The Doctor's Secret Bride(114)
“I called her a ghetto rat, and told her she couldn’t offer the child anything. That she should let you and me raise it.” Bridget sighed with shame over her behavior. “She called the house the following night, but when she heard my voice, she hung up.”
“How do you know it was her?”
“Her girlfriend, um... Yasmine’s number showed up on Caller I.D.”
“God!” Erik clutched at his face as though he were in excruciating pain. It must have happened on that horrible night. Michelle... His child... He’d turned his back on them. God, how Bridget’s nasty words must have driven the cruel nails deeper into her coffin of despair.
He pushed away from the side of the building. “I have to find her.” He sprinted across the parking lot toward his Mercedes.
“How am I to get home, Erik?” Bridget asked in a panic.
“Whistle for a cab, Bridget.”
“I’ll give you a ride, Doll,” Erik heard a man’s voice say behind him. He didn’t care who it was. He didn’t look back. His future was ahead of him.
***
Within minutes, Erik was banging on Yasmine’s door. He pushed past her when she opened it.
“Michelle! Michelle!” He raced through the apartment, flinging doors open and searching inside the rooms.
“Where is she?” He finally came back to the living room where Yasmine waited patiently with folded arms at the open door, right where he’d left her.
“If you’d asked me that before you barged in here like Shaka Zulu on the war path, I could have saved you the trouble.”
“I don’t have time for your smart mouth, Yasmine. Where’s Michelle?”
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“She isn’t here,” Yasmine said with a stiff face, jutting her chin at him.
“I can see that. Look, I know she’s pregnant. That’s my child she’s carrying.”
Yasmine raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really now? And how do you know that, Dr.?”
“Are you going to tell me, or must I choke it out of you? And I will, Yasmine. Where… is… Michelle?” He spaced the last three words out evenly through clenched teeth as he leaned in toward her, a menacing look etched on his face.
Yasmine backed away, her hands raised to ward him off. “Calm down, Erik. There’s no need to resort to violence.” She rattled off Michelle’s address and gave him quick directions.
The minute the door closed, Yasmine jumped on the phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Michelle jumped at the chime of the doorbell. “He’s here,” she said to Yasmine.
“That was fast,” Yasmine said. “You can just ignore him, you know.”
“You don’t know Erik.”
“Michelle, open the door!” Erik’s voice bellowed from outside.
“I heard that,” Yasmine said. “You want me to stay on the line, just in case?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll call you later. Bye.” Michelle hung up the phone and stared at the door.
“Michelle, I know you’re home.”
Michelle bit into her bottom lip as it throbbed like her pulse. She didn’t know if he’d come for his child or for her. All Yasmine had told her was that he knew she was pregnant, and that he was furious. Ice spread through her belly. “Go away, Erik.”
“Not until we talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“If you don’t open this door, I will break it down. I swear.”
Michelle wobbled across the room and yanked the door open. Her black eyes met his grey, gold-flecked ones with a blaze of fury. “What do you want?”
Erik’s eyes bulged when he saw her big fat stomach. “Oh, my God,” he whispered as he stumbled into the condo and closed the door behind him. “You’re on the brink of giving birth.”
Michelle forced herself to hold his stare. It pained her to look at him, knowing he was now with someone else. He was dressed in a grey linen summer suit, pink shirt and striped pink and grey tie. He stood tall and proud—broad shoulders, straight back, with skin like suede, eyes like a tiger, and soft sexy lips she longed to kiss again.
“I see Dr. Ashley couldn’t keep her big mouth shut,” she said tersely as she watched him take a swift assessing glance around the room. She saw his nostrils flare and his lips tighten when his eyes landed on the photo of her and Ryan on the wall.
“You’re wasting your time, Dr.,” she said. “It’s not yours.”
His jaw muscles flinched and his eyes flashed flames of anger. He took a fuming step toward her. “Then whose is it? Who’s that man with his hand on you stomach? Is that Ryan? I know you were staying with him in South Carolina. Is it his?”