“Me, too.”
I wanted to ask her so many questions, but I was fucking exhausted. Sleeping on the chair next to Amelia and all the noise of an ICU didn’t lend itself to more than a half hour of rest at a time. “Are you going to stay for a while?” I asked.
“If you don’t mind. I don’t have anything else I need to do. Will has me covered this week since I was supposed to be down with my mom.”
“Would you mind if I went home for a few hours?”
She looked me over. “Have you not gone home since everything happened?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, God. Definitely go home. I can stay all day, overnight even. If anything changes, I’ll call you.”
“I’ll come back after I get a few hours of sleep.”
She nodded. “Whatever you want. But I’ll be here, so take as long as you need.”
“Thanks, Colette.”
I walked over and held Amelia’s hand for a moment before squeezing. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
Colette nodded. “You look like shit, boss. Get some sleep.”
I took the elevator down to the lobby and was halfway to the door when I noticed someone sitting alone in the large waiting area. Aaron met my eyes. He swallowed and stood. For a few seconds, I debated going over and punching his lights out, but I didn’t have the fucking energy. Plus, there was something I needed to know. So I walked toward the seating area. The guy was still dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing the day they brought Amelia in. And his face still had dirt and bruises. Guess I wasn’t the only one who’d been here three days.
“How is she?”
“I’ll answer that if you answer one question for me first.”
He nodded his head. “Anything.”
“Did you use protection?”
“What?”
I raised my voice. “When you were fucking my fiancée, did you use a condom?”
“Yes, always. Why?”
I felt as relieved as I could. “She’s still in a coma. There are brainwaves, and my daughter is holding on.”
The guy blinked. He hadn’t known either. “Amelia’s…pregnant?”
My lip curled. “I answered your question. You might as well go home because you’re never getting in that room to see her. I’ll kill you before that happens.”
? ? ?
Later that night, I was back at the hospital alone. I sat in the chair beside Amelia as the night nurse came to examine her. After a quick check of her vitals, she put the stethoscope on her belly and held it there listening. “Oh wow…” She removed the listening part from her ears. “I just felt the baby move.”
I sat up. “You did?”
She nodded. “Come here. Put your hand right where the stethoscope is now.”
I hesitated, but eventually set my hand on Amelia’s belly. Her skin was so warm and soft. At first, there was nothing, but after a minute, I felt a roll in her stomach. My eyes widened. It was the first time I’d smiled in almost four days. “I felt it.”
She nodded. “That’s an active little bugger.”
“Figures. She’s probably just like her mother.”
The woman smiled. “It’s a girl?”
I nodded. I felt the movement again, this time it was more like a poke than a roll. “I think she just kicked me.”