Chapter 14: Finding Forever: Chapter 13

Cade watched Fern’s slender throat move as she swallowed and he wondered how the fuck they’d managed to—in such a short time—get so very far down this rabbit hole.

“I’m sorry it was so terrible,” she apologized.

“You should stop doing that,” he told her through gritted teeth and she tilted her head in that appealing quizzical way she had.

“Doing what?”

“Apologizing for shit that’s not your fault.” As she had done just last night. He was about to say as much, when she spoke again.

“Wasn’t it my fault? I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Precisely,” he agreed, immediately distracted. “I, however, did know what I was doing. As such, I was the one who should have ensured that it was a better experience for you. For both of us. I’m sorry your first time was so shit.”

“Honestly?” she said, her tone hushed and confiding. “I didn’t know it was shit until you told me it was.”

Her confession startled another laugh out of him. She was so fucking unintentionally cute that he found himself constantly caught off guard by her.

“Fern, you didn’t have an orgasm. Surely that was your first clue?”

“I thought I did?” The words emerged on a high note, as if she wasn’t quite sure of it.

“You have had an orgasm before, right?” The question was out before he could think the better of it. He grimaced, not used to speaking without weighing every word carefully.

“Of course. Sort of. Maybe⁠—?”

The qualifier sent his eyebrows soaring. A pretty pink blush stained her pale skin and she looked uncomfortable with the conversation, but after that, he couldn’t simply drop it. He needed specifics.

“Sort of? How do you sort of maybe have an orgasm?”

“I never had much privacy in boarding school. The other girls were very open about their sexuality and spoke frankly about such things. Some of them often experimented with each other. But I was—am— shy about my body and I was reticent to discuss sex, even with my best friend.

“While most of the staff at my school consisted of non-religious teachers, our sex education teacher was an ancient nun. Probably because the school wanted to discourage us from having premarital sex. Sister Mary Patrick wasn’t very forthcoming or approachable. She gave us the requisite sex education classes but her take home was always ‘yes this is how sex goes but you’re not to have anything to do with it until you’re married’.

“After finishing high school, I shared a room with one of the religious sisters on the staff, an older woman. She was very intimidating and stern. Self-exploration was even more difficult after that.”

Cade couldn’t quite wrap his head around that level of inexperience and naivety. He felt like a fucking asshole who had preyed on someone years younger than him in terms of sexual knowledge.

And now she was pregnant without even knowing what an orgasm felt like. The mere thought of it was appalling and tragic and a terrible waste.

He continued to stare at her bent head, and gradually became aware of the fact that his breathing had slowed down, while his heartbeat was hard and heavy in his chest. His flesh prickled, leaving the hair standing on end along his arms… and that wasn’t the only thing standing on end.

Shit.

His throat went dry as he considered his unwelcome erection.

Why was he turned on?

He liked women who could hold their own in bed, women who knew how to give decent blow jobs, who could stroke a cock without digging their nails into his sensitive flesh and yet…

The thought of being the one to wake her up and initiate that sweet little body in the joys of sex, was an irresistibly erotic one. She was a blank slate. And he would seduce her slowly this time.

Properly.

He imagined her astonishment when he made her come for the first time. He wouldn’t warn her. He’d let it sneak up on her, wash over her, steal her breath, her reasoning, her sanity…

Christ.

Cade was the one losing his sanity. He was mad to even allow his thoughts to stray in this direction. She wasn’t for him. Fucking her would complicate his life even further. Would encourage her to form attachments where she shouldn’t. Possibly raise her expectations.

That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to do his stint as her husband and move on with his life.

Yet here he sat, hard as a steel pipe, aching to show her what her body—their bodies together—was truly capable of.

He swallowed thickly, and folded his shaking hands into tight fists.

“Did you make that appointment?” he asked hoarsely, changing the subject to preserve his sanity. Fern blinked sleepily, looking confused by the abrupt change in topic.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Get it sorted, I’m going to take a shower. And then we’ll get you to the doctor.”

“I doubt I’ll get an appointment today,” she said.

“You will.” He knew she would because he’d called each doctor this morning, before going on his run, and ensured that they’d have a slot for her—even if it meant creating one after hours or during lunchtime. She just had to choose the doctor she wanted.

“These places are usually fully booked weeks in advance, especially these doctors. They’re the most highly rated ones in the city.”

