The Heart's Game (The Kelly Brothers, Book 4) Read online

  “Yeah, too bad he’s a white guy, and I’m nothing more than a slut, eh, Mom?”

  The smile slipped from her mother’s face, and the ranting revived at full force.

  Jason gave her a playful nudge. “Nice comeback.”

  “Maybe I’m getting a bit cranky in my old age.”

  “Don’t forget hormonal from the baby.”

  “How can I forget that?” Her stomach was already churning. She grabbed a watermelon candy from the bowl on the coffee table and popped it in her mouth. “Calm her down before the neighbors complain. I’m going to take a quick shower.”

  “So you’re still coming with us to Chinatown?” her brother asked.

  “Sure, as long as my slutty presence won’t disgrace the family.”

  “Mom will get over it.” He dropped his voice and added, “Besides, I want more details on this guy. I think he’s the first guy you’ve ever had over to stay the night.”

  “So? I’m allowed to enjoy a night of good sex, aren’t I?”

  Jason’s grin widened. “Just good?”

  She laughed. “Try mind blowing.”

  “I thought as much. And he’s cool with you being pregnant?”

  The happy glow faded. “Um, I haven’t told him about that yet.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to do it soon.”

  “I know, I know. Just give me some time to sound him out first.” And enjoy a few more nights in the sack with him before he runs away screaming. “I’ll be out in a few.”

  “I’ll take care of Mom.” Her brother crossed the room to their mother and began speaking in soothing tones.

  Jenny turned on the hot water and let the shower beat down on her knotted shoulders. The water streamed down her overly sensitive breasts and along her still-flat stomach to the pleasant ache that lingered between her thighs. She had enjoyed last night. Almost too much. It was going to make it that much harder to sit across from him today and pretend they were just friends.

  She just couldn’t risk losing her heart to him, though. It was just sex. Nothing more. After all, when he learned the truth, he’d want nothing more to do with her.

  Chapter Seven

  Jenny opened her eyes and rolled over to the side of the bed Dan slept on just like she had every morning for the last three and a half weeks. The scent of his cologne lingered on his pillow. She hugged it and took in a deep breath through her nose, a flush washing over her body when she remembered the rough quickie they’d had this morning. She’d woken up just as he was getting out of the shower and pulled him back into bed for a round of fast, pounding, toe-curling sex before he left for the hospital.

  As she came to the end of her first trimester, her morning sickness was giving way to a severe case of morning horniness. Thankfully, Dan had been more than happy to oblige her demands. He’d slept over almost every night since she’d invited him over, and it was nights when he was on call that she missed him the most.

  She paused and loosened her hold on the pillow. Damn, she was getting used to him being in her bed. She enjoyed their conversations in the wee hours of the morning about the meaning of the Borg or how Peter Jackson had managed to ruin The Hobbit. She was getting spoiled by the great sex on demand. And she was running out of time. It wouldn’t take Dan long to realize that she hadn’t gotten her period since he’d started sleeping with her, and then she’d have to reveal the truth that would end the seemingly perfect arrangement.

  Of course, if she didn’t tell him soon, he’d find out on his own and probably be angry with her for deceiving him.

  It was a classic Kobayashi Maru situation—one she had no chance of winning. And unlike James T. Kirk, she had no idea how to cheat.

  The buzz of her alarm interrupted her thoughts, reminding her that her personal life would have to be placed on hold until she got home from work. She crawled out of bed, saw the dried blood along her inner thighs, and sank to her knees.

  Oh, shit! Oh, shit! Oh, shit!

  Blood like that could only mean bad news when it came to the baby.

  She fumbled for the phone and dialed her OB’s office, only to get a recorded message telling her they were closed. She hung up and doubled over, paralyzed with fear, her heart pounding in her chest and making it nearly impossible for her to draw in a deep breath. Dan was a doctor. She could ask him what to do, but in doing so, she’d have to reveal she was pregnant. But none of that mattered to her anymore. The most important thing was the baby.

