As the door closed behind me, Dr. Lewinski was frowning down at a piece of paper. This wasn’t uncommon for her, so I didn’t extrapolate anything from it — not until she tapped the clipboard and set it down at her side.
“Your results,” she said.
I realized that she wasn’t being deliberately obstructive, but couldn’t she just give me a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’? “Uh-huh.”
“Well. As I mentioned to you before after your initial examination, it was my professional opinion that you were unlikely to regain any reproductive faculties after your accident. There’s not enough specific data to give you a percentage, but… suffice to say it was a very, very slim chance, as I believe I told you before.”
“Right,” I said, bowing my head. “That’s okay. I understand. I wasn’t trying to waste your time; I just-”
“Waste my time?” She furrowed her brows. “No, no. You misunderstand me. I’m not questioning your decision to come and get retested. Quite the opposite, in fact. According to these tests, you… form part of that slim group of people.”
My heart stuttered. “Wait. What?”
“Your sperm count is still below average,” she said. “I’d like to make that clear. Pregnancy is still unlikely — but in the samples we tested, there were certainly some viable specimens. As I… believe I mentioned before, I do not advocate unprotected sex in any circumstances.”
I cleared my throat, feeling chastised, but nothing could really tear me away from the core truth she was describing.
Could it really be true?
“In these circumstances it feels responsible to reiterate that you are now indeed fertile. If you have made a personal choice to have unprotected sex in the absence of the possibility of children, well… Now would be the time to rethink that.”
I sat in silence.
“Mr. Bennett?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” I shook my head, turning to face her again. “It’s just… uh. Yeah. This is really big news for me.”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s a lot to process, understandably. If you don’t mind, I’d like to request that you come back in six months for another test to measure the rate of increase, and if you are going to try and conceive, I would recommend investing in some good pro-fertility supplements.” She wagged a finger at me. “None of that homeopathic crap. Absolutely not.”
I cracked a smile, recognizing her joke, but I didn’t really feel like smiling right now. While this was wonderful news, it came with a lot of complications — not least the understanding that I had badly, unforgivably distrusted and hurt my mate.
I nodded as Dr. Lewinski continued describing the benefits of these supplements she wanted me to take, but it was difficult to concentrate. I knew this horse had already bolted, and what mattered to me now, more than increasing sperm mobility, was to make things right with Fin. If that were even possible now.
Guess I’d better get out of here and start driving.
18
Finley
For exactly one week, I’d been sinking into quicksand. Ever since Dr. Quintero confirmed I was pregnant, I’d been trapped in this emotional storm. Every now and then I’d stumble into the eye, briefly capable of staring around myself at all the mayhem until I inevitably allowed myself to be swept back up and miserable again.
Today was one of those eye-of-the-storm moments. As I sat around a table at Big Joe’s Deli with Sutton and Lukas, I could at least manage to hold the ghost of a conversation with them — but it was clear to all three of us that things weren’t good for me right now. Vaughn’s name had been banned in conversation since before we even arrived on the premises, and I wasn’t sure how long I’d continue to get away with pushing the same salad around my plate.
“Kid,” said Lukas, nudging me with his elbow. “At least have another glass of water, okay? Take care of both you and Tiny.”
I nodded. His logic was fair; I could sink into a miserable state if I wanted to before, but that wouldn’t be fair on the life growing inside me right now. No matter what I endured thinking about their other father, I already cared about them leagues more than I cared about myself.
Half-heartedly, I downed a couple of mouthfuls of salad.
“See, that’s better,” said Lukas. “And speaking of good nutrition, I managed to introduce some new pureed vegetables to Kylie’s diet this week.”
Sutton hummed. “How did she feel about that?”
“Very much here for the sweet potato, but the other two options? Not so much.”
Sutton nodded sagely, turning back to his thick stack of a sandwich. “See, she’s got good taste. I can relate to that.”