“Yes. So, pick one.” He pushed to his feet, angling his body slightly away from hers so she wouldn’t notice his still persistent hard-on. He had his back to her seconds later.

He didn’t bother saying anything else and he ignored her annoyed sigh, as he painfully made his way back inside to the punishing cold shower that awaited him.

Cade stared fixedly at the large, colorful fetal development poster on the wall in front of him, while he and Fern waited for the obstetrician to join them in her office.

“You can wait outside,” Fern told him again, her whisper filled with urgency. “I don’t need you here, Cade. There’s really no point in your staying, when you won’t be a father to my baby in anything but name.”

He exhaled loudly through his nose and dragged his gaze away from the poster to glare at her.

“I know that. But if you’re going to be living with me, I think I need to have at least a basic understanding of what the hell is going on with you and your body, in case of emergency, right?”

“It’s private.”

“Look, Fern, I just need to be here and to know everything is alright with you. For my own peace of mind.”

“I’ll tell you if there’s any reason to be concerned.”

He allowed her to see his blatant skepticism and disbelief and her cheeks went slightly pink beneath his gaze.

“Fine… you can stay. This one time. But not a word. Okay?”

“I might have questions.”

“Why?”

“Because I won’t allow anything to happen to you, Fern. Not on my watch.”

“What on earth do you think will happen to me? I’m pregnant, not suffering from some dread disease. Knock on wood.”

Cade fought to keep the grin off his face as she quickly tapped the wooden desk in front of her.

“Superstition?” he asked, battling to keep the amusement out of his voice. “You went to a Catholic school, I would sooner have expected you to cross yourself and bust out a rosary.”

“Just because I went to a Catholic school doesn’t mean I’m Catholic.” Her voice was prim, and this time it was she who fixed her gaze on the poster behind the desk.

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it was just the first and furthest boarding school Granger could find that would take me in the middle of the school year.”

“How soon after your mother’s death did he send you to boarding school?”

“As soon as he could arrange the student visa—three weeks later.”

The thought of it infuriated Cade. Her whole world must have been upended after her mother’s death. And while the wound of that loss had still been raw and bleeding, that fucker had simply removed her from everything and everyone familiar and parceled her off to a different country and a new school, where nobody knew her or cared about her.

How frightened she must have been.

Fern wasn’t sure what was going through Cade’s complicated mind. Something dark was brewing behind that impassive stare. He looked almost angry and she wasn’t sure why.

“Well?” she prompted and he stared at her in blank confusion. He must have lost track of their conversation. “What do you think will happen to me?”

“I’ve been reading up on all the catastrophic shit that could happen to you while you’re pregnant.”

How… odd.

“Why would you do that?” she asked, confused.

His shoulders shifted uncomfortably but before he could reply, the door opened and the doctor walked in with a slightly harassed smile on her face.

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. Just had to deal with a minor emergency. Hello, I’m Dr. Amina Khan. And you must be the Hawthornes.”

She was a petite, dark skinned, attractive middle-aged woman with a short, sleek black bob, and kind eyes. She rounded her desk and Cade and Fern both stood to shake her hand, before they all took their seats.

“And this is your first pregnancy, right?” she asked, after consulting the folder on her desk.

“Yes,” Fern said with a nod, feeling unaccountably nervous. She still wasn’t too happy about Cade being here, but he’d made it clear that he wasn’t going anywhere, so the next best thing was just to proceed as if he wasn’t there.

The first appointment was longer than Fern had expected. It involved an overall assessment of her physical and mental health. Bloodwork, pelvic exam, uterus size. And so many questions. Dr. Khan was friendly, informative, and extremely thorough.

Cade remained a grim presence throughout most of it, and he wasn’t very pleased on the few occasions that Dr. Khan asked him to step out. He listened attentively and peppered the doctor with questions about the most doomsdayerish topics: ectopic pregnancies, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, anemia, even depression.

The doctor answered his many questions with a great deal of patience.

“And what about the likelihood of placental abru⁠—”

“Oh, heaven help me,” Fern muttered with a roll of her eyes. “Cade, will you stop? None of these issues are of immediate concern.”

He slanted her an are you kidding look that she met with a stony glare.

“It’s natural for your husband to have these concerns, Mrs. Hawthorne, and I’m happy to answer his questions.”

Fern had noticed that none of his questions were about the fetus or its well-being, they had all been these worst-case scenarios that did nothing to settle her nerves.