  Her breath caught. What if this was all my fault?

  A sob tore through her. All this time, she’d been cursing the fact she was pregnant because it was keeping her from having something more with Dan. And now, when she was faced with the prospect of actually losing the baby, all she could do was wonder if her reckless abandonment in the bedroom had caused this. What if the quickie she’d had this morning triggered a miscarriage?

  The images of the disappointment on Jason’s and Mike’s faces flashed before her. They would be crushed if she lost the baby they wanted more than anything in the world. How could she tell them it was because she was being selfish?

  She picked up the phone and dialed her OB’s office again, this time staying on the line long enough to hear the option to page the doctor on call. She left a message with the call service and dashed to the bathroom to scrub the blood from her legs. By the time the doctor called back, her thighs were raw, but his calm instructions helped her regain her focus. They were going to do an ultrasound to check the baby. If by some small miracle she wasn’t miscarrying, then she promised she would put its safety before anything else.

  And if that meant ending things with Dan, then so be it.

  ***

  Techno music blasted through the OR, but Dan was too focused on the screen in front of him to pay much attention to the lyrics. The throbbing beat helped him zone out distractions during surgeries and focus on precisely guiding his equipment. He maneuvered the robotic arm holding a pair of tiny scissors between the two metal clamps he’d placed seconds before and cut the neck of the gallbladder. A moment later, he pulled the dark green pouch out through the port. “Come to papa, you bad boy.”

  His nurse placed it in a formalin jar to go to pathology, and he turned to the anesthesiologist. “What’s the time?”

  “Fifty-eight minutes.”

  Dan pumped his fist. “Oh, yeah! New record.”

  He panned the tiny camera around the abdominal cavity, checking for signs of bleeding and loose clamps. Everything looked stable and secure. “Time to close up shop.”

  One by one, he removed the instruments and deflated the patient’s belly before stitching the peritoneum closed. His brothers had always teased him about his addiction to PlayStation when they were kids, but now those video game skills were paying off. He was one of the few surgeons at the hospital who was trained to perform robotic surgery. To him, it was the ultimate game. The precision, the dexterity, the melding of skill and technology. The reason he’d decided to become a surgeon.

  He tied his last stitch and then swapped out the needle driver for a skin stapler. A minute later, the patient was ready to go. “How much time do I have before she wakes up?”

  “I’d say at least an hour before she’s coherent,” the anesthesiologist replied.

  “Sounds good. I’ll let her husband know we’re done, and then swing by radiology to check on my next case.”

  He grabbed the photos he’d taken of the stone-laden gallbladder to show to the patient and her husband, gave his brief talk to the family in the waiting room to let them know everything went well, and then headed downstairs to pay a visit to the radiologists. Aka, the Shadow Merchants. He’d been consulted on an internal medicine patient this morning due to worsening diverticulitis and had ordered a CT to confirm his suspicions that the guy had a perforated gut. If his estimates were correct, the patient should just be wrapping the study.

  The radiologist, Kai, was just beginning a dictation on an ultrasound when Dan stepped i
nto the dark office with multiple computer screens. He lingered in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt while his fellow doctor spoke into the microphone. If he’d learned one thing during his years of medical training, it was “Don’t piss off the Shadow Merchants.”

  “First trimester pelvic ultrasound for patient Hue Jenny Nguyen,” the radiologist said in a flat voice.

  Dan’s chest tightened, making it almost impossible to breathe. His head swam, and he grabbed the door frame to steady himself before he suffered a bout of vasovagal syncope and hit the floor.

  Not my Jenny.

  Kai continued with his dictation, completely oblivious to him. Dan strained to catch the details as he rattled them off. Single intrauterine pregnancy. Average heart rate of one hundred and fifty six beats per minute. Crown rump length of two point one two inches. Low-lying anterior placenta without evidence of previa or abruption. Estimated gestation age of twelve weeks and five days.

