Chapter Ten
A sharp cramp woke Leah and she stirred restlessly, grimacing.
She rolled over, jolting fully awake when she realized she wasn’t alone. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and whose arms were around her. But her confusion was quickly replaced by panic when another cramp gripped her belly.
“Brooks,” she whispered. He didn’t wake. “Brooks,” she said again, a little more loudly this time while tapping his arm. He stirred and rolled over with a sleepy grunt.
“Wake up!” She shook his shoulder. “Something’s wrong.”
He sat bolt upright at that, instantly awake. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure. I think there’s something wrong with the baby.”
His eyes widened with the same panic that coursed through her veins. Her head pounded in time to her furious heartbeat.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. My stomach is cramping. I don’t think it should be doing that.”
“Okay. It’s okay.” He pulled her to him and kissed her forehead. “We’ll get you to the hospital and get you checked.”
She placed a hand on her belly. The cramping had stopped. For the moment. Maybe it was nothing. “Wait. I think it’s stopped.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s fine.”
Brooks shook his head. “It’s not fine if it woke you up from a dead sleep. And even if it is, it won’t hurt to get checked out.”
She knew he was right, but she didn’t want to cause a fuss over nothing. He was already up and pulling on clothes before she swung her legs out of bed. Then she looked down and a wave of dread washed over her. She gasped, tears rushing to her eyes.
Brooks was immediately by her side. “Shit, Leah, you’re as white as a sheet.”
“Look,” she whispered, pointing at a bloodstain the size of a grapefruit on the sheets.
“Oh my God,” he said. “Come here, sit down.” He led her to a chair.
“I’ll mess it up,” she said, pulling away.
“I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. Sit down, please.”
He finished throwing on his clothes and brought her a pair of sweatpants from his drawer. “It’s okay. Don’t worry. We’ll get help. I’ll call an ambulance.”
“I don’t need an ambulance. A car is fine.”
“But—”
“Brooks,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “If I’m losing the baby, there won’t be much they can do to help. If I’m not…a car will get us there fast enough. And I’ll feel more comfortable than being hauled out of here on a gurney.”
He stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide. Finally, he nodded and handed her the clothes. Then he grabbed his phone to order a car. She started walking toward the door, but he stopped her, swinging her up and into his arms.
“I can walk,” she said.
“I’m sure you can. That doesn’t mean you should. And until I know what’s wrong with you, I’m not putting you down.”
He carried her to the elevator that led out of his apartment and straight to the waiting car. His driver held the door open for them and then rushed around to the driver’s seat.
“Get us there in under ten minutes and there’s an extra Christmas bonus in it for you.”
“Not necessary, sir,” his driver said. “I’ll get you there.” They shot out of the parking garage before Leah could say a word.
Brooks was on his phone texting and making calls to Kiersten and Cole and the doctor at the hospital the whole time, though he would lean over every few minutes to make sure she was doing okay.
“I’m fine. Don’t call my mother. I’ll call her later once we know what’s going on.”
Brooks didn’t look like he approved, but he didn’t argue with her.
Her belly still cramped off and on, but it wasn’t the sharp scary pain that had first woken her. Now it was more like a dull ache. Still something she probably shouldn’t be feeling, but at least it wasn’t horribly painful. That had to be good, right?
When they got to the hospital they were met at the door by two nurses with a wheelchair. Brooks helped her out and into the chair where he took over, waving the nurses ahead to show him the way. Brooks glared when they stopped.
“I’ll need these filled out,” the nurse behind the counter said.
He grabbed the clipboard she handed him. “Later. I want her in a room now. Where’s the doctor?”
“He’s coming, sir,” the nurse said. “Please be patient.”
“I’m not going to be patient,” he said in a tone of voice Leah had never heard from him before. He was serious, with a deadly calm that was probably barely containing the explosion beneath, if the white knuckles gripping the handles of her wheelchair were any indication.
“My wife is pregnant and bleeding so we need a doctor now. Get us to her room so I can get her out of this damn chair and into a bed.”
