Doctor Boss Is My Baby Daddy novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Box

Rhys was beside me in two strides.

"You're not allowed to be here, Lenore."

"I know, darling." She didn't look at him. "I'm breaking a rule. I'm a bad girl. Report me in the morning."

She stepped past me into Jody's apartment.

Jody opened her mouth.

Lenore set the shoebox on the coffee table, among the plates and the burned pasta.

"I'll only take a minute. I think Valeria deserves to know what she's signing up for."

"Get out," Rhys said.

"Open it," said Lenore, to me.

I should have said no.

But some part of me needed to see it.

I pulled the ribbon.

Inside, on a square of white tissue, lay a plastic hospital bracelet.

WELLINGTON, LENORE. Emergency Department. A date, two years back.

Under it, folded in quarters, a printed ultrasound.

A grainy grey shape, a tiny curved line, and below it a jagged strip of paper where a heartbeat had been traced.

On top of it all sat a pair of baby socks, white wool, smaller than my thumb.

I knew Jody had stopped breathing.

"I bought those the week I found out," Lenore said, in a voice that trembled just enough. "I was going to give them to him at dinner."

"Lenore," said Rhys.

Her eyes filled, exactly on time.

"And when it was over, he didn't come back for three days."

"That's not what happened."

"Isn't it?" She turned to him, wide-eyed. "You stood in the doorway. You said you needed air. You left me to bury our baby by myself."

His face had gone the color of the bracelet.

"I was in shock," he said. "I came back."

"Three days later."

"You told me not to come."

"And you listened." Her voice broke beautifully. "That's what you do, Rhys. You go quiet and you leave the room. And I only want her to understand that when it gets hard, you'll do it again."

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