TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 124

One hundred and twenty four

Lisa

I held the edge of the sink with both hands while my stomach emptied again.

The tiles under my bare feet felt cool and slightly damp from the splash of water I had run earlier. I spat once, then again, and the bitter taste stayed on my tongue no matter how many times I rinsed my mouth.

James stood in the doorway, phone pressed to his ear, his voice low and steady as he spoke into it.

“Get here now, please.”

He ended the call and slipped the phone into his pocket. I had told him earlier not to call our mom, so he had gone, straight to Franklin instead.

I straightened up slowly, one hand still braced on the counter until the room stopped moving. The cramps had started the night before and had not let up. They came in waves that left me sweating and short of breath, and the lack of sleep made every movement feel heavier than it should.

“I’m fine,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

The words came out flat.

I knew they were not true, but I kept my face calm so he would not start pacing. James crossed the room without a word, picked up the glass of water from the bedside table, and guided me back toward the bed.

His hand stayed light on my elbow the whole way. I sat down, then lay back and pulled the sheet up to my chest. The fabric felt stiff from too many washes. Another cramp started low in my stomach and spread outward until my fingers curled into the mattress. I gripped harder until the joints in my hands ached.

“Get me some warm water,” I said.

My voice cracked on the last word. The sound that followed was thin and raw, nothing like my normal tone. James turned toward the door, but before he could take two steps the nurse walked in.

She wore the same pale blue scrubs as the day before and carried a clipboard tucked under one arm. She paused when she saw me bent forward, then set the clipboard on the side table and came closer. Her hands settled on my leg, pressing in slow, even circles along the muscle.

“This might be a boy,” she said. “They can be rough.”

I turned my head to look at her. The words took a moment to reach me through the pain. I tried to focus on the steady pressure of her palms instead of the tightening in my middle.

James returned with the warm water and set the glass on the table. He started moving around the room, folding my sweater, gathering the few things I had left out on the dresser. The nurse spoke over his shoulder.

“It’s not serious. She’ll be fine here.”

The next cramp hit without warning. My body folded forward on its own. I pressed my forehead against my knees and held my breath until the worst of it passed.

The door opened again and Franklin stepped in. He took one look at me, then at James, and crossed the room in three strides. He slid an arm behind my back so I could lean into him. His shirt smelled like the leather seats of the car he had just left.

“She’s like this and you’re waiting?” he said. “Move. We’re taking her now.”

1/4

A hundred and twenty foul

15 Bonus

James grabbed my sweater, my bag, and the charger from the wall. They helped me to my feet and kept me between them as we moved down the hallway. I kept my eyes on the floor tiles so I would not have to see how fast we were going.

In the car I sat in the back with Franklin’s arm still around me. The engine hummed and the streetlights slid across the windows in steady lines. Franklin talked in short sentences and James answered from the front seat, Neither of them sounded calm. Their voices overlapped until they blurred together with the sound of the tires on

the road.

At the hospital, Franklin had the door open before the car stopped rolling. Someone brought a wheelchair. Then they moved me to a bed and the questions started.

Name. Date of last meal. How long had the pain lasted. I answered what I could while hands checked my pulse, listened to my breathing, and slid a needle into the back of my hand for the IV line. The tape they used to hold it down pulled at my skin each time I shifted.

They wheeled me into the next room for the scan. The gel they spread across my stomach was cold and thick. The doctor pressed the wand down and moved it in small arcs while she watched the screen. I kept my eyes on the ceiling tiles and tried not to move. The pressure changed as she adjusted the angle, but the pain stayed dull and

constant now.

“The baby’s fine,” she said after a minute. “Do you want to know what it is?”

My chest tightened. I nodded before I could change my mind.

“My nurse said boys do this,” I told her.

The doctor gave a small smile, eyes still on the monitor. “It’s a boy. But this isn’t because of that. We’ll figure it out.”

A boy.

I let the word settle while she wiped the gel away.

Cameron’s heir.

I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose until the thought stopped spinning. They added medication to the IV and the pain eased enough that I could sit up without holding the rail. When they discharged me I walked out on my own feet. The tight feeling in my stomach had faded to something I could ignore if I moved slowly.

Franklin stayed beside me on the ride back.

At the house I went straight to the kitchen and opened the container of rice and chicken left from the night before. I ate standing at the counter, fork moving steadily. The food stayed down and the relief of that simple fact made my shoulders drop. Franklin watched me from the doorway for a long time before he spoke.

“You should call Cameron. He’d want to know.”

