This Man Confessed (21 page)

Jesse growls and tosses me a fierce scowl. “I’m going to take that
fine
in my palm and slap you all over the arse with it.”

“I
am
fine.” My car’s not, though. It looks terrible.

Jesse makes a meal of exhaling and flopping his head back. “Ava, don’t defy me on this, please. I have no problem with pinning you down in the ambulance so they can confirm you’re okay.” His head drops back down. “Are you going the easy way, or the hard way?”

“I’ll go,” I agree quietly. I’ll do anything he says. I free myself from his chest. “My bag.”

“I’ll get it.” He sprints away.

“My phone’s on the floor!” I call after him, but he just waves his arm over his head to acknowledge that he’s heard. He’s back in seconds, and the policeman leads us to the ambulance, pushing his way through the growing crowds of pedestrians.

A paramedic on the back puts his hand out to me, but I don’t get the chance to grasp it. I’m lifted and placed in the white van. “Thank you.” I smile down at Jesse and watch as the copper gets a pad and pen from his pocket.

“Sir, while she’s being taken care of, do you mind answering a few questions?”

“Yes, I do. You’ll have to wait.”

“Sir, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” The policeman isn’t asking nicely this time.

Jesse turns his full body into him, the edge of threat clear in his stance. “My wife and child are in the back of that ambulance and the only way you’re going to stop me from seeing to them is if I’m dead.” He steps back and holds his hands out to the side. “So fucking shoot me.”

The policeman looks up at me, and I smile apologetically. The last thing I need is Jesse being arrested. I don’t know whether it’s put down to emotions running high, but the copper nods and gestures for Jesse to join me. My trampling Lord’s glower is still fixed to his face as he turns back toward me, but it soon falls away. His face is level with my stomach, but his eyes are currently dropped and looking at my bare legs.

Reaching forward, he runs his finger up the inside of my calf. “Baby, you’re cut.”

I glance down. “Where?” I can’t feel anything. I pull at my dress, hitching it higher, but there is no sign of any cut. Higher it goes; still more blood but no cut. I look at Jesse in confusion, but he’s frozen as he watches me searching for the source of the blood. His eyes lift to mine. They are wide and uneasy. It doesn’t sit well. I start shaking my head as he moves forward, taking my dress up as far as it can go.

There is no cut.

The blood is coming from my knickers.

“No!” I cry out, realization crashing into me like a tornado.

“Oh Jesus.” He yanks the hem of my dress back down and jumps up to the ambulance, engulfing me in his arms. “Fucking hell, no.”

“Sir?”

“Hospital. Now!”

I’m placed on a gurney gently and hear the slamming of metal doors, making me jump. I turn into his chest, clutching at his T-shirt and hiding my face from him. “I’m sorry.”

“Shut up, Ava.” He grabs the back of my hair and pulls me out. His eyes are a cloud of green. “Please, just shut up.” His thumb drags under my eye, collecting some tears. “I love you.”

This is my punishment. This is my penance for having such toxic thoughts. I deserve it, but Jesse doesn’t. He deserves the happiness I know this baby would’ve given him. It’s an extension of me. I’ve destroyed his dream. I should have seen things clearer sooner. I should have changed my address at the surgery. I should have let John take me to work. I shouldn’t have gone to Matt’s office. There are so many things I have and haven’t done that could have changed how things are playing out.

My shame is eating away at me and it will for the rest of my life. It hasn’t happened how I had stupidly first thought, but the end result is the same. I’ve killed our baby.

T
he silence surrounding us is painful. The whole way in the ambulance I sobbed and Jesse constantly told me how much he loves me. I can’t help but think it’s simply because he doesn’t know what else to say. There’s no comfort or reassurance coming from those three words. He hasn’t said it doesn’t matter because I know it does. He hasn’t said it’s not my fault because I know it is. He hasn’t said that we’ll be fine, either, and I don’t know if we will be. Just when I was beginning to see light at the end of the never-ending tunnel of issues, we’re hit with the worst kind of devastation—a damage that can’t be fixed. He’ll resent me forever.

He carries me from the ambulance, rejecting the wheelchair that’s brought out by a nurse, and silently follows the doctor down the busy corridor, all of the time looking straight ahead and flipping one-word answers to anyone who asks him questions. I can’t feel anything except Jesse’s thundering heartbeat pulsing into me.

After what seems like an eternity of gently bobbing up and down in Jesse’s arms, I’m lowered onto a huge hospital bed in a private room. He’s gentle and all of his actions are tender and loving as he strokes my hair, props my head up slightly, and covers my legs with the thin sheet that’s lying at the foot of the bed. But there are still no comforting or reassuring words.

We’re closed in from every direction by machines and medical equipment. A nurse stays, but the ambulance men leave after giving a brief rundown on me, what has happened, and the observations they have already performed on the way to the hospital. The nurse takes notes, sticks things in my ear, and holds thing to my chest. She asks questions, and I answer quietly, but the whole time, I keep my eyes on Jesse, who’s sitting in a chair with his face in his palms.

