Cage had asked her what she meant, but Abby had waved it off. Made it sound like she meant to say something about ‘with Bree’. But Cage knew that hadn’t been right.
He’d told Angel she’d been keeping something from him.
Angel had been throwing up in the bathroom. Or dry heaving, but close enough.
She’d claimed she was on her period the week before last, but what if that had been a lie?
He wasn’t sure what his brain was trying to tell him. The clues didn’t make sense in his head. But there was something there. Like it was blocked behind a curtain.
“Cage?” the sound of his name brought him back to the present. Abby was still on the phone with him.
“Got to go,” he said softly. His voice was gruff with tension. He turned off the call and put his phone in his pocket.
More calmly, he walked up to where Steel and Lucky were blocking the door. Bulldog was now stepping away with his phone to his ear. “I think she’s pregnant.”
Both Steel and Lucky looked at him in shock. “Who?” Lucky asked.
“Angel.” Cage felt like he had a ball stuck in his throat. His heart physically hurt. “I think she’s pregnant.”
So then…who was the father?
Angel was sitting on the floor in the bathroom with her legs crossed in front of her. Tessa was sitting beside her on the wall. Harper was sitting cattycorner against the other wall by the sinks and Jenna was sitting on the closest toilet seat because she claimed to be too old to sit on the floor.
Tessa had just finished telling the other two ladies about Angel’s chemical pregnancy and the night she’d taken Angel to the hospital.
Harper wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Angel. I had no idea you’d gone through that and then your attack at the tattoo shop…” Her voice trailed off. “You truly are the strongest person I know.”
Angel didn’t feel strong. She felt numb. “I slept with Cage.” She wasn’t even sure why she confessed that. “It was two days before the hospital had discovered he was a potential match for Bree. We had sex in her hospital room’s bathroom.”
Even Angel could hear the dullness, the emptiness, in her own voice. Tessa had placed a cold pack on the back of her neck earlier, but she was having trouble feeling even that.
“You two have been dating this whole time?” Harper gasped. “I thought it was new between the two of you.”
Angel shook her head. “It is new. He wanted to, back then, but I’d said no. I called him a womanizer, I think. Told him he didn’t know how to be monogamous…” God, she’d been such a bitch to him.
“Wait, so the two of you had sex and then you pushed him away only to discover he was Bree’s match so you couldn’t get away from him?” Tessa inquired.
Angel nodded. “Yeah. Don’t get me started on how torn I was about that. It felt like the universe was playing this big joke on me when Cage’s name was pulled.”
The three women around her all paused and then burst out laughing. The sound seemed to thaw Angel. A giggle burst from her too.
But slowly that giggle turned into a sob and then Angel felt the sorrow fall over her. She brought her knees up to her chest and let her head fall forward as pain gripped her. The universe wasn’t done playing jokes on her it would seem.
She felt multiple sets of hands on her trying to offer her comfort. She was a snotty, blubbering mess when she finally was able to catch her breath and lift her head. “He’s the father,” she confessed. “He’s the father of my baby.”
Her deceased baby. She’d lost Cage’s baby…
Someone offered her a handful of paper towels. Angel took them and tried to wipe her face, but the tears just kept on coming.
“I don’t understand,” one of the women said softly. “You had sex with him a year ago. How could he be the father of your baby?”
Angel shook her head. She felt so stupid. If she hadn’t been so drunk, would she have noticed that Cage had been drugged? Had they even attempted to use protection?
Worse, what did he remember? If he’d been roofied, there was a chance he didn’t remember anything. But wouldn’t he question a night he couldn’t remember?
She turned to Tessa. “What do you know about roofies?”
Tessa’s mouth gaped open. “You think Cage roofied you?”