“Call me when you can. Good news!” she added at the end. Sloane was a worrier and if she thought her sisters, her kids, or her handsome husband was in trouble, she’d walk out of whatever she was doing and come to the rescue.
“Listen you ass! This is…”
There was a shuffle of feet and Pepper looked up just in time to see some guy flying towards her with his hands fisted. She didn’t have time to move out of the way, but her hands shot out to cover her stomach. Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough and a fist that had been aiming for the guy’s stomach in front of her, missed and came straight for her.
“No!” she whispered a fraction of a second before that punch landed on her stomach.
Others saw what was happening and gasped in shock, but Pepper couldn’t gasp. She couldn’t breathe. The wind was knocked out of her. The world went still for a long moment, then rushed forward faster than she could handle as she crumpled onto the filthy sidewalk.
For a long moment, she simply laid there, trying to process what had just happened. Her stomach felt bruised, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Another pain, this one from deep inside her body. This pain was so much worse, so brutal that she curled into a ball.
Pepper heard worried voices around her, people asking if she was okay. But she couldn’t answer as the pain radiated outward from her stomach. She wasn’t aware of the tears forming in her eyes, pouring down her cheeks. She wasn’t aware of the shuffling as some of the other customers tackled the man who had punched her in the stomach when he’d tried to run away.
All she knew was that she was in pain. Severe, mind-numbing pain! A pain so deep, she could barely suck in air.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” someone announced.
“Give her some air!” another voice ordered.
Someone bent down, trying to look into her eyes, but Pepper couldn’t move, still clutching at her stomach. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
“Pregnant,” she whispered through the pain lashing at her body now. “Pregnant!”
“Call an ambulance!” the voice bellowed. “She’s pregnant! Someone get a damn ambulance here, now!”
With that, Pepper closed her eyes, her knees pulling up more as she tried to ride the waves of sharp edged pain. In the back of her mind, she heard sirens in the distance, coming closer and closer but she still couldn’t function. All she could think was, “Save my baby!”
There were more voices around her. Strong hands picked her up and she was vaguely aware of being loaded into an ambulance, but the pain was just too intense. She felt something cold on her arm, but didn’t realize the paramedic had inserted an IV. Cloudy images flashed through her thoughts. Loud sirens, her lip hurt for some reason. Bright lights flashed, but she couldn’t make sense of them. A doctor asked her questions. Someone tried to take off her clothes, but she couldn’t move.
Hours later, Pepper understood that they’d had to cut her clothes off of her. But by then, she didn’t care. A doctor with sad eyes stepped into the examination room. The physical pain had subsided now. Instead, there was a different kind of pain. Something much more debilitating. She was cold and…empty.
“Ms. Abbot?” he asked, confirming her identity. “Is there someone we can call? Someone to help you?”
“Dimitri Bosalis,” she whispered, her finger moving over the diamond on her finger. “I want my husband,” she whispered. Her lip had split at some point, she wasn’t sure how. She just knew that it was tender to the touch and the wound made it hard to speak. But she still wanted Dimitri. She needed him now!
The doctor stepped out of the room, nodding sadly.
The long, painful silence was broken only by the machines.
One beep. One heartbeat. Just one.
Chapter 10
Muffled voices woke her up and she shifted carefully on the cold sheets. She felt cold all over. Pepper looked around, wanting to…she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do
“Pepper!” Dimitri squeezed her hand gently. “Are you okay?”
Was she okay? Memories of the pain were vague and she froze, looking around.
That’s when it all came flooding back to her. The fight at the coffee shop. The two men arguing. Then the pain. The excruciating pain!
“I lost our baby,” she whispered, needing to tell him, needing him to know so that…so that…so that something could happen. What that something might be, she wasn’t sure.
“I know, agape mou,” he told her gently, holding her hand as he kissed her forehead. “I know. I’ve spoken to the doctors.”
Pepper cried, her body aching for a different reason now. “I lost her,” she whispered.
Dimitri pulled Pepper closer, not sure what to say. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, but he knew that she’d been in a great deal of pain. And the blood! Damn it, she’d lost so much blood! The doctors said that she’d be weak for a while. “The fetus”…why the hell had they called his child “a fetus”? In his mind, it had been his child. Yes, the baby had only been weeks old, and he’d known about this child for less than a week, but still, it was his child. His baby! And Pepper’s! Their child and…He pulled her closer, needing to feel her against him.
“I’m so sorry!” she sobbed.
“It’s not your fault, Pepper!” he soothed, wanting to find the man who had done this and…he’d never been a violent man, but Dimitri wanted to kill the man who had