I could feel myself drifting back out of the conversation, but I couldn’t really help it. I’d never ask him to stop, but hearing Lukas talk about parenting made me feel sick to the bottom of my stomach. I would’ve been a nervous parent with an alpha to back me up. How exactly was I supposed to cope with raising a baby all by myself?
“Fin…?”
I shook my head, turning back to face them again. “Sorry, Lukas. What’s that?”
“Tune in, dingus,” said Sutton, but full of affection.
“We were just thinking about having a big barbeque for the pack,” said Lukas, giving me a patient smile. “Just to celebrate summer, I guess. Maybe rent a few big inflatables for the kids.”
“And big kids,” said Sutton.
I nodded, fighting a smile onto my face. “That sounds lovely. Great weather for it, recently.”
Sutton turned to face Lukas, straight-faced. “He’s talking about the weather. I think that makes this a code red emergency.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Lukas, trying to be diplomatic. “Code yellow, at best. I think a code red would have to mean-”
“Code red,” Sutton interrupted. “Code red.”
Lukas only looked confused for half a second, and then his eyes widened. “Uh. Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Fin, ah… You’re going to want to…”
He nodded behind me. Before I even turned, I knew what I was about to see, and I wasn’t prepared. I swallowed, looking down at my food, and pushed the bowl away from me. I still couldn’t force myself to turn around, but I could feel him coming closer to me step by step — could detect his scent getting stronger. I almost tricked myself into thinking that I could feel the heat of his skin, but worst of all was the sound of his voice. Specifically, in the shape of my name.
“Finley,” he said.
I bit my tongue. No matter how much I’d imagined this scenario in my head over the past seven days, willingly or unwillingly, I still didn’t know what to say now that he was right here behind me. In my heart of hearts, I’d always known it would happen. After all, he had to be wrong. I really hadn’t slept with anybody else, and the timing made sense with my first heat in London.
He had to be wrong. I just didn’t know how to handle the conversation about it. Not on any level — neither what I should do, nor what I wanted to do.
“Vaughn,” I said eventually, but didn’t turn around.
Lukas shook his head, an unfamiliar frown on his face. “Hey, uh… Maybe this can wait a little while longer.”
I risked a glance at Sutton, whose eyes were saying something marginally less polite.
“It can’t wait,” he insisted. “I mean. It’s already waited long enough, just to… you know. To apologize.”
I wasn’t used to hearing such a humble note in Vaughn’s voice. Usually I admired his charisma and his self-assured swagger, so right now its absence rang as clear as a bell. Curiosity eroded away the part of me that didn’t want to turn, and I looked back — first over my shoulder, then turning my full body.
Already, it tugged at my heartstrings to see him like this — hands wringing, shoulders slumped. It would take a long time to unpick the hold this hurt had on me, but to see him so obviously contrite was quite a force. He was my mate, after all. I couldn’t be immune to that vulnerability.
“I… I’m sorry,”
he said. The words came from every part of him. I could see it in the way he spoke them — the way he exhaled them out, pouring a portion of himself into the breath. There was no pretense here. Nothing to hide behind, and no excuses.
I nodded. “Okay.”
“I hurt you. I know that. I…” Vaughn trailed off, and tried again. “That part of my life. I know you know how it feels to… to really believe it’s never going to happen for you. I should have known to trust you over that feeling. I fucked up.”
“Yep,” said Sutton. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lukas elbow him.
“I wish I could just tell you that I’m new at this. I mean… I am. I don’t know how any of this shit works. Being with you, like this, it’s…” He trailed off, and took another shot. “It’s just something I never knew I could have until you came along. Let alone something I knew I wanted. But then here you are,” he said. His eyes creased. “You’re new to this too. Fuck knows why, but I know what you believed, about… you, and other alphas, and about what you’re worth. You’ve never been in this position before either, and you’re sailing, so… why should I get away with that?”
