Hers

CHAPTER 13

Two years, two damn years since I have had to call out of work. I got lucky, scoring a late morning appointment with my OB/GYN. If she wanted me there for nine in the morning, I may have been tattooing the waiting room with whatever I had left in my stomach. All night, and first thing this morning, Levi held my hair back, rubbed my back, and became my own personal waitress, pacing back and forth from the kitchen to the master bedroom with anything I thought I wanted.

Bottles of water, ginger ale, crackers, wet washclothes. I think I even started to beg for shots of whiskey at once point before he talked me down. Once eleven rolled around, and he had been off at the office for roughly two hours, I had Clyde drive me across town for my appointment. There was already enough speculation flying around the office; we didn’t want to add more.

It’s been about six months since I’ve been here, checking in for my annual exam, one of the fucking best parts of being a woman. I didn’t think I’d be here until next June sometime.

“Seven James, eleven-twenty appointment.” The girl behind the desk scans her computer screen, grabs a clipboard, and hands me the pile of paperwork. “We are going to need a urine sample as well,” she says and places a small sterile cup on top of the clipboard. Wonder how much of the pee I will actually get inside the cup instead of on my hand? Story of my life.

My stomach spins and I take a deep breath, trying to breathe through the wave of nausea. Man, this blows. I take a seat in the black plastic waiting room chair, and dive into the stack of papers. Question after question about my periods, family health history, birth defects, and more shit I have no idea of. Nor will I be calling my parents to ask. I could imagine how that would go over. Hi, Mom? Yeah, I am knocked up by some guy I just met and I need to know if anyone in our family has had any sort of a birth defect? Um. No.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I start digging through the death trap I call a purse and locate it among my eyeliner and the brush I carry around. Star’s bright face lights up the screen, and I quietly answer it, despite the huge no cell phone sign sitting across the waiting room.

“Hey, I can’t talk. Can I call you back in an hour?”

She quickly agrees, although I can tell she is bursting at the seams with some kind of news. I can only hope it is actually good news for once. After all the dead ends in her search for Willow, I wish I could help more.

“Seven James?” A woman in pink scrubs appears in the doorway, smiling, with a manila folder in her hands. But it’s is the blonde holding onto a small crying baby that catches my attention.

“Seven?” Samantha turns in my direction. Samantha Alexander, Daniel’s poor wife. “Oh my goodness! How are you?” Her tone is fake, as the little bundle of blue on her shoulder cries. She bounces her step, and pats him on his back. “Shhhhh, Danny, it’s okay, baby,” she coos to him.

“It was nice seeing you, Samantha,” I say and run in the direction of the bathroom as my sad attempt at a cracker-based breakfast makes its way back up my throat. Might as well pee in the cup while I’m at it.

“Sample,” I say holding the cup out to the poor nurse. “Sorry about that. I can’t stop throwing up for the life of me.”

As the words leave my mouth, I see another woman in scrubs escorting Samantha through the door to the exam rooms. Her curious gaze falls on me, and surely she has heard exactly what I just said. It won’t be long until the entire world knows I was throwing up in the OB/GYN’s office, because that is just the kind of person she is. Hell, I would be absolutely shocked if she hasn’t texted Daniel my exact location already. Fuck!

“Right this way.” The room is cold, and sterile. But this time of year, everything is fucking freezing in New York City. “I am going to need you to strip from the waist down and wait for the doctor.” She turns and walks out of the room, allowing me privacy to strip. Jeez, they could have at least bought me dinner first.

I sit on the table, thumbing over Candy Crush and trying to pass the time until the doctor finally makes her appearance in the ice box of an exam room. My phone indicates a text message, and I open it up. Of course, it is from Levi.

Of course it went bad; those asshats can’t do anything right without me breathing down their necks. I am sure that the fact that I took a single day off sent half the office into a tailspin.

The door slowly opens. “Miss James?” the doctor says, questioning if I am decent.

“Come on in.”

The next half hour goes by in a blur of medical questions, and ends with me begging for some kind of medication to calm my stomach, allowing me to get through a full day of work without announcing to the entire corporate sector that I am with child. I score a prescription for some high priced fancy nausea medication called Zofran, which is supposed to be heaven sent for those women barely surviving their first trimester, like myself.

But it isn’t until the doctor pulls a little machine over and asks me to lay back and spread ’em that I start to worry. Especially when the machine comes attached with a wand that looks like the vibrator I keep in my toy closet.

“And that is for?” I question, and he lets out an uncomfortable laugh.

“I am going to do an ultrasound. Oh, and I have to order a round of blood work. But you don’t have to have that done today. Just make sure you have that prescription filled; the sooner you start taking it, the sooner you will be able to function better.

"This may be a little uncomfortable for a minute.”

He slides the wand inside my very unfriendly vagina, and starts clicking away on the screen. “Looks like you are about five weeks. That little flicker there is the heartbeat. It is too soon to hear it, but it looks pretty strong for five weeks. These dates are only estimates though.”

A little printer spits out a small black and white photo that looks something like a blob. There are no arms or legs. No viable head or extremities. It doesn’t look like much of anything, but knowing it is alive, inside of me, makes me almost sick that my initial thought was abortion. Not even twenty four hours after finding out, I am in full on protective mama bear mode.

“Come back in about two weeks, and we will try to get a listen to the heartbeat.” He smiles, and hands me the prescription, and the photo. “Don’t forget to get the blood work done.” Like that, he is gone.

I hold onto the prescription, and run my thumb over the printed photo. A smile pulls at my lips, just in time for me to dry heave into the garbage can next to the exam table.

The phone rings and rings until a breathless Star finally picks up. “Star? Is everything all right?”