I wiped my hands on a dish towel and leaned back against the counter. The edge pressed into my lower back. “He’s not my husband. I’m not calling him for this. He has his own problems.”

Franklin held my gaze, then gave one slow nod. “Alright.”

The rest of the evening passed in quiet pieces. I took the pills they had sent home with me and went to bed early. The sheets felt cooler than they had that morning. Sleep came fast.

I woke to pain that tore straight through my middle. It forced a sound out of my throat before I could stop it. I

2/4

One hundred and twenty four

+15 Bonus

pressed my face into the pillow and bit down on the fabric, but the pain kept rising. I had never felt anything like it. My hand shook when I reached for the phone on the nightstand. I dialed Franklin and kept my voice as steady as

I could.

“Something’s wrong with the baby. Please come.”

He said he was already moving and told me to hold on. I tried to call out for James, but the words would not carry. past the doorway. I could not sit up, could not even swing my legs over the side of the bed.

Minutes later a guard Franklin had sent ahead pushed the door open. He helped me stand and kept one arm around my waist the whole way down the stairs and into the car. The pain kept building with every bump in the road. A single thought lodged in my head and would not leave. What if my body could not carry this child?

At the emergency unit they moved faster this time. They drew blood, started another IV, and moved me to a room on the second floor. I stayed on the bed while the medication dripped in. At some point I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again the pain had pulled back, but my arms and legs still felt heavy and tight.

“Is the baby fine?” I asked when the doctor came in.

“We have to wait for the results, but the baby is still alive,” she said.

“Then it’s me?”

She adjusted the chart in her hands. “Don’t worry yet. We will figure it out.

The test results reached us at noon. The doctor stood at the foot of the bed and read from the paper while Franklin stood by the window.

“There’s nothing wrong with her vitals. Blood pressure is fine. But we found traces of something toxic.”

“What does that mean?” Franklin asked.

“We don’t know yet. We’re waiting for the full lab report. She needs to stay here for a few days, maybe longer. This is a high-risk pregnancy now.

My stomach dropped. The monitor beside the bed beeped once, then settled back into its steady rhythm. Franklin looked at me, then back at the doctor.

“Where is it coming from?” I asked.

She gave a small smile that did not reach her eyes. “We can’t say yet, It could be your body reacting, or something introduced into your system. We need the full results.”

The doctor left and the room went quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning. Franklin walked to the chair beside my bed and sat down.

“I don’t trust this,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, but something feels off. This doesn’t look random.”

I turned my head on the pillow so I could see his face clearly. We were far from Evangeline. Everything I had eaten

or touched had come straight from the hospital or the house staff. “Leave it to me,” he said.

“It might be nothing,” I told him. “Maybe it’s just my body.”

“Maybe. But we’re not taking chances.”

3/4

and inty four

+15 Bonus

“You’re not telling Cameron,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Let him deal with Evangeline. I don’t need to be in the middle of that.”

“You’re not in the middle of anything,” he said. “That’s his child.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t tell him because you asked me not to. But if this gets worse, he needs to know.

“Fine. But not yet.”

James arrived later carrying a small bag of snacks from the vending machine downstairs. He looked around the room, taking in the IV pole and the monitor wires.

“I’m glad they admitted you,” he said. “You scared me.”

He set the bag on the table and pulled the chair closer. “We should tell Mom. She won’t like finding out late.”

“Don’t tell her yet,” I said. “She’ll be back on Monday.”

They stayed until the nurse came in to check the IV. Franklin took James to Beda Academy for his orientation after that. Before they left, James leaned in for a side hug. His shoulder felt warm against mine.

“I’m proud of you,” I told him.

“Let’s hope they don’t send me back on day one,” he said.

After they left I tried to sleep, but the pillow felt too flat. My phone rang on the table. Sasha’s name showed on the screen. I answered and kept my voice even. I told her I was fine and let her talk about Cora and the plans she had made for next month. She said she was coming for me. I listened without adding details about the hospital or the tests. When the call ended I reached for the remote and turned on the TV mounted on the opposite wall.

Nadia and Desmond’s engagement filled the screen.

The footage showed them at a long table with flowers and glasses arranged in perfect lines. Everything looked polished and planned down to the way the light caught the ring on her finger.

I watched her face closely. The smile stayed in place, but her eyes moved the way they always did when she was counting the minutes until she could leave. I shook my head once and leaned back against the raised bed. I was stuck here with a pregnancy that kept dragging me back into pain. She was stuck in a life she did not want. Neither of us chose where we ended up.

P

Comments

Support

Share