The nurse pulls my reluctant eyes away from my grieving husband when she hands me a gown. She smiles. It’s a sympathetic smile. Then she leaves the room. I just hold it for a while, until so much time has passed, I think it could be next week, or even next year. I want it to be next year. Will this crippling pain and guilt be gone by next year?

I finally slide myself to the side of the bed, my back to Jesse, and reach around to unzip my dress and stand. In the quiet, I hear him move.

“Let me,” he says softly. He’s in front of me, but my stinging eyes remain on the floor.

“It’s okay. I can manage.”

“You probably can.” He pulls my dress up over my head. “But it’s my job and I’d like to keep it.”

My chin starts to tremble as I fight to restrain the persistent tears. “Thank you,” I whisper, still keeping my welling eyes from his line of sight.

It’s an impossible task, especially when he bends and pushes his face up into my neck, forcing my face up to his. “Don’t thank me for looking after you, Ava. It’s what I’ve been put on this earth to do. It’s what keeps me here.”

“I’ve ruined everything. I’ve lost your dream.”

He pushes me down onto the bed and kneels in front of me. “My dream is you, Ava. Day and night, just you.” My vision is hazy and blurred, but I can clearly see the tears trickling from his green eyes. “I can manage without anything, but never you. Not ever. Don’t look like this, please. Don’t look like you think it’s the end. It’s never the end for us. Nothing will break us, Ava. Do you understand me?”

I nod through my quiet weeping, unable to form words or even say them if I could.

He brushes the back of his hand roughly across his cheeks. “We let these people tell us you’re going to be okay, and then we go home to be together.”

I nod again.

“Tell me you love me.”

A loud sob spills from my mouth and my arms find his shoulders and pull him into me. “I need you.”

“I need you, too,” he whispers. His hands all over my back, despite being cool and a little shaky, give me all of the comfort I need. We’ll be okay. Heartbroken, but okay. “Let me get you into this gown.”

I’m pulled up from the bed, but he remains kneeling and starts peeling my bloodstained underwear away from my body. I can’t look. I clench my eyes shut and feel instead of see my knickers being slowly drawn down my thighs. The familiar feel of his fingertip tapping my ankle prompts me to step out, but all of the time I keep my eyes clenched shut. For the briefest of moments, I know he has moved from in front of me, and then I hear a tap running before he’s back and gently sweeping a wet cloth up the inside of my thigh. My heart constricts painfully in my chest.

“Arms.” Jesse’s soft instruction encourages me to open my eyes. I find him holding the gown in front of me. My arms thread through, and I’m turned so he can fasten it. “Up you get,” he orders. I shift myself back into position just as there’s a knock on the door. Jesse calls an okay.

The same nurse has returned, but this time she has a male doctor with her. He shuts the door softly and nods at Jesse, who is suddenly more alert, and I know why.

The doctor has a fiddle with the machine at the side of me, and then perches on the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling, Ava?” he asks.

“Fine.” The one word that Jesse has threatened to spank my arse with just slips right out. “I’m okay, thank you.”

“Okay. No aches or pains, cuts or bruises?”

“No, nothing.”

He smiles mildly and folds back the sheet that’s covering my stomach. “Let’s see what’s going on. Would you like to pull the gown up so I can feel your tummy?”

Even now, when we are in the darkest most desperate place, I can feel Jesse’s tension at the prospect of another man laying his hands on me. I glance over to him and give pleading eyes, but he just shakes his head. “I might step outside,” he says quietly, stepping back toward the door.

“Don’t you dare!” I cry. “Don’t you dare leave me!” I know he’s struggling, but he can overcome that now. He
has
to overcome that now.

The doctor looks between us, a little baffled, and waits for Jesse to take the initiative and join me at the bed. It feels like an eternity, but then he inhales a long, controlled gathering of strength and comes to sit next to me. My hand is picked up and encased in both of his before he brings the bundle to his chest and drops his head to it. He can’t watch.

I’m flanked on both sides, one man pushing my gown up and feeling around on my stomach, the other breathing deeply and squeezing my hand. I just rest my head back and stare up at the ceiling, wishing this could be over so Jesse can take me home and we can start painfully processing what has happened.

“This will be a little chilly,” the doctor says as he squirts some gel on my abdomen. He rolls the device around while he watches the screen, and the small room is instantly filled with a wishy-washy distortion of crackling and whirring. He hums and makes odd noises as he flicks switches with his spare hand and pushes the gray contraption firmly into my stomach. It doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts because I’m still totally numb. And then he stops moving his hand and stops flicking buttons on the huge machine. I sneak a peek at the doctor, finding him looking intently at the screen. He eventually looks at me. “Everything is okay, Ava.”

“I’m sorry?” I whisper. My dying heart has suddenly roused and is climbing up to my throat, set on choking me with shock.

“Everything is okay. Light bleeding in early pregnancy can be perfectly normal, but given the circumstances, it’s wise for us to be cautious.”