“I just need to know if the baby is healthy,” Fern said and the doctor smiled.

“Time for your dating ultrasound then,” she said. “This will tell us if all is well with your pregnancy as well as determine conception and due dates. Please pop into the room next door and I’ll join you and my technician Lee-Anne in just a minute.”

Fern slanted Cade a look but not even his indifferent returning stare could dim her excited grin.

Cade watched Fern practically bounce into the next room and followed her on leaden feet, his pace much slower. By the time he joined her, she was already stretched out on her back on the narrow cot. Her pretty bare feet pressed close together, sea green blouse hiked to just under her breasts, her flat, pale stomach bared to his gaze.

The technician— a pretty, brown-skinned, slender young woman with dark curls and a friendly smile—gently rolled the waistband of Fern’s skirt down a couple of times to reveal even more silky skin.

“I really like your hair,” Fern shyly confided in the other woman, her admiring gaze sweeping over Lee-Anne’s corkscrew curls. “Curls are such fun.”

“Not so much fun to maintain,” the other woman said with a chuckle. “Your hair is amazing.”

“Thank you,” Fern said, sounding genuinely happy with the compliment. “I always feel like people will think I’m much older than I am, because of it.”

“Oh not at all, it’s such a unique color.”

The conversation was inane, and ridiculous, and also revealing in Fern’s reaction to the woman’s words. She looked as if she didn’t quite believe her, and yet loved hearing it nonetheless. She clearly wasn’t used to receiving compliments. He’d already noticed how much she glowed whenever he said anything remotely complimentary to her.

The two women were still chattering about hair related concerns when the doctor walked in.

“Are we ready to proceed?” she asked, all smiles.

“All set up and ready to go, doctor,” Lee-Anne confirmed.

“Very good, why don’t you take a break, Lee-Anne? I’ll handle this one.” Cade had asked for as much privacy as possible during this appointment and he was happy that the doctor was respecting that wish. The fewer people who knew their business the less likely the press would get wind of it.

After warning her of the cold, the doctor applied conductive gel onto Fern’s abdomen. She inhaled sharply and Cade watched as her flat stomach went concave as she sucked in her breath with a giggle. He hovered awkwardly behind the doctor and she looked back at him.

“Why don’t you join your wife, Mr. Hawthorne?” she invited, ushering him to the head of the bed. “That way you’ll be able to see the monitor more clearly.”

Cade obediently moved into position where he waited—hands in his pockets—while the doctor fidgeted with the machine at the bedside.

“Ready?” she asked them and Cade found himself uncertain how to respond to that question. He didn’t want to be here for this bit. Not really. This wasn’t the part that interested him. He’d asked his questions and had received satisfactory—for now—responses to said questions.

But he couldn’t leave now, not after the big deal he’d made about being here. He sucked in a breath and said nothing, allowing Fern’s breathless yes to answer for both of them.

He watched, swallowing back his anxiety, as the wand lowered to Fern’s abdomen and the screen next to the bed lit up with a grainy, wavy image. There was nothing but muffled noise, similar to what you’d hear under water and it was all very… underwhelming.

“Let’s see. Where is this little one hi—aah there we go…”

The muffled underwater sounds was replaced by a strong, fast, rhythmic whooshing, while the grainy image on screen coalesced into a bubble of sorts. Still not sure what he was seeing or hearing, Cade merely found himself glowering at the screen.

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know that this is not an ectopic pregnancy, Daddy,” Dr. Khan told him and his head jerked up at the word she’d used.

Daddy?

No. That wasn’t him.

His breath left him in a soft, painful exhalation.

“That sound…?” It was loud, too loud—almost deafening—fast and chaotic.

“Your baby’s heartbeat,” the doctor said and he blinked. His reactions sluggish, he felt like he was wading upstream through a river of molasses and losing the ability to fight the slow, relentless push of it.

A heartbeat.

He stared fixedly at the jumble of black, white, and gray on the screen and, as he focused on one spot, the rest of the mess began to fall into place around it.

A nose… that’s what he was looking at. His eyes followed the line of that nose, up to the head, over it and around the curve of a back, down to a bottom and little legs.

Jesus. The sound—heartbeat—was loud, relentless… pounding away at his brain. He didn’t like it. He needed them to turn down the volume, but—as he stared at the screen—his voice didn’t work. He doubted anybody would hear him anyway. How could anyone hear anything above that cacophony? It drowned out all other sound. It made thinking impossible. It dominated everything and Cade…

did

not

like

it!