  He slumped against the doorway and struggled to catch his breath. Twelve weeks. He calculated backward and put the date of conception to the week of Comic-Con.

  FUCK!

  I knew I shouldn’t have given in to temptation and used that condom, but I thought she was on the pill.

  Cold sweat pricked his cheeks when he realized she’d never confirmed that one way or another. She’d just nodded when he told her to get some Plan B.

  But I pulled out in time.

  One glance at the ultrasound screen told him he hadn’t.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck…

  “Dan, are you okay?”

  Kai’s voice pulled him from the closing walls of panic. “Huh?”

  “You look pale. Is everything all right?”

  Dan glanced at the ultrasound screen one more time and saw the tiny little fetus frozen in time. A baby.

  His baby.

  I’m screwed.

  He swallowed hard and tried to pull himself together before the whole hospital learned he was about to become a father. He grabbed the empty desk chair and sat down. “Yeah, just a little low blood sugar,” he lied. “Haven’t had time to eat lunch yet.”

  “You should grab a bite when you get a chance.” Kai turned to the screen to his left and clicked on his patient’s name. “It looks like Mr. Ghatak’s CT is done.”

  Dan’s hands shook as he forced himself to focus on his patient’s findings. His job was to save lives, and the perforated colon found on the CT could kill his patient if he didn’t take care of it immediately. He’d deal with Jenny after he’d had time for the news to sink in.

  And maybe after he’d had a chance to run this by Adam. If there was ever a time for some big brotherly advice, it was now.

  ***

  Jenny wrapped the coarse woven blanket around her shoulders and waited for the ER doctor to return with her ultrasound report. She’d heard the baby’s heartbeat, which had eased some of her anxiety. The baby was still alive. The question was, would it stay alive?

  An hour after she’d returned from radiology, he pulled back the curtain and came into her room. “Good news. It doesn’t look like you’re miscarrying.”

  Relief flooded through her like rain after a long drought. “But the bleeding this morning?”

  “You said there was no cramping, so that made a miscarriage less likely.”

  “But you don’t know the cause?”

  “You mentioned that you’d had intercourse this morning, so that was probably the cause. If I were you, I’d hold off on the sex until your OB says it’s safe to resume it.”

  She nodded. It was my fault. My own selfish fault.

  She hugged her lower stomach, grateful that she hadn’t lost the baby.

  “Other than that, I’d say you’re good to get dressed and go. My nurse will be back in a few minutes with your discharge paperwork. Remember, no intercourse until cleared by your OB.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  She pulled out her phone and slowly typed out a text to Dan.

  It was fun while it lasted, but I think it’s time to end our arrangement.

  As great as the sex was, it wasn’t worth endangering the life inside her.

  And as the heavy sensation of mourning filled her, she realized it was better this way. She’d already teetered too close to falling for Dan. Better to make a clean break now than lose both her baby and her heart.

  Chapter Eight

  Dan dialed Jenny’s number and counted the rings before it went to voicemail.

  Two.

  She’d rejected his call yet again. He let out a curse and resisted the urge to throw his phone across his office. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the amber leaves on the trees outside his window, bathing the walls in a golden light, but his mood was too dark for him to enjoy it.

  Four days had passed since he’d discovered Jenny was pregnant. Four days since she’d sent him the cryptic text message ending their arrangement and shut him out completely. Four days since his world was turned upside down.

  It was nothing short of a miracle that he’d made it to Friday without losing his mind. As it was, he wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping, and could barely think about anything else but that little blob of life on the ultrasound screen.

  He paced behind his desk, his gut churning. Everything about this situation had him on edge. He was used to being in control, used to calling the shots, used to dictating when things were over. But now the power had shifted to the one woman who wanted nothing to do with him.

  Asking Adam for advice would mean exposing his mistake, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do at this point. He dialed his eldest brother’s number.

