Our Fault (Culpable Book 3)

Say it, Noah, say it, say it, say it, say it.

I had been repeating that to myself ever since I’d seen him walk into Jenna’s living room. With everything that had happened, with my anger at the whole situation, I’d just assumed my attraction to him would have vanished. I didn’t know; I was going to be a mother now—didn’t that mean my priorities would change? I guessed not because when I saw him crossing the room toward me, my entire body started trembling, and it wasn’t just nerves.

He was nice to me. Too nice, given what I was used to, and that made it hard for me to speak. I was worried he’d notice something when he lifted me. I didn’t know, maybe that I was a few pounds heavier, like Lion had said. But either he hadn’t realized, or he’d decided to keep his mouth shut amid all that tension.

Despite everything, I gathered the courage to tell him we needed to talk. But it had all blown up in my face when the door to my room opened and Sophia appeared, just in time to interrupt one of the most important moments of our lives.

I didn’t know if it was the rage inside me, my anger at Nicholas for bringing her, or the despair I felt when I realized they were still together, still a couple, that he still belonged to her…but jealousy started eating at me. Never in my life had I felt my heart beat so fast in the presence of someone else. Every instinct told me to walk out of that room and never come back. My mood must have affected Mini-Me because I felt something quivering in my stomach, a slight movement, almost imperceptible, but enough to bring out my maternal instincts and push aside any sense of decorum.

“Get out of my room!” I screamed.

Their eyes opened wide, and I grabbed the first thing I could find, a pillow, and threw it at Sophia. It barely touched her, so I tried again, but by that time, Jenna had appeared. She looked at Sophia with surprise and then at me.

By now I had grabbed something else—a lamp, I think. “Get her out of here!” I shouted as I lifted it.

A hand grabbed my wrist. It was Nick. He was livid. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” he shouted.

I wanted to hurt him. That fucking idiot… Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he look into my eyes and see? With my other hand, I started hitting him until he finally immobilized me.

“Nicholas, let her go!” Jenna screeched, almost as hysterical as I was.

I tried to struggle, twisting, bumping against him, trying to get away. And just then, with that effort, I felt something damp between my legs.

I froze.

No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Panic took hold of me, an intense fear clutching at every cell in my body. I started crying, and Nicholas let me go and stood up, perplexed.

“Nicholas, get out of here,” Jenna ordered him in a tone I’d never heard her use with anyone.

I didn’t see him go, I didn’t hear what he said—I just wrapped my arms around myself beneath the blankets.

“I’m sorry I brought him here, Noah. I didn’t know…” Jenna apologized.

I shook my head, trying to calm down, trying to flush the adrenaline out of my body. I needed to relax for the baby, for my baby, my Mini-Me, who was stressed out because of me. I could tell.

Jenna stayed with me, smiling unenthusiastically and wiping away my tears.

“It’ll all be okay,” she said calmly. “I promise you, everything will turn out fine.”

I nodded, wanting to believe her.

“A second ago,” I whispered, “I felt something weird… I think the stress did something to the baby…”

Jenna opened her eyes wide, terrified, and I sat up warily. I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. Jenna waited several minutes for me to come out.

“False alarm,” I said in a trembling voice, relieved it was only a bit of discharge that might doctor said was normal.

She sighed and closed her eyes, and I felt peace again.

Being stuck in a room without much to do gives you lots of time to think. I’d need to go to the doctor soon. No matter what happened, I was going to have to make decisions and learn to deal with this on my own. And that meant, to start with, going to my apartment. I couldn’t just stay at Jenna’s place, driving my friends crazy.

What had happened the day before couldn’t happen again. The pressure of needing to tell Nicholas was sapping my strength, and there was no more delaying. I had to get it over with; he was Mini-Me’s father, and Mini-Me was going to be born in four months or so. That meant I’d have to start putting the baby’s needs before mine. I didn’t want to share this with him, I was furious at him, but there was just no choice.

I’d thought of trying the subtle approach, feeling him out, hoping he would react in a way I could remember and cherish forever, but seeing Sophia had put an end to any thought of tact or friendliness. So, the next day, in a bored and solitary moment, I made a decision, picking up my phone and looking for Nicholas Leister in my contacts. I’m pregnant, I wrote. Send. End of story.

If I said I regretted it as soon as I’d done it, would that sound cowardly?

I looked at the screen in silence, barely able to breathe.

After five minutes, the phone started ringing.

One time, two times, three.

I grabbed it between my thumb and forefinger, almost as if I didn’t want to touch it, and threw it to the foot of the bed.

Shit… Why was I so terrified all of a sudden?

“Jenna!” I shouted, nearly breathless.

She hurried up to see how I was.

“Can we go somewhere?” I asked, getting up and opening the dresser.

“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed. “Go back to bed!”

I grabbed some leggings and slid them on and threw on a sweatshirt. “I’m dying to go back to that ice cream shop from the other day.”

