Amber Mckenzie - After One Forbidden Night...

“Okay,” she assented, before closing her eyes, exhausted physically and emotionally. She felt Erin pull the blankets over her. “Thank you for everything,” she managed, right before sleep overtook her.

Chloe stirred, the pain in her abdomen still sharp and making her restless. She felt a hand sweep her hair from her face. Kate. She had told her best friend to go home but apparently she hadn’t listened.

Pain coursed through her as she tried in vain to find a comfortable position and a soft moan escaped her.

A hand fell onto her arm and she instantly knew that it was not Kate beside her. The hand was heavy and large and she recognized Tate’s touch. She didn’t open her eyes. She wasn’t ready to face him. She heard her call bell go off and Tate asking for a nurse.

The exchange was brief, and within five minutes Chloe felt some of the pain dissipate from her body—but not her heart.

“I know you are not sleeping, Chloe.”

Tate’s voice broke through her thoughts. She opened her eyes to meet his. Each of them was trying to decipher the other. He looked tired, with new shadowing along his face and a redness in his eyes that served to heighten the light green irises. Despite her need for him she felt overwhelmed by his presence.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

“Because I’ve watched you sleep,” he answered, as though the statement held no intimacy.

“No, I mean how did you know I was here?” she asked, not wanting to betray any of the information she had barely had time to digest.

“I’m on nights this week and saw you in the operating room.”

She grimaced at the thought of him seeing her exposed—not one she enjoyed.

“Is the morphine not enough? Do you need something else?” he asked, misreading her cue.

“No, I’m fine.” A complete overstatement, but she felt vulnerable and not ready for this conversation.

“You scared me.”

The honesty in his face and his statement humbled her.

“I’m sorry.”

“Is there a reason you didn’t tell me?” His voice had quietened.

“What do you mean?” He was searching for an answer but she didn’t understand the question.

Tate stared at her as though he could learn the answer if he just looked hard enough. She looked back at him, equally searching for an answer. “Was there a reason you didn’t tell me about the pregnancy?”

He knew . She didn’t know how, but he did. He probably had known before she did. Just one more insult in what was already an untenable situation. He was asking her if he was the father of her baby. What must he think of her if he thought there might be more than one possibility?

She blinked hard, trying to calm herself against the ugliness she felt inside. When she opened her eyes he was still staring at her, waiting.

“Does it matter, Tate?” The hurt in her voice was apparent even to her own ears.

“Yes, it matters.”

“Why?” she demanded.

“It just does, Chloe.”

“Because if you were the father then, what? You would take pity on me? Feel guilty? But if you weren’t then everything people say about me must be right and you can walk away and count your blessings for your near miss? I’m sorry, Tate, but neither of those options works for me. I think you should go.”

“We’re not done, Chloe.”

She wanted to cry and tried hard to keep in her tears. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Be honest with yourself, Tate. We never started. I need you to go.”

“What if I want to stay, Chloe?”

“Then you should have stayed six weeks ago. Or at least listened to me when I tried to talk to you afterward. But you wanted nothing to do with me then, and you don’t get to change your mind now. I want you to leave.” She could hear the pleading in her voice but she didn’t care. She couldn’t do this—not now, when she had already depleted every physical and emotional resource she had.

“But the baby …?” His voice was hushed but still she heard the small crack that betrayed him.

“There is no baby,” she told them both, and the words hurt as much as anything she had felt. Tate blurred before her eyes and she couldn’t read him as tears formed. She watched him get up and walk away from her and felt both relieved and wounded by his departure.

She heard the curtains close and the sliding door of her intensive care room slide shut and she closed her eyes, willing the tears to stop. She couldn’t do this—not here.

She barely had time to process the sound of the guard rail going down, or the weight on her bed, before she felt herself being picked up as strongly, and yet as gently as possible, and held tightly within a strong embrace. She felt pain tear through her abdomen, but it was nothing compared to what was going on in her heart. She shouldn’t do this—she shouldn’t feel better in Tate’s arms. But she did.

Her complete loss of control over her life overwhelmed her and she gave in to the urge she had been fighting since she woke up. For some reason she knew she didn’t have to be brave right now—she didn’t need to put on the funny, reassuring front she had for Kate. Right now she could just hurt and it didn’t matter. She had nothing to lose with Tate; she had lost everything already.

She felt his grip tighten as the sobs began to rack through her body, each movement both bringing and taking away the pain. He brought his chin down to rest on her head while his hand stroked up and down her back.

“I didn’t know about the baby,” she confessed into his already soaked scrub top.

“It’ll be okay, Chloe. You are okay,” he murmured in reassurance.

“It’s not okay. How could I not have known about my own child?”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

No, it wouldn’t have. A child between them wouldn’t have changed Tate’s mind or his feelings toward her. “I didn’t deserve a baby.”

“You didn’t deserve any of this .”

“Didn’t I?” She had done the unthinkable. She had fallen in love and slept with her best friend’s ex, who the morning after had found her lacking. The only reason Tate was here now was because he felt sorry for her, but to be honest not more sorry than she felt for herself.

He pulled her gently away from his shoulder, reaching up to cradle her face in his hands. “No, Chloe, you didn’t.”

She wished she could believe him. She had never put much stock in karma before—you couldn’t when you spent your life treating people you were sure didn’t deserve what was happening to them. But now she wasn’t sure.

She felt fresh tears forming in her eyes at the pain of her thoughts and from staring into Tate’s eyes too much. He really looked as if he cared for her. If only that was the case.

She felt his lips press against the dampness of her cheek before she was once again tucked into his arms and held tightly. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that. She didn’t even remember him leaving. But when she woke he was gone.

Post-operative day two was excruciating. Everything felt like a struggle. First thing in the morning a nurse had come to help her “dangle’, which had basically turned into a torture exercise of being forced to sit upright with her legs dangling off the bed, maintaining her balance. She’d lasted for less than five minutes and then slept for the next three hours to recover. When she woke Kate was there, propped in a bedside chair reading a heavy hardcover text that almost completely covered her. She was comforted by her friend’s presence.

“Hey,” Chloe greeted her, watching as Kate’s focus shifted and she herself was assessed by the good surgeon.

“You look better,” Kate said reassuringly.