She pauses on the other end of the line, before speaking. “Yes! Seven! I found her! I think, I think I found her!” She doesn’t give very many details, but she goes on about a farmer on the edge of town in Woodstock, something about a brother’s cousin or nephew who had a little girl around Willow’s age. A long story about her parents being killed in a car accident when she was young. Living with family. She gushes about it before stopping to ask me how things in the city are going.

“Well, Star. Are you sitting down?” I have to laugh, because I never thought I would be the one dishing this kind of news to her. In fact, I couldn’t say I was completely surprised when she told me she had a child, because I always pegged her as getting knocked up first. Technically, I guess she did accomplish that before I did.

“Are you okay, Seven?”

“Depends on what you consider okay? I will live, but this baby growing inside me isn’t letting me keep a single fucking thing down. I have been puking my guts out for days.”

I hear an audible gasp on the other end of the line. She is silent for a minute before she starts giggling like a little girl. “Please say it is Levi’s!”

“Of course it is Levi’s! But I am not telling anyone, especially my fucking family. So keep your loud mouth shut!” The town car pulls up to my building. “I gotta run, Star, but when you come home, we will catch up. I hope you find her. Soon.”

Like that, Star is gone and I am on my way up to the penthouse, in serious need of some ginger ale and a fucking nap. But only after I text Levi and let him know everything is okay, and I need for him to pick up my prescription on his way to the penthouse later.

I throw down all the stuff in my arms on the little coffee table next to the couch. Ultrasound picture, cell phone, keys, and purse. My phone vibrates, and Levi has replied.

I can’t help but smile at how fortunate I am. He really is amazing.

Sipping on my bubbly soda, which for once seems to be helping my stomach, I lie down on the couch and close my eyes. What seems like a few minutes must have been hours, and I’m woken by the elevator opening into the foyer of my penthouse.

“Levi, baby. Finally,” I groan, not making a move to get off the couch.

I hear footsteps, but he doesn’t speak. I slowly roll over, blinking my eyes open, but Levi isn’t the one standing in my living room. Daniel is, and now I am not only wide awake, but I am pretty fucking pissed that he is standing in my house.

“Hoping to see someone else?” he asks with a smirk on his face.

“Well, I can’t stay I invited you here. I am out of the office for a reason today,” I sass him back with attitude. He is the last person I feel like dealing with.

“Oh, I know. Samantha called me as soon as she saw you. Seven James, finally knocked up after all these years. I must admit, I thought it would have happened long ago.”

I flip him the bird, and sit up on the couch. I am exhausted. My whole body feels like it is still sleeping, and I can barely move.

“It’s none of your fucking business, Daniel. I suggest you leave, before I fucking call the cops.”

His expression darkens, and this is the first time in my entire life that I have actually been scared of a man. Never would I have imagined Daniel causing this kind of a feeling.

“First you storm into my fucking office, and steal my company from under my nose.” He steps closer to the couch and pauses again. “Then that fucking little bitch Parker was married to fucked up the money coming into my pocket when some PI found the traces of our affair.” His hands run through his barely there hair, and he fucking growls. Like a fucking dog. Growls.

I try and stand up, but he pushes me back down with so much force that my head hits the back of the couch. My stomach churns and I can feel the bile rising up my throat. It isn’t going to be long before I start throwing up the soda I thought was safe in my stomach.

I reach for my phone and he forcefully grabs my wrist. Tight. And it fucking hurts. Like really fucking hurts. I can see a bruise appearing under his grip as he continues to tighten his grip, and I can’t make it to my fucking cell phone.

“Is this your little bastard? Is it Parker’s? You know that baby his wife shit out? That was mine, too. Too bad this one isn’t mine. If I had gotten to you sooner, it could have been. You would have liked to have my baby, right, Seven?”

He releases my wrist and throws it into my lap. I try to stand again, and he shoves me with the palm of his hand. The wind is knocked out of me and I gasp for air. My head hits the pillow on the couch as I clench my chest. From the corner of my eye, I see him pulling at his belt. Next comes his button and finally, his zipper.

I’m frozen against the couch, trying to catch my breath. I try and move again, and I feel his hand grip my throat. Fuck. I am going to die like this. At the hands of Daniel, in my own living room. I can’t hold back the vomit any longer. I turn my head to the side and throw up all over the floor. He lets go of my throat, and I can feel his hands tugging on my pants.

“Seven, you will never belong to anyone else. This pussy, no matter how slutty you are now, will always belong to me. Do you understand me? ME! It was mine first. Say it, Seven, say I had you first. Tell me how it felt when I took your virginity.”

My pants come loose just as the elevator doors open. I can tell the sound anywhere, but Daniel is too preoccupied with taking what he thinks is his. Tears roll down my cheeks until I can see Levi in my line of vision.

“What the FUCK is going on here?”

Daniel turns toward Levi, cool as a fucking cucumber and tries to play it off. “Sorry you have to find out like this, Parker, but she has been mine for years.” He lets out a laugh. What he doesn’t count on is the fact that I have enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to finally get up off the couch. I pick up my purse and swing it through the air like it’s filled with bricks. One solid hit and Daniel loses his footing, stumbling forward toward Levi. That is when Levi’s fist connects with Daniel’s face, and he falls, out-cold onto the floor.

I am in full blown hysterics by now, crying my eyes out. I can’t even think about what almost just happened. Daniel almost raped me. Daniel almost hurt me. But Levi saved me.

If there was any ounce of doubt left, it’s gone. This man loves me. He would do anything for me. He saved me.

Levi wraps his arms around me, trying to calm me down as he calls the police. Twenty or so minutes later, my foyer is full of NYPD officers whom I have no desire to speak with.