Page 32 of Accidental Doctor Daddy

Her perfect lips twitched at that. “No. I liked it.”

“Then what was it?”

She took a breath to speak, but then stopped herself. A line formed down her brow as she thought about what to say.

Which meant she was conjuring a lie. To spare my feelings? To obfuscate some other detail I hadn’t thought of? I wasn’t sure. But I wanted answers. “The truth doesn’t usually require so much forethought.”

“I didn’t know what to say to you, Dom,” she murmured. “I’ve never—” She exhaled, shaking her head. “It scared me.”

“What we did?”

“The connection. Between us. I’m not…I’ve never felt that before.”

“You’re not the only one.”

She let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “What are we doing?”

“Talking,” I said simply. “Catching up.”

She looked at me, her expression softer now. Sadder for some reason. “It was a long time ago, Dom.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

Silence settled between us like an invisible wall I wanted to tear down with my bare hands. I saw it in her eyes—the conflict,the same push-and-pull I was feeling. I wondered if the spark still burned in her the way it did in me.

But now was not the time or place. I had to tread lightly here, given her medical condition. This was a fragile, unnamed thing. I’d already been inappropriate—who flirts with a woman who just gave birth to someone else’s kids?

Evidently, I did.

I had to be better than that, or she’d think the worst of me. “Your family? Anyone around to help?”

She exhaled, shaking her head. “No. I’ve always been on my own.” A small, sad smile ghosted over her lips. “Except for my sister. But we hardly have a relationship. So, I guess…now I have a family.”

Her hands settled over her stomach, over the space where her babies had once been, and something inside me clenched. She had done this alone. Was stilldoingthis alone. And yet, the way she said it…now I have a family…

She looked at peace with it.

Before I could say anything else, the door opened, and a NICU nurse stepped inside, wheeling a chair. “Miss Green?”

Ella’s face lit up, and my breath caught in my chest. “Yes?”

“We can take you to see them now.”

She gave me a quick glance, her expression unreadable.

I stepped back, clearing space for the wheelchair. I didn’t want to leave, but I had to. A debate raged in my head about going with her, but that would have raised too many flags throughout the hospital. It was bad enough that I was in here when the nurse entered.

As Ella was carefully helped into the wheelchair, I watched her, my fingers flexing at my sides. I wanted to help her into the chair. I wanted to be the one to push her to the NICU.

I wanted her.

This wasn’t the end.

It couldn’t be.

I had let her slip away once before. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Chapter 11

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