I put on my sneakers before Jenna could stop me and looked her in the eyes. “I’m having the worst craving ever, the biggest one since I found out about the baby. Just take me, please. I’ll stay in the car, I promise. I’ve just got to get out of here.”

She hesitated, but after a few minutes of my whining, she finally agreed. We got in her car, and once her building was out of sight, I could finally breathe easy.

I stroked my belly nervously, over and over.

Oh, Mini-Me…your dad’s going to kill me.

Jenna’s phone rang right as she got out to buy me an ice cream. I grabbed it with shaking hands and put it on silent, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

I’d dropped a bomb, and now I was running scared.

When Jenna brought me the ice cream, I barely got down a few bites before the craving passed and I wanted to puke. It wasn’t the baby; it was panic.

“I’m going to take you home,” she said.

“No!” I shouted. “Why don’t we go to the movies? That’s something I can do, right? I’ll be sitting down the whole time, I can rest…”

“If you want to see a movie, Noah, we’ll stream something at home. But you can’t be out and about. The answer’s no.”

“Jenna!” I shouted. “If I stay in that room anymore, I’m going to go crazy. Please just do me this favor!”

She snarled, “You’ve turned unbearable since you got pregnant. Has anyone told you that?”

“A couple of times, yeah, but come on, let’s go!”

When we got to the theater, the next movie still didn’t start for half an hour, so we waited in the car.

“I’m going to let Lion know we’ll be late. He must be wondering where we are.”

I grabbed the phone out of her hands before she could see the missed calls.

“What the hell is going on with you?” she shouted. “Give me my phone.”

Shit.

“I’ll do it, but promise not to get mad at me. I’m feeling really on edge right now, and I need you on my side.”

She seemed to suddenly understand. “What have you done?” she asked, trying to stay calm. “What are we running from, Noah?”

“We’re not running… We’re just…hiding,” I said, trying to convince her.

She snatched the phone and looked at the screen. “Fifteen missed calls from Nicholas!” she shrieked. “And ten from Lion! What the hell?”

I hid my head in my hands, and Jenna pulled them down to look at my face.

“Did you tell him?”

“Maybe…”

Instead of responding, she waited for me to explain myself.

“I might have sent a message.”

“Telling him you had to talk to him?”

I looked at her in silence for a few seconds. “Telling him I was pregnant.”

Her expression changed from angry to terrified. “Noah!” she shouted, unable to believe it. “Are you crazy? How could you?”

“It’s what he deserves. I didn’t want to tell him in person, Jenna. I was afraid of how he would react. Doing it over the phone meant giving myself some distance, some safety.”

“He must be climbing the walls! Did you say anything else? What exactly did the message say?”

“I’m pregnant,” I responded with a shrug. “That’s it. Don’t look at me like that—the way I found out wasn’t exactly nice either!”

Jenna ignored me. “Did you tell him it was his?”

I stopped to think for a moment. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious it’s his,” I said. But maybe it wasn’t.

“This is Nicholas we’re talking about!”

Dammit. Does he think Mini-Me is someone else’s?

I’d been surprised to find out I was so far along because I wasn’t showing. If Nicholas hadn’t realized I was pregnant when he saw me, he would think it was someone else’s!

“Give me your phone,” I said to Jenna.

She passed it to me right away. “Yeah, talk to him,” she said, taking a deep breath.

By the way, it’s yours, I wrote. Send.

“Done,” I said, leaning the seat back.

Jenna grabbed the phone and looked. “By the way, it’s yours?! What in the hell is wrong with you?”

“Don’t shout at me! It’s the only way I can deal with him right now without losing it!”

“We’re leaving,” she said, starting her car.

“No, Jenna! Don’t!” I begged. “Please, please give him time to let it soak in…for me to accept the situation. Please, God, stop!”

“You’re crazy,” she said. Her phone rang again. She saw it and picked up instantly.

“Jenna!” I shouted, but she ignored me.

“Yeah, she’s with me,” she said to whoever it was. “Tell him to calm down. No, Lion, you and I will talk about it, but I don’t want her freaking out any more than she is; it’s bad for the baby… Tell him!”

Shit, this was making me even more nervous.

“We’re going home. You’ve got five minutes to think this over.”

I looked outside. I felt like I was being taken to Guantanamo.

My whole body was throbbing when Jenna parked at her building. I was trembling. I had no idea what was about to happen. I didn’t know what he was going to say. And worst of all: I was afraid it would all go to hell and he’d stay with Sophia and I’d lose my baby and the person I loved.

I opened the door to get out, and as soon as I was standing on the pavement, I saw Nicholas emerge from the building with his eyes boring into me in a way that made me wish I could disappear then and there. Lion was with him. I got back in the car without even thinking and hit the lock button. I was being such a coward! I felt like an idiot when Jenna crossed her arms and shook her head, looking at me through the window.