I can feel Jesse’s hands tightening around mine, slowly constricting until I hiss a little with pain. He eases off immediately and slowly raises his head until his eyes find mine. They are wide green pools of shock and his cheeks are drenched. I shake my head mildly, like out of all the horror today had brought, it’s this bit that I must be dreaming about. We’re both just staring at each other, neither one of us knowing how to handle this news. He goes to speak, but nothing comes out. I go to say something, too, but no words materialize.

He stands up, sits back down again, and then restands, letting go of my hand. “Ava’s still pregnant? She’s…she’s…there’s…we’re…”

The doctor laughs a little. “Yes, Ava is still pregnant, Mr. Ward. Sit down, I’ll show you.”

Jesse turns stunned eyes to me briefly before directing them toward the monitor of the machine. “I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. I need to feel my legs.” He leans over the bed slightly, his eyes squinting. “I don’t see anything.”

It’s hard, but I pull my eyes away from my dazed husband and take a look myself, but all I can see is a black-and-white jumble of fuzz. The doctor points at the screen. “There, look. Two perfect heartbeats.”

I frown to myself. Two heartbeats?

Jesse recoils and almost scowls at the doctor. “My baby has two hearts?”

The doctor laughs and turns amused eyes onto us. “No, Mr. Ward. Each of your babies has one heart, and both are beating just fine.”

His mouth falls open and he starts walking backward until the backs of his legs hit a chair and he collapses, his arse colliding loudly with the seat. “I’m sorry, say that again,” he murmurs.

The doctor chuckles. He finds this funny? I don’t. I’ve gone from having one baby, to having no baby, to having two babies? At least, that’s what I think he’s saying. The doctor turns his body fully toward Jesse. “Mr. Ward, let me put this into plain English, if it will help.”

“Please,” Jesse whispers.

“Your wife is expecting twins.”

“Oh fuck.” He gulps. “I had a feeling you were going to say that.” He looks at me, but if he’s expecting any words, a facial expression, or anything, then he’s looking in vain. Twins?

“About six weeks, I would say.”

Yes, I’m stunned, but I know damn well that
that’s
impossible. I had a period five-ish weeks ago. I can’t be any more than four weeks. “I’m sorry, that can’t be right. I’ve had a period within that time and was on the pill previous to that.” He doesn’t need to know that I missed a few here and there. It’s irrelevant now.

“You had a period?” he asks.

“Yes!”

“That’s not unusual,” he flips casually. “Let me do some measurements.”

It’s not? I glance across at Jesse warily, seeing nothing but a lean physique frozen in place. He looks like he’s been fossilized. Is he so excited now? I don’t know, but he had better get used to it. This is revenge at its best. He didn’t bargain on this, and if I wasn’t so shell-shocked, then I think I’d be smug. My challenging, neurotic ex-playboy has a challenge on his hands, and it’s called a hormone-frenzied wife and two screaming babies. I actually smile to myself as I lie back on the pillow and drift off to a fantasyland of chaos, where Jesse is pulling his hair out while I look on, smiling as our two toddlers run around his ankles, vying for his attention—a fantasyland that’s going to be all too real very soon. My Lord is going to have some stiff competition in the demanding department because one thing I wholeheartedly wish for most is that both of these babies have every irritating trait that he does. I hope they take after their father, and I hope they challenge him every day for the rest of his life. I look at his motionless frame and smile on the inside. I also hope they are just like him because he’s beautiful and bursting at the seams with pure, intense love. Love for me, and love for our babies. I’ve just landed softly on Central Jesse Cloud Nine.

After he told me to take it easy for a day or two, the doctor printed off a picture and sent us on our way. We strolled out of the hospital hand in hand, with Jesse holding the little black-and-white scan picture gently at the corner. I guided him the whole way because he was too rapt by the photo to look where he was going. John picked us up and dropped us at Lusso, and laughed the hardest I’d ever seen when I told him the news that we’d just received. I told him because Jesse still wasn’t talking, not even to ask John if he caught the DBS. So I did. He lost the motherfucking thing.

We passed Casey, who looked a little shocked that he wasn’t growled at, and I directed Jesse into the elevator and just about coaxed the new code from him. He didn’t tell me it. He just absentmindedly punched in the four digits.

3, 2, 1, 0.

We’re now in the kitchen, Jesse slumped on the stool, still staring at the picture, and me sipping a glass of water, waiting for him to spring back to life. I’ll give him half an hour, and then I’ll chuck some cold water over him.

I go upstairs, call Kate, and listen to her gasp in shock—first at the news of my dramatic car chase, then at the news of twins. I take a shower and dry my hair, then throw on my Thai fisherman pants, smiling when I realize that these will grow with my belly.

When I get back downstairs, Jesse is still sitting motionless at the island, staring at the scan picture.

Feeling a little frustrated, I sit next to him and pull his face to mine. “Are you going to speak anytime soon?”

His eyes roam all over my face for so long, until they eventually land on mine. “I can’t fucking breathe, Ava.”

“I’m shocked, too,” I admit, although clearly not as shocked as he is.

His lip slowly slips through his teeth, which seem to clamp down severely, his cogs firing into action in his head. It makes me immediately wary.

He speaks in a near whisper. “I was a twin.”