“Sir, they are getting her room ready, but we need to have the admission and insurance paperwork filled out…”
Brooks opened his mouth to let loose but Leah grabbed his hand. “Brooks,” she said, silently pleading with him to chill out. The fact that he was completely losing his shit for her filled her heart to overflowing. But she needed him to calm down because having a drag-out fight with the nurse who was trying to check them in was going to send Leah straight to the ER.
Luckily for everyone, the doctor, who was apparently a friend of Brooks’s, came around the corner.
“Brooks, hi. Sorry, was with another patient. What seems to be the problem?”
Brooks breathed an audible sigh of relief. “Greg, this is my wife. She’s pregnant, about fourteen weeks along, and she woke up cramping and bleeding.”
“Don’t panic. We’ll get her settled and see what’s going on. Hi, Mrs. Larson,” he said, leaning down to shake Leah’s hand. She took it gratefully, glad to have him there. Now that the doctor was in front of her, her self-imposed calm denial was beginning to wear off. “Follow me.”
The doctor waved them down a corridor. Brooks gave the nurse a parting glare and followed the doctor and nurses down the hallway to where they had set up a private room for Leah. She glanced around as a nurse helped her into a gown and assisted her into bed. She hadn’t been to many hospitals before, but the ones she had been to hadn’t been nearly as nice. Then again, maybe there’d always been rooms like this, she had just never been with someone important enough to gain access to one. Seriously, the place was nicer than her apartment. She climbed into the bed, biting her lip against another cramp.
Brooks was at her side immediately. “Are you okay?” he asked, leaning down to whisper into her ear.
“I don’t know,” she said, hating the fear in her voice. She couldn’t help it, though. Yes, the pregnancy had been a complete surprise and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought at least once that life might be easier if she just miscarried. But she hadn’t meant it. And now that the baby was in danger she knew there was nothing she wanted more than to make sure everything was okay.
The doctor spoke with Brooks quietly in the corner and then came over to examine her. “Let’s take a look,” he said.
He asked her several questions about how she felt and what had happened, along with a few more embarrassing questions about their activities that night while he examined her. Brooks, thankfully, stayed up near her head, holding her hand through the whole thing.
Then the doctor patted her leg. “It looks like the bleeding has stopped, which is a good sign. We’re going to do an ultrasound to make sure everything is okay.”
She nodded, but glanced up at Brooks. For the first time since she met him, he gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “It’ll be okay,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.
He stood by her side while the doctor squirted the cold gel on her belly and moved the wand around.
After what seemed like an eternity, the fast staccato of her baby’s heartbeat filled the room.
“There we are,” he said.
Leah’s heart clenched and she looked at the monitor where a small black blob quickly beat inside the tiny body of her baby.
“Is that it?” Brooks asked. “That’s the baby?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “And everything looks fine. The heart rate is 164 beats per minute. Perfectly normal. Baby is measuring about fourteen weeks along. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Leah said past the lump in her throat. “Are you sure everything is okay? Why would I be bleeding?”
“Well,” the doctor said, putting away his equipment, “sometimes that can happen after certain strenuous activities. Especially sexual intercourse.”
Leah blushed fifty shades of red, she was sure.
“It’s our wedding night,” Brooks said.
The doctor nodded. “Ah. Well. For the time being, we might want to put a hold on the honeymoon, along with any other strenuous activities, just to be on the safe side.”
The heat rushed to Leah’s cheeks and she glanced up at Brooks, but he had his attention fixed on the doctor.
“I want you to come back in the morning so we can take another look and we’ll go from there. But as far as I can tell everything looks like it’s going to be fine.”
Brooks nodded. “Is there anything else we need to do? Does she need to take it easy? Stay in bed?”
“If everything still looks well after tomorrow, she should be fine to go about her normal activities, but take it easy overall.”
“Thank you, doctor,” Leah said, trying to pour all the gratitude she felt into a handshake.
The doctor nodded and shook Brooks’s hand as well. “Just talk to the nurse on the way out. She’ll schedule you an appointment.”
He left them so she could get dressed.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Brooks asked. “Because I can get him back in here. Or if you’d feel better staying here for the night, I can arrange that. We can stay as long as you’d like.”
She smiled at him. “It’s not a hotel, we can’t just stay.”
“Sure we can. I’ll buy the damn place if I have to. If you’d feel better staying here, you give me the word.”