Not one goddamn bit.

The doctor’s lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear her. Didn’t she know how noisy it was? Why wouldn’t she turn the volume down? How the fuck was he supposed to hear a damned thing she was saying? She seemed to be talking to Fern, who appeared able to hear her just fine, since she was also speaking now. Neither of them were paying the slightest attention to Cade.

He fumbled behind him, reaching for the chair he knew was there, and dragged it over to sink into it slowly, hoping they wouldn’t recognize that it was because his legs were no longer able to support him. It was sit down or fall down.

He remained there, slumped in his seat, shattered, eyes fixed on the screen, ears deaf to everything but that relentless heartbeat, wondering how much longer this would go on for, when the noise suddenly ceased.

And he was immediately filled with absolute panic.

“What happened?” he demanded to know, furiously pinning the doctor beneath his stare as he lurched to his feet. “Why did it stop? What’s wrong?”

His eyes swiveled first to Fern who was staring at him warily, then back to the screen, where the image appeared to have frozen.

The silence—after the relentless tattoo of that heartbeat—was terrifying and absolute. And then broken by Fern’s tentative voice.

“Cade?”

He blinked, eyes dropping to her abdomen, the doctor was wiping the gel from Fern’s skin with a paper towel.

Oh. The ultrasound was over.

He once again looked at the doctor, who was eyeing him with a knowing little smile.

“As I was saying,” she said, clearly meaning the words for Cade only. “Everything appears to be fine right now. Fern’s blood pressure is lower than I’d like, which we’ll have to keep an eye on. Your fetus is about nine weeks old and was conceived on or around the twenty-fourth of August”—the exact date of the gala—“and is due mid-to-late May.”

“Uh—” Cade valiantly tried to unscramble his brain before asking, “How much longer will the nausea and dizziness last?”

“Morning sickness should all but dissipate in the second trimester. So, another month or so and then it’ll hopefully start to taper off. The dizziness is likely due to your low blood pressure, Fern. We’ll start you on iron, B12, and folic acids, tweak your diet a bit. It’s also important that you rest when you need it.”

“Could you tell if it was a girl or boy?” Fern asked and Dr. Khan smiled.

“Let’s save that for your next ultrasound, it’s not easy to tell at this stage. Now if you don’t mind, Fern, just one last test…” She handed Fern a cup and directed her to the bathroom. “I’m sure you’re dying to empty your bladder, but save some urine for me. Hand the filled cup to Lee-Anne. We’ll be waiting for you in my office.”

Fern took the cup, a slight flush on her cheeks… she was so ridiculously shy about everything. Cade and Dr. Khan watched as she retreated.

“Uh… I was wondering,” Cade murmured, feeling awkward as fuck.

“Yes?”

“About sex?”

He grimaced, not sure why he felt so uncomfortable about asking. He was a grown ass man and Fern was his wife. And yeah, they weren’t going to be having sex. But… there was no harm in finding out just in case that changed.

“I don’t see a reason for you not to carry on as normal,” Dr. Khan replied matter-of-factly. “In fact, I encourage it. Baby will be fine, mom will be fine. Suffice it to say not only will it help maintain intimacy throughout all the stages of the pregnancy but it can be highly satisfying for both partners. A woman generally becomes a lot more sensitive and receptive as her pregnancy progresses resulting in easier orgasms.”

His face heated and he shoved his hand into his pockets before rocking back on his heels and nodding.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She led him back to her office, where they waited for Fern to return.

The remainder of the appointment focused primarily on diet and lifestyle changes and they were sent on their way with a couple of ultrasound images—Cade shoved his own copy into his jacket pocket, while Fern oohed and aahed over hers—prescriptions for vitamins and pamphlets on childbirth classes and the benefits of breastfeeding.

By the time they were seated in the back of the town car, Fern was still smiling, her face glowing with happiness, and staring at that image. Cade, meanwhile, was glowering out at the jam-packed road, his hand in his pocket as his thumb worried at a corner of the picture burning a hole in the expensive fabric of his jacket.

And as he stared out at the evening traffic, he continued to hear the deafening echo of a heartbeat that was too fast, too rhythmic, and too chaotic.

All the while overwhelmed by the absolute certainty that the sound was the harbinger of an impending disaster.