands of the magazine and tries to rid her knee of my hold. I don’t let her.
“A checkup?” Does she think I was born yesterday?
“Yes,” she says through her teeth.
For fuck’s sake. If anything needs checking, it’s her head.
And mine. “Don’t you think we should be doing this together?”
She looks at me, stunned, and fights against my hold of her knee again. I let her win this time, but only because I think I might need my hand to block her swing at me. “Like the decision you made to try and get me knocked up?” she asks. “Did we do that together?”
Knocked up? She’s my wife. My wife will not be knocked up, she will be . . . I don’t know. Something I haven’t got the capacity to think of right now, something more romantic. “No.” I bite at my lip, holding back from yelling at her for pushing me out and . . . I withdraw, my thoughts stalling. Did she say try? Try to get her knocked up? So her period came? Then why is she here? I stare at my knees, my head spinning. Is she? Isn’t she? She’s been so emotional. Throwing up, for Christ’s sake. She has to be.
“You can’t even look at me, can you?” she snaps, the anger that was missing earlier now here with a vengeance. I would look at her if I was sure she wouldn’t kill me with her glare. “You know what you’ve done is wrong.” Yes, I know. But worse fucking things have happened, trust me. “I pray to God I’m not pregnant, Jesse, because I wouldn’t inflict the shit you put me through on my worst enemy, let alone my baby.”