“No, he did not tell us.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Jameson spoke in a loud voice. “This doesn't sound good.”
“Oh, well, I am very sorry, but your friend here experienced a miscarriage as a result of the accident.”
Sanders stared at Tate. She was looking back up at him, completely calm. Completely oblivious.
She didn't know. Oh god, she didn't know. They didn't know.
“Sanders,” Jameson growled. “What the fuck is he saying to you?”
Sanders refused to look at him. He stared at Tate for a second longer, then went back to the doctor.
“You are absolutely sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“One hundred percent?”
“Yes. They ran multiple tests.”
“She did not look pregnant – how far along could she have been?”
More notes were read.
“It says here ... six or seven weeks. Possibly eight. The trauma of the accident caused her body to miscarry, but she should have no trouble getting pregnant again.”
He wasn't sure when he'd moved, but his stare was back on Tate. Her smile was starting to falter. He was making her nervous.
“Sanders,” she spoke in her normal, light, teasing voice. “Wanna end the suspense and tell us what he's saying to you? Am I gonna live through the day?”
He cleared his throat and looked away from her. How could he say something like this? He finally looked up at Jameson. At the man who was the closest thing to a father he'd ever had.
“He said,” he tried to start, then had to clear his throat again. “He said you were pregnant.”
Tate's jaw dropped and Jameson's eyes nearly fell out of his head.
“What?” she gasped.
“That's not possible,” Jameson said. “Tate's on birth control.”
Sanders repeated this to the doctor, who shrugged.
“No birth control is one hundred percent effective. We can run more tests, I can question the emergency room staff, but the answer will be the same.”
This time, Sanders didn't wait for them to ask what the doctor had said. “He's saying birth control isn't always one hundred percent effective, and that they are sure you were pregnant.”
“Oh my god,” Jameson breathed, and he gripped onto the rail of the hospital bed with one hand. Tate shook her head.
“I can't ... I didn't ... I had no idea!” she sounded shocked. “How could I not know? How pregnant was I?”
“He said they're guessing anywhere from six to eight weeks.”
Jameson was still staring wide eyed at Sanders, his mouth clenched shut. Tate just shook her head some more.
“I can't believe this. How could I not know?” she repeated herself. “And it's – the baby – the baby is gone?”
“Yes, the accident caused you to miscarry. I'm very sorry,” he said, glancing between them.
“I had a miscarriage,” she whispered. Jameson was still silent.
“He is assuring me that it won't ... you should still be able to get pregnant again, in the future, should you want to,” Sanders said, looking back at her again.
“We haven't even really talked about it. I just ... I can't believe this. And they're sure? They're positive? It couldn't be someone else's results, somehow?”
“I asked the same questions. He assured me they're your results, and he offered to have the attending doctor speak to you, but said the answer will be the same. I'm very sorry, Tatum.”
“No, no, you don't have to be sorry, this isn't anyone's fault. I just don't understand how I couldn't – Jameson!”
Her sentence ended in a shout as a stunned Jameson suddenly walked out of the room. They all stared after him for a moment, shocked.
“Where is he going?” Tate demanded, struggling to move to the edge of her bed.
“I don't know. Please, do not move, I will be right back,” Sanders said, then he repeated himself to the doctor in Russian before hurrying out of the room.
When he stepped into the hall, it was to see Jameson striding up to the nurse's station. The man who had hit Tatum, Mr. Borya Sokolov, was still up there. He was now sitting in a chair, speaking to someone who worked for the hospital.
Sanders took all this in, not connecting the dots. For an incredibly smart person, sometimes he was also incredibly dense. He didn't realize Jameson's intentions until he was practically on top of the man, yanking him out of his chair with one hand while repeatedly punching him across the face with his other.
This has certainly got to be the strangest day of my life, and I feel like that is saying a lot.
“What's happening? Why is there shouting? Sanders! Sanders! What is going on!?”
Tate's voice shouting from her hospital room got him to snap to attention and he ran down the hall. The police had gotten involved, and though two of them were tugging and pulling at Jameson, he wouldn't budge. He had Borya Sokolov on the ground and was still hitting him.
“You fucker,” he was yelling. “You mother fucker! You wanna fucking run a red light? Fuck up someone's life? You stupid mother fucker. I am going to end you. End you! Can you hear me? By the time I'm done with you, you'll be rotting in some fucking gulag! Somewhere that makes the Crosses look like a fucking resort! You stupid mother fucker!”
Hospital security showed up, and all four of the officers were finally able to pull Jameson away. He still struggled in their hold, shouting obscenities. Borya Sokolov was sitting up, spitting out blood and pieces of teeth, cursing right back at Jameson in Russian.
“Enough!”
Sanders raising his voice – actually shouting – seemed to get through Jameson's blood lust. His eyes landed on him and he stared for a moment, then he got control of himself. Stopped struggling.
“Tell them I'm finished now,” he said in a low voice.
Sanders did tell the officers, and also explained exactly who Jameson Kane was, and exactly what had happened. What kind of news they'd just received.
Once they were confident Jameson wasn't going to flee the scene of his assault, they let him go. A security guard walked with them back to the hospital room, where a whole other chaotic scene was taking place.