He shook his head again, brows knitting together. I could tell he was getting tangled up in his words — intending to say one thing and coming out with ten. Still, I didn’t want to interrupt or cut him off. Whatever I heard right now, I knew it would be the truth. Maybe raw and unpolished, and maybe a little ugly in places, but he meant every single word.
“I used to roll my eyes whenever anybody said ‘you’re the best thing that ever happened to me’,” he said, smiling lopsided despite the worry in his eyes. “I thought it was some kind of… I don’t know. Stupid exaggeration that partners said to keep each other sweet. Now, I’m… I get it.”
A smile caught on his face like a struck match. I swallowed hard. I recognized that happiness. Even though I was hurting, and even though his unkind words still resonated through my head, I couldn’t help but feel my own warmth glowing back at him.
My mate. My alpha.
“I don’t deserve you right now,” he said. “I admit that. I know it. I mean… really, I do. But I swear to the moon and whatever governs it that I will work every day of my life until I do. And that I won’t ever, ever treat you that way again.”
The room felt oddly quiet around us. Though other customers were ostensibly still carrying on their conversations, I could sense all their attention pointing his way. If it intimidated Vaughn, then he didn’t show it. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. His eyes were still rooted on me, clinging for dear life — and he hadn’t finished yet.
“We talked about kids,” he said, voice low and gravelly. “Several times, I know but… on vacation, in Madrid. I made you a promise. I want to keep it, if you’ll let me. I want to build that family with you. I want this… blessing… that we’ve been given.”
Vaughn’s eyes dropped down to my stomach, where one of my hands was already absently resting in place. I clenched my jaw tight, trying to maintain my dignity in a primeval roar of emotions.
“Please,” he said, finally looking back up. “You’re mad and you’re hurt. You should be. I’m an asshole. But I swear, Fin. Doesn’t matter what it takes, or how long. I’ll make it right. I need you, and… fuck, I… I’m just sorry.”
His eyes darted quickly between me and the floor as he tried to hold off a wave of tears that threatened. After a week of being stranded with absolutely no idea how to proceed in the wreckage of my life, the cool calm of knowing what to do settled on me like a blanket.
I nodded, throat tight, and held out my hand.
“Yeah,” I said, lip wobbling. “I’m… yes. I need you too.”
He wrapped around me like a fur coat, clutching tight around my body like he was worried I’d slip away otherwise. I buried my face in his shoulder to drink in the scent I’d missed so much over the past week — the scent I’d dreamed of, and cursed, and cried over.
“I know you’d never do that,” he murmured into my hair. “I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking; I just… I know you. I know you wouldn’t do that. Of course you wouldn’t do that. Jesus, Fin; I’m such an asshole. I just—”
“It’s okay,” I told him. My voice was patchy and wavering, but only from the tension in my throat. I knew exactly what I was saying. I felt every word as if it were woven into my bones. “It’s done with now. We’re okay.”
“You and me,” he promised. “You and me and baby.”
Vaughn really stumbled on that last word. I pulled apart from him to meet his eyes, and see the well of overwhelming joy I saw there.
“It’s just meant to happen for us,” I said. “Just like this. All three of us. We’re meant to have each other.”
He nodded, and pulled me tight again. I could feel his heartbeat deep in my chest, hard enough for both our circulatory systems at once. It was obvious that this meant the world to him. That he’d been so afraid when he approached me today, expecting rejection he seemed to believe he deserved.
Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Opinions would differ — but he was my mate, and it was my forgiveness that mattered. It was our partnership that we’d repaired.
As for anybody else? With the exceptions of Sutton and Lukas, grinning at each other over their fruit smoothies, our family and our story just weren’t anybody’s business but ours.
19
Vaughn
I was the kind of guy who never even believed in miracles. Now, two had happened in my life over the stretch of one week’s time. Not only had my mate conceived a child, despite both of us being told that it’d be impossible for us, but he had forgiven me for the kind of egregious, hurtful behavior that he could have rightly used to justify never speaking to me again.
