DAVID FLOATED UP from a deep sleep and had one of those moments when, because of the quality of the light, he wasn’t sure whether it was morning or evening. Then he took a deep breath, intending to yawn, but stopped as Nychelle’s scent flooded his head.
“More...”
He heard her voice again in his head and, rolling onto his stomach, pulled her pillow over to bury his face in it. There had been more—and more. Lovemaking so intense, so utterly beautiful, a sensation of repletion filled him at the memory.
If he were a rooster, he’d crow as he remembered watching her straddle his body, taking him deep, her face tight with need. He’d cupped her breasts and she’d covered his hands with her own as she rocked above him, the connection between them so sublime it had thrown him into an altered state. One where all that mattered was Nychelle, the love swelling inside him, and her pleasure.
She’d cried out his name as her body had clutched his, her ripples of ecstasy catapulting him into an orgasm that had left him weak with pleasure. Just as the next one and the next one had, each pulling him further into love with her, making the bond between them grow stronger.
Thinking about it made him want to make love with her all over again, although his stamina, as evidenced by his renewed erection, frankly astonished him. It was all her. Looking at her was aphrodisiac enough, but when he touched her, felt her touch in return, he reached a whole different level of arousal.
Where was she?
The bathroom door was open, but the door leading to the living room was almost completely closed. Sitting up, he reached for a pair of shorts and hoped she was out there ordering dinner. He was ravenous. Plus, he needed more energy for when he pulled her back into bed.
Stepping into the living room, he found her standing by the sliding door to the balcony, gazing out over the city lights. She’d found his bathrobe, which had been hanging on the back of his bedroom door, and he was glad she hadn’t got dressed.
It would only mean undressing her all over again.
About to cross the room and embrace her from behind, he hesitated, something about her posture stopping him in his tracks. She turned, and her bleak expression made his heart stumble.
“Nychelle? What is it?”
“I have something to tell you. Something I should have told you before I... I slept with you.”
“Okay...” But his throat felt tight, the word coming out rough and low.
Even from across the room he could see her inhale, and he already knew, from the habitual rubbing of her wrist, that whatever she had to say probably wouldn’t be good.
“I had IUI a few weeks ago. I’m pregnant.”
The words hung in the air and he was unable to make sense of them immediately. Reaching behind him, he found the arm of the couch with one hand and sat down before his trembling legs gave out.
That couldn’t be right, could it?
“But you said...”
What had she said? His brain scrambled to remember.
“I developed dysfunctional uterine bleeding. The doctors warned I may never get pregnant.”
She hadn’t said she couldn’t, just that she might never.
Everything inside him froze, ice filling his chest and spreading into his veins. Desperate, not wanting her to see what she was doing to him, he donned a stoic, neutral mask.
Her lips trembled slightly, and her eyes grew liquid with tears. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I just—”
“It was none of my business.” The distance in his tone made the words hollow. The breath caught in his throat, painful and raw, and had to be forcefully expelled before he could say, “I understand.”
“Do you?”
It was, to him, a moot point. One he didn’t want to discuss.
He would have told her so, but she said, “I don’t think you do, and I’d like to explain.”
He lifted his hand, gesturing for her to go on, humoring her, and for an instant he saw a hint of what might be anger in her eyes. Then it faded, and she sighed. Moving to the dining table, she pulled out a chair and sank into it. All this he watched as if from a distance, detached, refusing to allow himself to get pulled in. To feel.
“Two years ago I discovered that my fiancé, Nick, was cheating on me. He’d told me that while he eventually wanted kids he wasn’t ready yet, and I’d agreed to wait. Then I found out the woman he’d been cheating with was pregnant. He tried to say it was a mistake, get me to take him back, but I think that was because he was worried my father would be angry.”
She shrugged and shook her head, ruefulness evident in the gesture.
“Daddy didn’t care, of course, and I won’t bore you with the rest of the fallout, but needless to say I was reluctant to get involved with anyone else after that.”
David forced himself to nod—a sharp, get-on-with-it motion—and Nychelle closed her eyes for a second. He swallowed, feeling bad for her but also hating how the woman he’d just made love with now seemed a perfect stranger.
Hating her for ruining the happiness he’d only just found.
“I didn’t want to wait—take the chance of leaving the attempt to have a child until it was too late. With my problems there would always be risks, but the longer I waited, the longer the odds of my even conceiving would become. I didn’t know...”
He winced, her words piercing the ice around his heart. What hadn’t she known? That they’d meet? Fall...?
No. He couldn’t think that way. Refused to. Wouldn’t allow her to follow that train of thought in case she completely destroyed him. Instead, he asked the first question that came to mind. “What do your parents think about this?”
“They don’t know. I didn’t tell anyone except Aliya.”