Apparently upon realizing some sort of fight was underway, Tate had decided enough was enough. She'd tried to get out of her bed, only to collapse on the floor. Her doctor was frantically calling for help, all while she cried on the ground and clutched her injured leg.
Jameson rushed to her side, but Sanders had reached his breaking point. He slowly backed out of the room, his hand going to his hair. He came up to a wall and pressed his back against it. He pulled at his dark locks, curling his hand into a fist. Trying to feel pain. To feel anything that would drown out the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes and hummed softly to himself.
I can't do this. I was not made for this. How can we survive this?
ONCE EVERYONE – INCLUDING himself – had calmed down, things got a little better. Embassies and lawyers were called. Palms were greased. Policemen were bribed. Sanders didn't make good on any of Jameson's threats against Borya Sokolov, though. He would let Jameson do that himself. But he did take care of everything else, acting in Jameson's stead while he took care of Tate.
It was night time again before Sanders got a moment to himself. He thought about going home. Changing his clothes, and grabbing a change for Jameson. He could also gather together a bag of necessities for Tate. She would be wanting her things soon enough, toothbrush, underwear, hair care products.
But he couldn't bring himself to leave. He hadn't spoken to them at all throughout the day. Instead, he'd arranged for a translator to come help them while he took care of business. Now that business was done, he wanted to see how they were doing. Check in. Make sure things weren't as badly damaged as they'd been when he'd left them.
He didn't immediately walk into the room. He stopped just outside the door, listening, not wanting to interrupt them if they were hav
ing a private moment. He could hear them speaking, Tate's voice almost audible, Jameson's nothing more than a low grumble. So he sighed and took the next step, standing just inside the doorway.
Jameson was back in his chair. He was completely bent over, resting his head on Tate's stomach, one of his arms draped across her legs, hugging her to him. She was sitting up a little, brushing her fingers through his hair.
“It's okay, Jameson.”
“It's not okay, Tate. Stop saying that.”
“I'm going to keep saying it until you get it.”
“I should have killed him.”
“Stop,” she insisted. “It was an accident. A horrible fucking accident, yeah, but they happen. I wish ... god, I really wish it hadn't happened to us. Or at all. But that doesn't change anything. It was awful, terrible. Now we have to work past it.”
There was a long pause.
“I should have killed him.”
“You are such a boy,” she sighed, and he snorted at her.
“Damn fucking right I am. Jesus, Tate, do you have any idea ...” his voice drifted off, but as Sanders watched, Jameson's arm got tighter around her. She nodded her head.
“Yeah, I have an inkling.”
“Don't ever do that to me again,” he whispered. She smiled down at him.
“I didn't mean to do it this time. I'll try my best.”
“Your best means shit to me. You can't leave me here without you.”
“I don't plan on it, but I can't control drivers who don't pay attention to stop lights.”
There was another long pause. Tate kept her head tilted down, staring at Jameson. Sanders couldn't see his face, it was turned away. He knew he should leave, give them this moment alone. But he couldn't make his feet move.
“What if ...” Jameson's voice finally breathed. Tate's smile stayed in place, but a single tear rolled down her face.
“We can have other babies, Jameson,” she assured him in a whisper.
“I didn't particularly want any babies, not until now. Maybe not even now,” he was honest. “But I can't stop thinking about it. What if ...”
“Yeah,” she let out a shuddering breath. “Yeah, what if ...”
“I can do so many things, and I love you so much, but I couldn't stop this. I should've been able to stop this,” he whispered.
“I love you, too, but no one could stop this, Jameson. You're not god.”
“Says you,” he grunted.
She let out a genuine laugh. A patented, tried-and-true, Tatum O'Shea laugh, and just like that, Sanders knew everything would be okay.
He left them then, alone with their whispers about love and promises. It had been a heavy blow, but it wouldn't break them. Sanders doubted anything could.
Sometimes, he wondered, if that's why things like this happened to people. Not to test them, but to prove to other people what true faith looked like. What true love looked like. Sanders spent a lot of time thinking about those two things, wondering about them. Unsure if he understood them, or if he even believed in them.
But how could he not, he realized, when he saw them every day in Tate and Jameson?
KANE BEFORE
The Kane Series, exclusive boxset features
~1~
Degradation prologue – Jameson's POV
She had come over to their apartment just to drop off some boxes of stuff for her sister, Eloise – Ellie.
And in typical Ellie O'Shea fashion, she hadn't thought to tell her boyfriend beforehand. So there Jameson Kane was, at eight o'clock at night, watching eighteen year old Tatum O'Shea ferry boxes upstairs from her car.
It wasn't until after she was bringing in the last box that it occurred to him that he could've offered to help. But then again, why should he? They weren't his boxes. He didn't even know what was in them, and frankly, he didn't give a shit.
But Tate was Ellie's younger sister – she was a shy, sort of repressed girl, and Jameson had always had a sort of ... soft spot for her.
No, soft wasn't the right word.
Not at all.
“You look really red. Want something to drink?” he finally asked her.