Nicholas came up next to her and glared. He looked beside himself, though he was trying to remain calm. I saw worry in his eyes. He pointed at the lock.

“Open up,” he ordered.

I shook my head, looking at him like a deer in headlights.

He rested his hands on the roof of the car and leaned down, covering nearly my entire field of vision. “Can I at least get in?” he asked.

Jenna tossed him the key, and he came around to the driver’s side. I looked at her hatefully. She grinned, took Lion’s hand, and walked inside.

Nick opened the door, sat down, and started the car.

“Put on your seat belt,” he said, driving off.

Why wasn’t he blowing up at me? Talking? Saying something? This silence was killing me.

After a few minutes, he finally decided to speak.

“Only you would tell a person something like that in a text message.” He took a deep breath as if he were trying not to explode.

“Yeah… I guess I wanted to do something original.”

He turned to look at me. A vein was throbbing in his forehead. “You almost gave me a heart attack. I nearly crashed my car. What were you thinking?” He raised his voice a little.

Mini-Me started kicking, same as the night before. It was funny that it only ever did that when Nick was around… He had always given me a special tingling in my stomach, and now that had taken on a life of its own… I put a hand on my belly, and the human volcano next to me noticed. He stared at that part of my body for as long as he could before looking back at the road.

I didn’t answer him. I felt it was probably best to keep my mouth shut. Nicholas kept driving. I thought he was still taking it all in. And maybe having something to do with his hands was helping him relax as much as he could.

I soon realized we were headed to the beach. When we arrived, I felt a sudden inner peace, the first inklings of relaxation. Nick seemed to feel the same thing. After contemplating the waves, he took a deep breath and turned to me.

“Am I really going to be a father?” I saw fear in his blue eyes.

I shook from head to toe. My God, that Adonis was the father of my child! “If everything happens the way it’s supposed to…then we’ll both be parents,” I responded nervously.

“I still can’t believe it… How is it possible?” He was still looking straight at me.

“Don’t go there, Nick.” I still hadn’t forgiven him for this.

“Can I?” he asked. He reached out toward my belly but then stopped, waiting for a response.

I grabbed his hand and brought it toward my belly. It was incredible… In spite of all the bad things, all the things I still needed to let out, I knew I’d remember it forever. Nick pulled up my shirt and placed his hand on my bare skin. My whole body burned from his touch.

“How far along…?” he asked, rubbing me, stupefied before my warm skin. Have I mentioned how hot it made me, having his hands on my belly button?

“Five months,” I said, then sighed. His hand was creeping a little low. I stopped him before I had a heart attack. I pulled my shirt down quickly.

“Enough touching,” I said nervously.

Nick’s gaze was at once intense and amused. “Have you felt it moving?”

“Sort of… I mean, not kicking, really—it’s just this weird feeling kind of like…like popcorn popping inside me. I don’t know if that’s the right way to describe it.”

He laughed, but I couldn’t join in. The aftershocks of the tension in the car came back to haunt me.

“When did you find out?”

I realized it was time to be sincere. “Three weeks ago. A little more.”

“Three weeks is a long time… Enough time to call and tell me, don’t you think?” He was angry now and looked away.

“I was mad at you. To be honest, I still am.”

“Mad? Why?”

“This is your fault,” I said, pointing to my stomach. I remembered then the way he’d made love to me without protection…the idiot!

Nicholas laughed, incredulous. “I think it would be more correct to say it was our fault, Freckles.”

“Don’t split hairs.”

He chuckled.

Before our eyes, the sun was setting as beautifully as I’d ever seen. I guessed it was a gift nature wanted to give me, laying the most beautiful colors over an image still too gray to look at for too long.

We both knew now what was going to happen. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that last conversation I’d had with Nicholas before he moved to New York.

“I’m tired,” I said. “You should take me home.” I felt sad.

He wrapped an arm around me, tickling the nape of my neck softly before turning me to look at him. “Come with me,” he said, catching me with my guard down. “Get your things and move into my apartment.”

“No, Nicholas. I’m at Jenna’s already, and in four days—”

“This isn’t up for discussion,” he interrupted me. He started the car.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m taking you with me.”

Jesus. Here we go again!

“I don’t want to go.”

“You have my child inside you, and I’m going to make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“I have my child inside me, and I’m already making sure nothing goes wrong, but thanks for your interest,” I replied, indignant.

“Aren’t you supposed to rest?” he asked, looking back and forth between me and the road.

“Yeah, but…”

“Until the doctor tells you otherwise, you’re staying with me. End of subject.”

I was about to reply, but I realized I didn’t have a leg to stand on or to kick him with, which was what I felt like doing just then. So I crossed my arms and stared out the window.

He’d only found out about Mini-Me a few hours before, and he already thought he was the child’s owner and master.

Yep, Mini-Me, that’s how big of an idiot your father is.