Since her
stomach was somewhat stable, Erin reached over to the cup of chipped ice her
dad had gotten for her from a market down the street. She knew she needed to
keep hydrated, but it was difficult when she couldn’t keep anything down.
But maybe she
could keep one tiny piece of ice down.
She took a
little piece and started to suck on it slowly, and even that slightest bit of
moisture felt wonderful in her nasty, parched mouth.
After a minute,
when nothing horrible happened from that one little piece of chipped ice, Erin
took another piece. Sucked on that one too.
It was several
minutes before her dad returned, and Erin was starting to wonder where he’d
gotten to when he finally came back into the darkened room.
“How are you
doing?” he asked softly, coming over to sit on the chair next to her bed. He
hadn’t brought back the little trashcan, which immediately raised Erin’s guard.
Something had
happened.
“Okay. I’ve had
four little pieces of ice.”
He smiled
fondly. “Good for you.”
When he didn’t
continue, Erin shifted uncomfortably. “What? Just say it.”
“How would you
feel about seeing Seth?”
She gasped and
felt her stomach churn. Getting nervous, she made herself breathe deeply and
relax.
She really
didn’t want to throw up again.
“No,” she said,
her voice rather shrill. “I don’t want to see him. Did he call? Tell him to
stay away.”
“Too late. He’s
here now.”
“Oh, God. He
can’t come in here.” The room was disgusting, smelled like vomit. Erin herself
was a wreck, and the last thing she wanted to see was Seth and his cool,
sophisticated gorgeousness.
“He wants to
see how you are. I’m afraid he’s going to be stubborn about it.”
“No,” Erin
began weakly. Wondered if she could be strong enough to insist.
“Your father is
right.” It was Seth’s voice, coming from just outside her bedroom. “You might
as well let me in now. I’m not going away.”
Erin groaned
and closed her eyes, but made an assenting gesture to her dad to let him know Seth
could come in. She just didn’t have the energy to fight it right now.
Things had been
a little strange the morning after they'd had sex last month. Nothing definite,
but they'd both been quiet and reserved the next morning. Hadn't talked to each
other for a few days afterwards.
So she hadn’t
called him up for sex again.
He had his
life, and Erin had hers. But she was confident that they’d be able to cooperate
in regards to their baby, and she wasn’t going to mess that up for more sex.
She liked Seth,
she'd discovered somewhere along the way.
But that didn't
mean she wanted to see him when she was a sick, pathetic mess.
“Please tell me
you didn’t call him,” she muttered to her father, wanting to pull the covers up
over her head.
“Of course, I
didn’t.”
“I called
earlier,” Seth explained coolly as he entered. “Your father said you were a
little under the weather.” He scanned her with sharp scrutiny, and Erin
momentarily felt like she was one of his cases—his expression was so clinical
and distant.
It made her
immediately huffy.
Even more when
he continued, “You appear to be a little more than under the weather. Why
didn’t you let me know?”
This was just
outrageous. Here she was, on the verge of collapse, and he was reproaching her
for not informing him of every detail of her status. “Why would I have told
you?”
“We’ve been
doing this for six months now. You know very well that I want to be involved in
this pregnancy.”
“This isn’t about
the pregnancy,” she said, thinking it would be nice if he could manage to smile
or look sympathetic. Or do anything other than look at her coldly. “I have a
stomach bug. It happens. It’s no big deal.”
Seth drew his
brows together and turned toward her father. “How long has she been sick?”
“She was sick
in bed when I came by at six this evening. She’s been sick ever since.”
Erin grunted. “Don’t
make it sound like that. It hasn’t been
that
long. I was feeling bad
this afternoon. Then I got back from work and started throwing up. It’s not
that strange.”
“How often does
she vomit?” Seth again questioned her father instead of her. In fact, he
seemed now to be ignoring her existence.
“It varies. She
can’t keep anything down. Even sips of water. She’s gone a half-hour between
vomiting at times, but sometimes it’s more often. It’s been dry heaves for a
while now.”
