She stands, but I place my hand out to stop her. “It’s okay. I’ll handle it.”
There’s a dry lump in my throat and a weight on my chest as I stride toward his room. The door is half-open, but his curtain is pulled far enough that he can’t see to the doorway.
Two voices. His and hers. Slightly louder than a whisper.
I crane my neck and prepare for shameless eavesdropping.
The sound of Afton softly sobbing catches my ear, and I have to look. Peeking in, I see her sitting on the edge of his bed, where I once sat, holding his hands in hers. She’s dressed down, leggings and a puffy parka with a fur-trimmed hood. Her shiny blonde locks are swept into a neat bun on the crown of her head.
She’s definitely not on the job.
“I was so worried, baby.” She lifts his hands to her cheek, pressing them against her face. “I thought we were going to lose you.”
Um, we?
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to give you a scare.”
“To think the baby might grow up without ever knowing you.” Her shoulders heave as she sobs, and she dabs the corners of her eyes with a tissue she steals off his bedside table. “It was so hard to stay away, knowing I couldn’t see you, hearing everything secondhand. It killed me.”
“I know, I know,” he comforts her with the soft, cashmere voice of a loving partner. In four years together, he’s never spoken to me like that, not even when Grandma Rosewood died and I was inconsolable for weeks. “Everything’s going to work out, okay? Just be patient.”
“She’s wearing her ring.” Afton speaks with a sick cough in her tone, like it disgusts her. “I saw it when I interviewed her. Does she think you’re still getting married?”
My blood boils before turning into ice water. I’m two seconds from storming in, guns drawn, and calling them out.
But I’m frozen. My feet won’t move. I’m paralyzed as the truth settles into my core. I wanted validation, but I didn’t know it would feel like this.
“For now, the wedding’s back on,” Brooks says.
Like hell it is.
“I have a few matters I need to tend to. Some loose strings,” he says.
“You’ve been dragging your feet for the last six months,” she whines. “This baby’s coming in twenty-five weeks. The clock is ticking.”
I do the math, as if it matters. For someone fifteen weeks along, she doesn’t even look a tiny bit pregnant.
Skinny bitch.
And I bet Brooks loves the fact that she’s the cutest pregnant woman ever to grace the face of the earth.
Asshole.
“Baby, I know. I want to be there with you, rubbing your feet and taking care of you,” he coos. “Treating you like the queen you are.”
I think I’m going to be sick. Bile threatens to rise, but mind over matter keeps it at bay for the foreseeable future.
“There’s one more thing I need to do, and then I’m all yours,” Brooks says. “Our finances were . . . intermingled. Just need to make sure everything’s . . . separated.”
“You didn’t take care of that before you left?” There’s a pout in her tone.
“I was getting ready to,” he says. “Just need to make some phone calls and move some money around.”
The credit cards. He remembers.
I hope to God he’s planning to pay them off and not extract every last dollar he can with cash advances. He should know better than to fuck with the daughter of one of the most sought-after prosecuting attorneys in the state of New York.
“Are you two through?” My voice startles me just as much as it startles them, but I can’t stand here in tortured silence a minute longer.
Afton sucks in a hurried breath, spinning to face me, her hand clutching the diamond necklace hanging from her neck. It’s in the shape of an anchor, nearly identical to the one he gave me for my birthday last year. A limited edition from Tiffany’s, only available that year.
While I was turning twenty-four, Brooks was fucking Afton. Nice.
“Demi.” Brooks clears his throat, releasing his hand from her lap.
Afton slides off his bed and stands.
Both of their faces are as pale as the moon shining outside his hospital window.
Lifting the credit card statements, I shake them and smile. “A hundred and seventy thousand dollars, Brooks. Really? And I thought you were some financial planning guru. You sure as hell had better have these paid off by the time you leave this hospital, or you’ll be hearing from Robert Rosewood. You can be damn sure I’ll be pressing charges.”
Afton turns to Brooks, her brows contorted. She’s either confused, or she’s refusing to accept this revelation as truth.