  Instead of going to voicemail, Adam answered on the second ring. “Hey, Dan.”

  The churning in his stomach ceased and dropped like a lead weight. “Got a moment?”

  “Sure. What’s going on?”

  Dan ran his finger along the collar of his neatly pressed button-down shirt. Even though his life was going to hell in a hand basket, at least his dry cleaners kept him from looking that way. “Promise not to say a word of this to Mom.”

  A heavy pause filled the line, followed by, “Tell me what happened.”

  In his mind, he was prepared to say he’d knocked a girl up, but when he opened his mouth, what came out instead was, “I’m going to be a father.”

  The air whooshed out of his lungs with his confession, followed by an inability to draw in the next breath. His mind whirled, the world around him teetering in a nauseating form of vertigo. He sank down in his chair before he crashed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and repeated, “I’m going to be a father.”

  Suddenly, it dawned on him that this was about more than losing Jenny. This was about the baby.

  His baby.

  Even if Jenny wanted to end things, that still didn’t change the fact that the child she carried was his. The possessive urge wiped away the doubt and anxiety and helped him make sense of the chaotic cloud that had surrounded him since Monday. More than anything else, he wanted this child, and he’d do anything to keep it.

  “I see,” Adam said at last. “And the mother?”

  “Is not speaking to me at the moment. Hence, why I called you.”

  “Why can’t my brothers ever come to me with simple problems?” Adam muttered. “Okay, start from the beginning.”

  “I met Jenny at Comic-Con in July. We had a little one-night fling, but right before she left, we had sex using the emergency condom Caleb slipped me before he deployed, and it broke.”

  “You’re a doctor, Dan. You should know better.”

  “The wrapper was still intact, and I thought I pulled out in time.”

  Some incomprehensible sounds came from his brother. Dan could picture Adam sitting with his elbows on his desk, raking his fingers up the hair along his temples the way their father had when they’d done something stupid as kids, and struggling to find something to say other than “You’re an idiot.”

  “How did she find you to deliver this
joyous news?”

  “She’s in Paul’s gaming group.”

  “I thought you swore off gamer chicks.”

  Dan stared out the window at the gorgeous October day, searching for a dark cloud and finding none. “I had until I met her.”

  “So you like her?”

  “Yes.” And until Monday, he could’ve sworn she felt the same way.

  “And how did you react when she gave you the news?”

  “Funny you should ask that.” He twirled around in his chair, his back to the window. “She hasn’t officially told me yet.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  Sweat prickled the back of his neck, and he rubbed it away before it dampened his collar. “Um, I sort of accidentally saw her ultrasound on Monday.”

  “And you’re sure it was hers?”

  “Pretty sure. I even matched the date of conception to Comic-Con.”

  More incomprehensible muttering. “And yet she’s not speaking to you? Why? Did you say something to her about never wanting kids?”

  “No. When I ran into her again up here, I even asked her out, but she turned me down. Said the timing was bad and that she couldn’t get involved with anyone. But I continued to work on her, and the next thing I knew, she called me up four weeks ago to set up a friends with benefits arrangement. I thought I was finally making some headway until she sent me a text on Monday telling me we needed to end things. Now she won’t return my calls or answer my texts, and I’m at a complete loss trying to figure out what to do next.”

  “Don’t you find it a little odd that the day she breaks off things with you was the day you found out she was pregnant? Maybe she’s not returning your calls for a reason.”

  The lead weight in his gut doubled in size, pushing the contents of his stomach into his throat. “What are you talking about, Adam?”

  “What if she just found out she was pregnant on Monday and is trying to keep you from finding out about it until she decides whether or not to continue the pregnancy?”

  His fingers turned to ice, and his breath shook. “Jenny wouldn’t have an abortion.”

  “You said it yourself—she turned you down because she couldn’t get involved with anyone. How do you think a baby is going to fit into her life?”