“Eh,” Erin
choked indignantly. She really wasn’t feeling good now and wished she hadn’t
sucked on the chipped ice. She couldn’t manage to object any more substantially
than that one monosyllable, so she breathed deeply instead.
Hoped she'd
gotten her point across.
“I’ve wanted to
take her to the emergency room for the last hour, but, you know her. She’s
stubborn. In another hour, I would have insisted, whether she wants to or not. I
think she’s getting dehydrated.”
Seth pressed
his lips together, looking far too slick for a sick room in his black suit and favorite
blue tie. “I’d like to take her
now
, if you have no objections.”
Her father
actually looked relieved. “No objections from me.”
“I’m sick. Not
deaf. Stop talking like I’m not here.” Then she put a hand on her stomach as it
started to feel rather unsettled again.
Her father
glanced over at her. “I’ll go rinse out the trashcan.”
Seth knelt
beside the bed in a way Erin didn't like at all. It put him right in her face. “Erin,
if you’re dehydrated, you need to go to the emergency room to get fluids.”
“I know,” she
croaked, her wailing earlier having taken too much out of her. “But there’s no
reason to jump the gun. I’m not someone who runs to the hospital at the drop of
a hat. I'm not just being stubborn. It hasn’t been
that
long.”
Honestly, she
couldn’t remember how long it had been, and she didn’t have the energy to turn
over to even look at the clock.
Seth’s face
showed no emotion. “It’s been long enough, and what if it’s not just a stomach
virus? What if it’s food poisoning?”
Erin hadn’t
even thought of that. The idea made her panic momentarily. She tried to think. “I
haven’t eaten anything unusual. I’ve been...real careful...about what I eat...since...pregnant.”
“I believe you,
but sometimes being careful isn’t enough.”
Erin didn’t
respond, although she wanted to slap the cool, impersonal look off his face. Who
did he think he was, coming in here and bossing her around, without even
appearing to care about how miserable she was?
But she was
starting to feel dizzy again, and she was beginning to think that Seth and her
father were probably right about getting medical attention. She didn’t think
she had food poisoning, but she was really, really thirsty. Maybe she
was
getting dehydrated.
Being stubborn
was one thing, but she wasn’t about to risk harming her baby because of it.
No matter how infuriating
it was having to submit to Seth’s arrogant demands.
She was growing
really hot again and automatically pushed down her covers in frustration.
“Erin?” Seth
had stood up, as if he’d known she was caving, but now he just stared at her.
Erin, however,
couldn't answer. She was washed with waves of heat and dizziness, and his face began
to blur in front of her eyes.
She put a hand
on the large curve of her abdomen. “Oh, God,” she groaned, praying she wasn’t
going to be sick again. Not in front of Seth. She breathed deeply, trying to
force the nausea down.
“Erin?” Seth’s
voice again.
She ignored it.
Couldn’t even process it. Jerked her upper body up a little and leaned over the
side of the bed, as much as she could with her belly always getting in the way.
“Oh, God. Oh, no. Dad!”
“I’m here,” he
said, returning to the room with the plastic trashcan, which he’d rinsed out. “Here
it is.”
He positioned
the trashcan for her, and Erin felt the familiar heaving, the wash of
instinctive panic. “Seth, might...leave.”
Seth didn’t
leave. He just stood there watching as she began to retch again, heaving
nothing but bitter bile into the trashcan.
Erin couldn't
remember ever being this miserable and mortified.
Seth Thomas
watching her puke.
When her
vomiting finally stopped, she was sobbing again. Couldn’t seem to stop.
“Erin?” Seth
prompted softly. His face hadn’t changed at all. He might have been sitting in
a deposition.
She nodded,
snuffling messily. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Her father
picked up the trashcan. “Here,” he said, handing Seth the wet washcloth he used
to wipe her face. “I’ll be right back.”
Seth looked
down at the washcloth blankly, as if he had no idea what to do with it. Despite
her misery, Erin snorted at his cluelessness.
Then her
amusement faded as she realized she was going to have to try to get up and get
down to the car. Sick, weak, vomiting, and seven months pregnant.
