Page 45 of Doctor Daddies

I groan. “Oh God, that’s awful…”

“Shit happens. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

I appreciate how intent he seems on convincing me that I have nothing to apologize for, but I know it’s not true. I can only imagine the gossip that’s flying after my brother turned up at the clinic like that, berating them about God knows what. I burst into tears the second Cole told me, the thought of all of them fighting enough to bring my emotions to a boiling point, and he had insisted on coming to the apartment to check on me. Didn’t seem to matter that I told him I would be fine on my own, he’s not the type to leave me with no support in the face of something like that.

He hands me the water and I take a sip, still shaking slightly as I try to wrap my head around all of it. It’s not just the fact that Matt laid all our business out in public, or even the fact that theguys had to have something like that sprung on them at work. It’s that…

It’s that I have never known Matt to be this angry in his life before. And I don’t know if this is the kind of thing that we can come back from.

Matt is the only family I have left, aside from Lewis. When our parents died, it brought the two of us together in a way neither of us could ever have expected. We had always been close, sure, but with Lewis and the loss coming almost on top of each other, we bonded so deeply that I had been sure nothing could pull us apart.

If you had told me a few months ago that something would come in between my brother and me, I would have told you that you were crazy, because the two of us were forged in iron, the kind of bond between us that you couldn’t break no matter how hard you tried.

But then, I had to go and do something like this. Something that, even when I first heard about it, I knew he would hate.

And I hid the truth about Lewis from him for so long. Would things be different if I had just come clean with him back when all this started? Probably. It’s hard not to wonder what our lives might have looked like if I had taken Matt aside and told him the truth when I first got pregnant. No doubt there would have been some issues then, sure, but at least it would have been over.

Instead, I left it ticking beneath the table like a time bomb, waiting to go off at any given moment, and I know I only have myself to blame for it.

“Do you think Matt will ever forgive us?” I ask Cole softly. He doesn’t have the answer any more than I do, but I’m just searching for whatever reassurance I can get right now.

Cole reaches for my other hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss against it. “Yeah, I think he will,” he assures me, but even I can hear the doubt in his voice.

I cock an eyebrow slightly. “You really believe that?”

“I don’t know.”

I manage a small smile. “I appreciate the effort,” I murmur, and I rest my head against his, closing my eyes.

I just don’t know where all of this leaves me. I know I have to see the contract through, and I have no intention of failing when it comes to that. But what will this do to my relationship with Matt? I mean, he’s going to have to see my belly growing bigger and bigger, a constant reminder of what I agreed to, of everything that I’ve done behind his back.

“How are you feeling?” Cole asks, as I hop up onto the counter, sipping on the water and trying to bring myself back down to earth.

“I don’t know,” I confess. “I want to call him, but…”

“Trust me, he doesn’t want to hear from any of us right now,” he warns me. “We need to give him time to cool off. Besides, he’s probably still drunk. You should have seen him when he turned up at the clinic, he could barely stand upright.”

“He’s not normally a big drinker.”

“Yeah, but this is a pretty extreme situation,” he points out. “If anyone was going to start drinking, it would be over something like this.”

“God, I could use a drink right now,” I groan, running a hand through my hair. “You think you could get another couple of bottles of that nonalcoholic stuff? Maybe I could get a placebo effect or something, take the edge off.”

He smiles slightly, chuckling. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I gaze at him for a moment, chewing my lip.

“Thanks for coming, by the way,” I remark. “I know you probably have work to take care of?—”

“We shut down the clinic for the rest of the day,” he replies, bringing his hands to my waist and stilling them there.

There’s something grounding about his touch, something that soothes me in a way I desperately need right now. I put the glass down beside me, cupping his face in my hands and just looking at him for a moment.

“Was it all worth it?” I ask him.

A huge question, and I know it well, but I need to hear it from him. Need to know that all of this, for the mess that it has become, has at least made sense to him.

“Was what worth it?”