She hung up.

The tears she’d held back the last few months were unleashed, like a lashing of the windows during a hurricane, like the punishing of a cold storm. Wild and ravaging streams of tears, matching the way her body was once again letting her down. She hated the way she’d lost the ability to dance because of a fluke injury in rehearsal. Hated the way she’d become pregnant when trying not to. And hated the way her body was expelling a baby she didn’t know she’d wanted, but would now do anything to keep safe inside her.

She reached the hospital a wet mess.

“Your water’s broken, love. There’s nothing we can do,” the nurse said, her warm British accent almost fooling Shannon into thinking everything was going to be all right. But nothing was all right. Not as she went into labor—did they even call it labor at twenty weeks? It was fast and furious, and it barely hurt her physically. But it tore apart her already-shattered heart an hour later as she delivered a baby boy. Less than one pound. His heart no longer beating. The nurse wrapped her son in a white hospital blanket and handed him to the mother who was no longer a mother.

Her.

That was her.

She was there, but somehow seeing it all through a lens, as if that lens was supposed to protect her from the pain. It didn’t. It couldn’t. Not even as she watched the scene play out. Not as she sobbed into the blanket, and cried over a life she hadn’t even been sure if she was keeping for her own. A life that had stopped sometime in the early morning when she woke up. Or on the cab ride to the hospital. Or on the hospital bed. The nurses and doctor didn’t know when the baby had slipped from the living, but it didn’t matter. Her water had broken prematurely for unknown reasons. The baby would never have survived. It didn’t matter when his tiny heart stopped working.

The only thing that mattered was that the decision had been taken out of her hands.

Michael walked into the room and sat with her as she said goodbye to the son she would never name and never know.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As soon as she was dressed, Shannon returned to the kitchen. Michael rose, and hugged her.

“I’m sorry, Shannon bean. I didn’t mean to get mad at you.”

She rested her cheek against his chest. “It’s okay. I just want you to respect my choices.”

“I know,” he said softly.

“Even if you don’t agree with them,” she added.

He chuckled. “You know me too well.”

“I do.”

She pulled apart. “I need to put on my makeup and dry my hair. Is the video done?”

He nodded. “It’s just compressing. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

“Thanks for doing that.”

“You know I’d do anything for you,” he said, tucking a finger under her chin so she looked him in the eyes.

“Duh,” she said, playfully. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

A faint trace of a smile appeared on his lips. Rare for Michael. He was usually so intense, so serious. But the smile was a rueful one. He looked her up and down. “Could you wear a sack instead of that dress? Maybe a paper bag?”

She scoffed. “No such luck.”

He sighed heavily. “What time should I pick you up? You only need an hour with him, right? Tell me where to come get you.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. Nice try, buddy.”

He parked his hands on her shoulders. “Be careful. I don’t want anyone hurting you.”

“I know,” she said softly. She didn’t want that either. Not one bit. Seeing Brent again was like tearing off the protective coating she’d worn for the last decade. Like peeling it off, leaving it in a heap on the floor, and whispering please don’t hurt me.

“Are you going to tell him? About what happened in London?”

“How do I even say it?” she asked, sinking down to a kitchen chair. “I haven’t talked to anyone but you and grandma about it in years.”

He took her hands in his, and his touch was comforting, as it always had been. “You just say it. You say there’s something I need to tell you. And then you get the words out.”

Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a big breath. Michael always made things sound so... doable. Surely this was one of those things. She swallowed and parted her lips to speak. Brent, you were going to be a dad.

That was as far as she made it in her head before the tears welled up. Michael wrapped his arms around her and comforted her. “It’s too hard,” she said.

“It is hard. But it’s important.”

She nodded into his chest. She’d have to find a way. She hadn’t expected she’d be at this point so quickly. She hadn’t entertained the idea that she’d be facing this hurdle so soon. A dinner here, a few lunches there, and she’d already reached this crossroad, this terrible truth that she had to serve up. But she needed to spend more time with the words. With the right order to say them in. Maybe tonight she could manage it.

She returned to the bathroom, drying her hair as she practiced.

I was pregnant with your baby.

I wanted to tell you. I tried to find you. I didn’t know what to do.

Then my body failed me again.

The words were awful, like jagged glass in her mouth. They hurt so much. Too much. The reminders of her failures were overwhelming—her body failed her as a dancer, her body failed her as a mother.

She wanted a night that didn’t fucking hurt.

Tomorrow. She’d deal with it tomorrow. Truths like this were best delivered in the morning, right? She could have this evening with him, spend the night together, and then in the morning she’d discover the right words.

In the morning she’d be ready.

As she applied blush and mascara, she focused on locking up the memories so they wouldn’t ruin her present for the next few hours. Memories had a way of sneaking up on you, and knocking you down. They could grab you by the throat and throttle you. Images of her father’s blood in the driveway, of her mother’s screams that night and then again when the detectives came to arrest her, of her own arms wrapped around a tiny person who wouldn’t live. Memories could be cruel in their ambushes.

Heartless things.

Reaching for her phone, she opened her picture gallery and found the shot from yesterday. Brent kissing her in the photo booth. Blurry, yet so clear. He was the pain, and he was the protection from it.

* * *

After Michael left, she closed her eyes and practiced one of her yoga techniques. As she raised her arms high above her head in the mountain pose, she imagined clearing her mind of all that hurt, freeing her body from the harshness of all that had gone wrong with it, and returning to the woman she had been before. The woman she used to be with Brent, and still could be. Physical, sexual, connected with him in that way. She felt connected to him in so many ways already, and maybe it was selfish, or maybe it was necessary, but tonight she wanted to be one with her body, not warring with it. Because her heart, mind and body wanted that man again.

As she opened her eyes, she spotted the framed photo of the sunflowers on the kitchen counter. Her way to remember what she’d lost in London. She brushed her fingertips to her lips, then pressed them against the image.

A kiss for the boy who wouldn’t be.

* * *

Cool white lobby. Etched glass on the double doors. Sleek blond wood floors and stairs that matched. The kind of stairs that were see-through, that almost seemed to be floating because you could look down and see the floor below. He drank it all in. Her building. Her home. She’d buzzed him in, and he still couldn’t believe he was there. It was as if he’d gained entry to a secret castle, to the tower at the top of it. Follow this path, take the fork in the road, and climb all the way up. At the top, there she will be.