Seth shook
himself off a little and handed Erin the washcloth. Of course. She’d never
expected him to actually wipe her face with it himself.
She rubbed the
damp cloth over her face and pushed her hair back behind her ears. Breathed a
couple of times and tried to pull herself together. “You’re going to have to
help me,” she warned him.
“Of course. Can
you sit up?”
She nodded,
more confidently than she felt. She managed to haul herself up, though, and swung
her legs over the edge of the bed.
Immediately
dizzy, she sucked in long breaths, willing down the sudden hot flash and the
spinning room.
“Take a minute
to settle yourself before you start to move,” Seth advised. This was an
annoyingly obvious piece of bossiness, but Erin didn’t have it in her to even
object to it.
As she concentrated
on breathing, she saw Seth glancing around the room. Then he walked over and
picked up a red, hooded sweatshirt and brought it over to her.
She wore pajama
pants and an old t-shirt, but she wasn’t about to change clothes. She did,
however, let Seth help her put on the zip-up sweatshirt, since it would be a
chilly spring evening and at least the sweatshirt would help to hide her dirty
t-shirt.
“Which shoes do
you want?” Seth asked, after he’d helped her zip up the sweatshirt partway.
Erin nodded vaguely
to the right. “Those under the chair.”
The brown
leather shoes were comfortable and slipped on easily, and nothing was going to
look right with pajama pants anyway.
Seth basically
put on the shoes for her. Then he peered at her face.
Erin could only
imagine how she looked.
Oh well. It
would probably do him good to deal with real life for a change—real life in
this most fundamental of ways.
A vomiting,
pregnant woman. Certainly not something Seth Thomas had dealt with before.
“You ready?” he
asked. Still didn’t look remotely sympathetic.
“Help me,” she
whispered, before she tried to lift herself to her feet.
Seth’s arm went
all the way around her body, supporting her as he helped her into a standing
position.
As soon as
she’d gained her feet, Erin’s knees almost buckled. She was slammed with
sweltering chills, and the dizziness almost leveled her.
She would have
fallen if Seth hadn’t been supporting her. She clung to his lean, solid body to
hold herself up. Felt so horrible and weak—and terrified by the endless journey
from this room down to the car—that she found herself burying her face in his
shoulder. “Seth, I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. I’ve
got you.”
His voice
wasn’t gentle or fond—nothing like the way her father had spoken to her. In
fact, Seth had sounded matter-of-fact and almost disinterested. But something
about the clear confidence of his words comforted Erin anyway.
And he was
right. He did have her. His arm was like iron, like granite around her—so
strong and unwavering that it was never going to let her go.
The truth was
fairly simple. Seth was strong enough to support her weight, and she was
carrying his baby.
He wasn’t going
to let her fall.
“Okay,” she
said, breathing deeply again and pulling her face away from his clean-smelling
suit. “Let’s go. But I warn you—I’m not going to be easy to get moving.”
He kept his arm
around her as she took a step, leaning heavily on him.
Her large belly
made her off-balanced and awkward but, to her relief, she was able to move. Very
slowly.
Her father
joined them when they’d finally gotten to the door of her apartment. Erin was
already exhausted. She breathed heavily and felt sickeningly dizzy.
“I might puke
all over your fancy car.” She paused to catch her breath, basically draped over
him.
Seth glanced
over at her father. “You’ll bring—”
“I’ve got it,” her
dad assured him, showing him the freshly rinsed out little trashcan.
“My purse,” Erin
mumbled, closing her eyes and praying she’d be able to make it all the way down
the hall to the elevator. The trip seemed really long at the moment.
“I’ve got that
too.” Her father opened the apartment door and held it for them.
They maneuvered
through the narrow doorway. “I might puke all over your pretty suit.” She
wasn’t sure why she was so terrified about getting to the car in this
condition, but the anxiety was real and was making her heart pound.
“Then it’s a
good thing I have more than one suit,” Seth replied dryly, nudging her forward
a little.
They made their
way slowly down the hall. Halfway along, Erin was sweating and panting, and she
began to feel a familiar rolling around in her belly.