The sound that broke from her was bitter, but he didn’t let it weaken the barriers he’d already thrown up around his battered heart.
“When the doctor told me, at thirteen, about the problems I’d have carrying a child I started crying. And my mother...” She paused, her hands clenching into fists. “Do you know what she said to me?”
“What?”
“She said I shouldn’t cry. That it was a chance for me to concentrate on my career without having to conform to what society deemed was my duty to procreate.”
She looked away, but he saw the way she blinked, trying to hold back her tears.
“I remember wondering if she regretted having us, saw us as burdens she was forced to bear. It explained why she was hardly around—why she left our care to others and was only interested in how we were doing academically. Was so cold and uncaring.”
“Maybe she was just trying to spare you the pain of trying and not being able to conceive.” The instinctive words broke from him, tearing at his throat as they passed. “Or the pain of carrying a baby only to lose it later.”
She stared at him, eyes wide, and he saw the tracks left by her tears. “You don’t know...”
“But I do know.” Trying to push back the pain, keep his expression stoic, took everything he had inside. “And that’s the advice I’d have given you...as a parent who’s lost a child.”
* * *
The shock of his words left Nychelle frozen except for her hand, which crept to cover her still-flat belly. David’s eyes flicked as he followed the movement, and then rose to her face again.
“What?” she whispered, a horrible, aching sensation filling her chest. “Oh, David.”
“Yes.” His lips twisted. “My daughter was born at twenty weeks.”
The way he said it wasn’t lost on her, and tears filled her eyes again. He didn’t see it as his wife having had a miscarriage, but as his daughter being born too early to survive.
“It’s soul-destroying, Nychelle. Something you never get over. I wouldn’t wish it on someone I hate, much less on someone I care about.”
The air she’d just inhaled stuck in her lungs. All she could do was shake her head and blink to clear the tears from her eyes as the enormity of what she’d done crashed over her.
David had gone through hell, and she was bringing it all back to him. It was there in his pain-filled eyes, and in the way his fingers gripped the arm of the couch until they turned white.
“So maybe your mother was trying to shield you the only way she knew how.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “She knew the difficulty you faced, the potential heartbreak, and she tried to stop you from doing something you might regret even more than you’d regret not having a child.”
“Don’t say that!” The storm building in her was a maelstrom of pain and anger, and they were both there in the ferocity of her cry. “I’ll never regret trying.”
“Really?” David got to his feet so quickly Nychelle gasped at the rapid motion. “Even if—God forbid—something happens to your child?” He turned away, his shoulders rigid, his fists clenched. “Believe me, at that point you’ll feel nothing more than regret and heartbreak.”
She saw it so clearly then: David’s desire never to be a father again was really his need never to take a chance on losing another child. And she knew now there was no hope for them.
None.
Blissful numbness overcame her and she welcomed it, knowing she couldn’t bear to fall apart in front of him. Feeling distantly amazed that her legs held her, she stood and walked toward the bedroom, unsurprised when David said nothing; didn’t even turn to watch her go. Collecting her clothes from beside the bed, averting her eyes from the place where she’d experienced the greatest pleasure of her life, she went into the bathroom, quietly closing the door behind her.
Only then did her hands start to shake, and it took her longer than usual to get her swimsuit on, and her sundress, and to undo her ponytail, finger-comb her snarled hair and secure it again.
By the time she got back to the living room David was in the kitchen, as though it was important to put the width of the island between them. Her bag was on the table by the door, instead of on the floor where she’d dropped it earlier, and she figured he’d put it there so she wouldn’t waste time searching for it.
So she’d get going quicker.
“I’ll drop you home.”
There was that distant tone again, and it struck her straight in the heart, threatening the calm encasing her. “No. I’ll call a cab.” She held up her hand when he looked as though he might argue. “Really. It’s okay.”
There were so many things she wanted to say, but couldn’t. So many questions, too, that she would keep to herself. She’d destroyed whatever they might have had—even friendship. She didn’t have the right to ask anything more of him.
But as she put her hand on the door handle there was one thing she had to ask. It was, to her, too important to ignore.
“What is her name?”
His expression didn’t change, as though he hadn’t heard her, but then his eyebrows went up in query.
“Your daughter,” she clarified. “What’s her name?”
The silence that fell was so profound Nychelle’s ears hummed with it, and it felt as though she’d sucked the air from the room with her question. David’s expression cycled through pain to surprise, and then to an almost beatific calm.
“Natalie,” he said, so softly she almost couldn’t hear. Then his voice got stronger. “Her name is Natalie.”
“Beautiful.” Her voice hitched, and she knew her control was slipping.
Without another word she opened the door to step through. When it closed behind her the click of the lock snapping into place sounded suspiciously like the crack of her heart breaking.