Pregnant for His Lover's Cure, I Sent Him a Jar and Divorce Papers novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Terms

In Declan's car she demands proof and gets it: the induction order and the consent she signed. She sets terms. Bianca's text says Dad signed too.

I got into the car because I had nowhere else to go.

Declan pulled onto the Pacific Coast Highway and didn't speak until the lights of Malibu were behind us.

Then he handed me his phone.

"Read it yourself. Don't take my word."

The screen showed a scheduling form from the Pacific Cord Registry.

Patient: Camille Ellery.

Procedure: induction of labor, week 34.

Date: four weeks from tonight.

Ordering party and consent holder: Gavin Ellery.

I read it twice.

"I'm the patient," I said. "Why is his name on the consent?"

"Because you signed a page that said so."

He took the phone back and swiped to a photo of a form.

At the bottom, in blue ink, was my signature.

I remembered the pen.

I remembered Gavin standing behind my chair at the clinic, one hand on my shoulder, saying, "Just where it's flagged, love."

The page was headed Directed Donation of Umbilical Cord Blood.

The recipient line said B. Sutherland.

My hands were cold.

"How did you get this?"

"My father started the foundation that funds that clinic. I still sit on its board, on paper. The scheduler copied me by mistake because the file says Ellery."

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Nobody has ever read what lands in my inbox from that building. I read it this afternoon."

"And you drove straight to Malibu."

"I drove to the gate and waited. I wasn't going to walk into that party and make it about me."

I looked at his hands on the wheel.

They were steady, and they were the hands of a man who cut people open for a living.

"Why do you care what happens to me?"

He took a moment before he answered.

"Because it's your body, and he's treating it like a delivery date."

It was a good answer.

It was also not the whole one, and I could hear that he knew it.

I let it go, because I was too tired to push.

"Where are we going?"

"Ojai. I have a house. There's a spare room with a lock on the inside."

"I don't know you."

"No," he said. "So here are the terms. You stay until the hearing, because Gavin's lawyers will find you anywhere else. After the hearing you decide. I won't ask you for anything, and I won't tell you what to do."

I turned that over.

"And if I decide to leave tomorrow?"

"Then I drive you wherever you want and I don't follow."

My phone buzzed in my lap.

GAVIN, nine missed calls.

I watched the name light up and go dark.

It lit up again, and this time it said BIANCA.

I held it up so Declan could see, and he nodded once.

I put the call on speaker and pressed record.

"Cam?"

Her voice was thick, as if she had been crying for an hour.

"Cam, please, please come home. You don't understand how bad it is. The doctors gave me weeks."

"Weeks," I said.

"I'm so scared. I wouldn't ask if there were any other way."

"What's your white count today, Bianca?"

She made a small sound.

"What?"

"Your white count. You've told me every week for two years. What was it this morning?"

The line was quiet for a few seconds.

"I don't look at the numbers, Cam. Gavin does that for me, it upsets me too much."

"Ask him, then," I said. "Ask him and tell me."

"You're confused. You're upset, and you're pregnant, and Gavin says the hormones are making you see things."

"Goodnight, Bianca."

I hung up.

Declan looked at me for the first time since Malibu.

"She never looked at the numbers," I said. "She used to recite them at Thanksgiving."

He didn't answer, and he didn't tell me I was imagining it.

I put my head back against the seat and felt the baby roll over under my ribs.

My phone buzzed again.

A text, from Bianca.

Dad says come home tonight, Cam. He signed as a witness too.

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