It took a second for Leah to realize that Brooks was totally serious and capable of doing exactly what he said. To have that kind of pull at her beck and call was both overwhelming and incredibly nice. She would have to be careful not to misuse that kind of power…and not get too used to it.
“I’m doing fine. The cramping has stopped and I don’t think I’m bleeding anymore. Do you think the doctor is right? Do you think everything is fine? He’s not just saying that?”
“He’s the best doctor I know,” Brooks said. “I went to college with him in his pre-med years. Never saw the guy drink or go to a party once. All he did was sit around and study.”
She smiled at him. “Well, that’s definitely the kind of doc I need on my side then.”
He gave her another faint smile and then said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go fill out these papers.”
Leah nodded and waited for him to leave before she sat back on the bed with a deep sigh. She put her hand on her belly. “You gave me a scare,” she said. “You stay put, little peanut.”
She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Kiersten. She had no intention of overdoing it, but she did have a lot of things to do. School would be starting in a few weeks and though she hadn’t gotten the full tour of Brooks’s apartment yet, it was obvious she needed to get a few things. Starting with food. The kitchen looked like it had never been used. And as a pregnant woman, even with morning sickness, having a plentiful supply of food around had become incredibly important to her. She was either throwing up or starving to death. There didn’t seem to be any in-between.
Brooks came back with an armful of flowers and she smiled up at him. “Where on earth did you get those?”
“The gift shop,” he said.
She laughed again. “What did you do, buy out the whole place?”
“Kind of. Too much?”
The uncertain hopefulness on his face was almost too much for her to handle. How did men do that? Go from masters of the universe, ordering around everyone in their path, to hopeful little boys that tugged on the heart strings so easily? Total double whammy. Completely unfair.
“Not too much, at all. They’re beautiful, Brooks.” She took them from him, burying her face in their petals to inhale deeply. “You didn’t need to, though.”
“I wanted to. They aren’t nearly as beautiful as you, but I hoped they’d make you smile.”
She was smiling before he finished talking. He looked at her like he wasn’t sure what to do. “You’re sure you’re feeling okay? You don’t want to stay?”
“No, no. I’m fine. I’d rather go home now. Maybe take a shower and get some more sleep.”
Funny that she already called his place home when she’d only been there a few hours.
“Okay. I’ve got the car waiting.”
He took her elbow and helped her get settled back into the wheelchair.
“I don’t know why they make us use these things. I’m capable of walking out on my own.”
“Hush,” he said, pushing her down the hallway. “It’s the hospital rules. And this is a rule I agree with.”
“You wouldn’t agree if you were the one getting wheeled out the door.”
He chuckled and her heart jumped to hear the sound again. “True, but I’m not the one getting wheeled. You are. And you heard the doctor. He said you have to take it easy and I’m going to be around to make sure you do.”
Well, that sounded ominous. “Actually, he said I could resume my normal activities, within reason.”
“I’ve seen your to-do list and it’s not remotely reasonable. Not going to happen.”
“I’m not going to lie around the house all day. I have school to get ready for and we need to go shopping or we’re going to starve to death.”
He glanced at her, his eyes wide with surprise. “How do you know I don’t have anything in my fridge?”
“I’m pretty sure it still has the factory plastic wrapped around it.”
“It does not. I put a new case of beer in there last week.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “And is there anything else in there?”
He didn’t answer.
She grinned. “I rest my case. We need to go shopping.”
“I do have a housekeeper, you know. I can send her out with a shopping list tomorrow.”
“Or we could go ourselves like normal people.”
Brooks was already shaking his head. “I’m not going to have you traipsing around stores all over town when you’re supposed to be taking it easy.”
“Did you just say traipsing? I’ve never traipsed in my life.”
He glared down at her. “You know what I mean. Make a list of things you want and I’ll have my housekeeper get them for you.”
Leah sighed, too tired to change his bullheaded mind at the moment. He helped her back into the car and wrapped his arm around her when he got in beside her.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you were with me.”
He held her tighter. “Me, too. Though I don’t think I was much help.”
“Are you kidding? You were wonderful. I probably would have stayed home, not wanting to cause a fuss.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You can cause as many fusses as you want.”