He gestured to the kitchen and told her to look around. While she filled a glass with water and drank from it, he attempted to chit chat with her. It was fun, he knew he made her nervous. He knew he made lots of people nervous – he was exceedingly good looking and he was richer than just about everyone else, and those two thing were guaranteed to make people nervous. He usually brushed the feeling off or ignored it, acted as if everything was fine.
With Tate, though, it was always a little different. He didn't want to ignore it. He wanted to push her. See how nervous he could really make her.
Why?
He got her to sit at the table and talk about her big move. She'd been accepted to Harvard – underneath her sweater set, Tate was shockingly bright. And had the tiniest crush on him, he was positive. He watched her while she spoke, noting (not for the first time) how different she was from her sister. Ellie was a tall, willowy woman with honey blonde hair, and was always dressed in the chicest fashion.
Tate was average height, and as best he could tell through the god awful khaki skirt and prim-and-proper pink cardigan, her body was mostly average, too. Possibly fit, it was hard to judge. She had long dark hair that he could see very well, though, and it fell past her shoulders. While he watched, she pulled it all up into a ponytail. It was thick and shiny, just begging him to touch it. Wrap the strands around his fist. Pull hard.
Stop it. She's eighteen. She's Ellie's sister.
But you don't even like Ellie and you're probably going to break up with her and you have a sneaking suspicion that of the two of them, Tate might be the fun one.
She surprised him with moments of wit and sass. Dared to even poke fun at him – maybe she wasn't as nervous as he thought. They talked about her boyfriend, which he'd almost forgotten she had one, and they talked about her plans for school. Her dark eyes were a little intense – warm, deep set, with thick lashes. When she dared to look him directly in the eye, they were very bold and arresting.
She also had a fantastic smile he was surprised to discover. She'd rarely ever smiled at him before, he realized. She was doing it now, though, tilting her lips up at the corners whenever she said something she thought was clever. Her lips were a soft shade of pink, and much like the rest of her, very average – not too plump, not too thin. But they had the tiniest pout to them. It was just enough to fill his brain with fantasies of them wrapped around his dick.
Please, like she's ever had a dick anywhere near her mouth.
But that thought did little too cool him down. He kept responding to her comments, kept the conversation flowing, but in the back of his head, he wondered. And he fantasized. And he began to think that maybe it would be a good thing if she'd never given a blow job before – maybe he could be the one to teach her.
Maybe he could teach her lots of things.
“... I'm trying to get though a masters program in four years, or less,” she was explaining. Jameson dragged his eyes away from her mouth.
“Wow. Hell of a challenge, baby girl. You think you're up for that?”
And right then, he knew.
He knew what was going to happen.
The pet name came out of his mouth unbidden, he hadn't even thought about it before it had tumbled out. It just seemed natural, as if it was something he'd always called her. She'd always seemed so meek and shy – it just fit, so he just said it.
He'd said it and she'd heard it and he saw her shiver in response. Felt the change in the air. Felt the tension between them pull tighter. She cleared her throat, obviously gearing up to act as if there hadn't been a tectonic shift between them.
That was fine with him. Maybe nothing would happen right then. Maybe not that night. Hell, maybe not for a long time. But he'd set off a chain reaction with a simple pet name, and some day that tension between them was going to explode.
He hoped it was soon.
“I think I'm up for anything I set my mind to,” she finally responded to his comment. He smirked at her. She didn't want him to have the edge over her – she was a fighter.
God, things were going to be fun between them.
“Good answer. Would you like a drink? Ellie should be home ...” he rambled as he got up and got a bottle of champagne down from a cabinet. It was a little ostentatious for just a late night chat, but he'd discovered a wonderful surprise in Tatum O'Shea, and so little ever surprised him. It was worth celebrating, he figured.
They breezed through one bottle, and the bubbly seemed to loosen her up a bit. She ditched her cardigan finally, and he let his gaze roam over her shoulders and arms. She was better than average, he saw; very fit and tone. He suddenly remembered that she was a runner. He would kill to know what her ass looked like.
While she bitched about her sister, Jameson got them a second bottle, informing her it would be their last – he wanted her to loosen up, he didn't want to get her drunk. God, if she did get drunk, she'd probably ramble on about Ellie all night. He didn't have any siblings, so he didn't know anything about sibling rivalry, so he didn't understand her issues with her sister. They were two different people with two different sets of qualities, how could she compare herself to her?
He just didn't understand jealousy in general, probably because he'd never felt the emotion, as far as he knew. So he was a little shocked when she basically admitted to feeling ugly and inferior to her older sister. Here he was, thinking of all the different ways he wanted to corrupt Tate, and there she was, thinking she wasn't attractive at all.
She's an idiot.
The more he watched her, the more he tuned into her looks. She was a good looking girl, but she was holding herself back. Some day she was going to blossom into drop dead fucking gorgeous, and he hoped he was somewhere nearby when it happened.
“I wouldn't say that,” he finally interjected when she tried to claim that most people thought Ellie was better looking than her. “From a technical stand point, if we're being completely honest, I would have to say that you're much sexier than your sister.”
The Kane Series Boxset Page 105