Instead, we had somehow landed back in paradise.
As soon as he accepted my apology, I knew exactly what I had to do, no questions asked. Once I’d taken him home from the deli, we had spent a luxurious few hours curled up together on my rented couch, and I pondered the best way to go about it in contented silence.
When he woke up from his nap a couple of hours later, all smiles and glistening eyes, I kissed him on the nose.
“Good,” I said. “You’re awake. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
I slipped my phone out of my pocket, sitting up and watching as he stretched and yawned. The phone rang a couple of times before my manager picked up.
“Vaughn? Hey. Working from home today to make your appointment, right? How’s it going?”
“Kind of,” I said. “Listen, uh… I need to take some time off. Like. Six months.”
He fell silent. I could hear the sounds of the office carrying on behind him, and I didn’t care about any of it — especially not with Fin’s sleepy, wide-eyed smile to distract me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You said six months?”
“Yeah.”
He seemed thrown by the plainness of the request. It was a pretty shameless way to ask for such a long amount of time away from work — but I had the best negotiating tool available to me. I really didn’t care whether he agreed or not.
“Vaughn, I don’t think that’s going to be-”
“My partner is pregnant,” I said, cutting him off. “So I’m going to stay with him. Take care of him. Whatever he needs. Then, obviously, once the baby is born, I want to stick around and be a dad for a while, so…”
“Wait. He… six months…?”
“Shifters, Geoff,” I reminded him, patient as I always had to be.
“Oh! Yes, that. Right.”
Maybe coming back to Blackwater to be around my community would be a good thing in more ways than one, on reflection. Of course, nothing mattered as much as the watery smile on Finley’s face. His hand found mine, squeezing tight, and trembling slightly to boot.
“Well. Anyhow, Vaughn. Like I said, ah. I don’t think six months is going to work for us. As you know, the standard leave package is-”
“Not long enough,” I said, kee
ping my tone polite. “The thing is, Geoff, um. This really isn’t negotiable for me, so… it’s up to you, really. I’ll be staying with Fin for six months, if not longer. If there’s room for me there afterwards, that’s great. If not, then I understand.” I paused. “For the record, it’s not about the money.”
“But your clients…”
“Frannie can handle them,” I said. “Geoff, since we’re in this position right now, can I be honest?” I didn’t wait for permission. “You underestimate Frannie. She’s a really innovative thinker. She only has a little less experience than I do. The number of times I’ve asked for her opinion on designs I’m drawing up is… well. It’s a lot. Whatever you’re paying her, it’s probably not enough. So, uh… pay raise. Offer her the extra clients. See if she doesn’t bite.”
There was a stunned silence. Fin was hiding his smile behind a hand, creased up with second-hand embarrassment. Needless to say, he wasn’t good at any kind of confrontation, including this warm-voiced, smiley-faced kind; he seemed about as floored as Geoff at all this. At least he was on the beneficiary side.
“Anyway,” I said. “I’ll let you think. I’ll probably come up to the office in a week or so to pick up my stuff, so we can dot some Is and cross some Ts then. Yes?”
“Uh…”
“All right, Geoff. Bye for now.”
I hung up, tossing my phone aside and opening my arms to make room for Fin’s giggling, eager embrace.
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
“No?” I stroked his hair, and shrugged. “I’m not leaving you for a second during this pregnancy. You’re not going to lift a damn thing other than your sweet self. If that means I have to play hardball with work, then… That’s how it is.”
“There’s no way they’re going to let you come back.”
I shrugged again. “If they don’t, they don’t. Seems like I’m going to be spending a lot more time away from Helena in the future, to say the least.”
Fin blinked, and I spared him from having to ask the question.
“I’m teasing you. Of course we’re going to live together. If they let me stay on after the new year and I have to commute for a while, that’s okay. If I have to set up my own business instead, well… It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve thought about it. Put it that way.”
Claiming My Omega: Blackwater Pack Book Two Page 17