She laughed. “I’ll remember that.”
“Why do I think that’s going to come back to bite me in the ass?”
“Because you’re a smart man.”
“You know, you may be the first person who’s ever said that to me.”
This time she looked at him with surprise. “Really? You’re the partner and co-founder of one of the biggest development firms in the city.”
“Yes, but when Cole Harrington is your partner people tend to not notice that there is anyone else in the room.”
She looked at him for a moment, surprised at the trace of hurt she heard in his voice. He was always so busy making everyone laugh that it had never occurred to her that there might be other emotions lurking below the surface. And maybe that’s exactly the way he wanted it. She hadn’t been with him long and she was already discovering aspects of his character that she never would have guessed.
When they reached home, he settled her on the couch. “Rest here. I’ll be right back in a minute.”
She lay back against the cushions and he sprinted upstairs. He crashed around a bit in the bedroom, wrestling with something, but she didn’t really think about what he might be doing until he came back to get her. He scooped her up in his arms again.
“This is getting ridiculous. I can walk.”
“And as I said, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Besides, I like carrying you.”
He brought her into the bedroom and laid her on the freshly changed sheets.
“You changed the sheets yourself?” she asked.
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“I don’t know. I guess I never thought of you as a sheet-changing type of guy. Don’t you have people waiting in the wings to do that?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “I am capable of taking care of myself. Just because I choose not to doesn’t mean I can’t. I didn’t always have money, you know.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Cole and I were regular kids until we developed our first app in college. I can do all kinds of things that would probably surprise you.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Well, in addition to my awesome bed-making skills, I can also do the laundry, cook, clean a toilet—”
“You clean toilets?”
“I didn’t say I enjoy doing it, or that I did it often. I said I was capable of it.”
She laughed again. “I might have you clean a few toilets for me to prove that. But let me get my camera first.”
He settled her into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chest. “I think right now it’s more important you get some rest. We’ll talk toilets in the morning.”
“Deal,” she said.
He stood up and went to leave the room.
“Where are you going?”
“I thought I would sleep on the couch so you could get some more rest.”
“I can sleep with you next to me.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You won’t disturb me, Brooks.”
His forehead creased in a worried frown. “I don’t want to hurt the baby. The last time I was in bed with you…”
She stared at him for a second, waiting until she had her emotions under control before she spoke. “I get what you’re feeling, maybe even more than you do. But you heard the doctor. I’m fine. The baby is fine. We can’t have sex at the moment, but we can sleep together. And to be honest, I don’t want to be alone. I want to be held. So please, come to bed and hold me.”
He stared at her a moment longer and then nodded. “If you’re sure it won’t disturb you.”
“I promise,” she said. “It will make me feel safer.”
His eyes widened a bit at that.
“Yeah, it surprises me, too,” she said with a smile.
He smiled and climbed into bed beside her, though he kept his distance. She wasn’t going to let him get away with that, though. She wiggled back against him until she was spooned up against his chest. It took him a few more seconds, but then he wrapped his arm around her and held her close.
“Let me know if you need more space.”
“I will,” she said, though she had no intention of ever saying a word.
They lay quietly together for a few minutes.
“Brooks?”
“Hmm?” he whispered sleepily.
“I’m glad you were there tonight.”
“I’ll always be there,” he said.
Her heart beat a little quicker at that but she didn’t say anything, just wrapped her arm around his and snuggled back against him.
Never in a million years would she have thought that Brooks Larson would be the type of man she’d want with her in a crisis. But he had kept her calm and gotten her the help she needed when she wouldn’t have done it for herself. She had never felt safer and cherished than she did right in that moment.
If this is what a fake marriage to him was like she couldn’t begin to imagine what a real one would be like. She cut off that line of thought as soon as it started. There wasn’t going to be a real marriage. He might have started out in a middle-class life, but he was living in the stratosphere now and she had no place there. She was a school teacher and was perfectly content to be so. She could never be the socialite wife that he needed despite what he said, but she would play her part for the moment, do what she could to help him, and then they could both go their separate ways.
But for right now, she would enjoy sleeping in his arms. She drifted off to sleep more content than she’d ever been in her life.