She was lying in the doorway that led into the connecting bathroom. Harper was leaning over Lana, trying to make her wake up. Layla was already there staring down at her sister in horror. I followed her gaze and my heart stopped when I saw that her yoga pants were covered in blood.
“Lana, wake up!” Harper pleaded, as she tapped her on the cheek. “Please, please, please, wakeup.”
Shane was just behind me, and when he saw the blood on Lana’s pants, the blood that was still almost gushing out of her and flooding the tan carpet under her, he made a gagging noise. Emmie pushed him toward the door, her phone already to her ear. “Get out, Shane. Go wait for the paramedics!”
I bent down beside of Lana. Her face was pale, the life seeming to drain out of her. I grasped her hand. It was so cold. “Angel…” I whispered but she didn’t even flinch.
Linc pushed Harper out of the way and felt Lana’s neck for a pulse. “It’s very slow.” He said, looking over at Emmie who was on the phone barking out orders. I could only guess she was talking to 9-1-1.
My heart was racing, fear gripping me so hard I almost couldn’t breathe. I wanted to do something, anything, but I was useless. It felt like an eternity before the paramedics arrived, but it was only ten minutes. My heart stopped when Linc yelled that Lana had stopped breathing just as the paramedics came through the door. I was pushed out of the way so they could get to her.
Layla was talking to the EMT in charge, asking if she could go with them, but they couldn’t let her or anyone else, not when Lana was barely hanging on. As they loaded her onto the gurney, I reached for her hand once more. Her fingers were like ice now, and I was doing nothing but praying, almost willing her to live. I had heard what the paramedics had said, I knew what was wrong. One more thing I was responsible for. One more thing that threatened to take Lana away from me forever…
Lana was losing our baby.
Chapter 23
Lana
I sat on the end of my bed, my head in my hands as I sobbed. I had just destroyed the man I loved.
I knew that nothing happened the night before. I couldn’t not believe it when both Layla and Emmie had beaten it out of Gabriella. It had just taken me a minute to get it straight in my head. Now I had to fix what I had broken in the next room, and I had no idea how I was going to do that.
I should never have told him about our night together. It hadn’t done anything but hurt him, something that I had been aiming for as the words slipped from my mouth. But now I regretted it. Emmie was right. I did hold all the power and I had used it against Drake, when I should have loved him.
Harper knocked on our bedroom door, and I raised my head as she stuck hers around to look in at me. “Are you okay?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” That seemed to be my answer for everything today. “I messed up really bad, Harper.”
She stepped into our room and closed the door behind her. “It will be okay, sweetie. Drake loves you just as much as you love him.”
“I know.” If nothing else, I knew that Drake loved me. He needed me, and I needed him. Sighing, I pushed the hair that had fallen from the ponytail out of my face. “Is he still here?”
“He’s out cold right now. Your brother-in-law knocked his socks off.” A grim smile twisted her mouth. “Layla has him in Linc’s room trying to cool him down.”
Perfect. Now, I had caused two men that had been friends all their lives to fight. “I better go deal with them then.” I shifted on the edge of the bed and grimaced in pain. My cramps were getting worse. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to get through them without whimpering. My period was late, nothing unusual about that, but now that I was getting ready to start, it was going to be a real bitch to get through.
When the last one seemed to pass I got to my feet. “I just need a minute…” I murmured. As I took a step toward the bathroom the world seemed to tilt. I felt something thick and sticky run down my thighs and had enough sense to look down. My yoga pants were covered in blood…
The pain was awful. I had nothing else to compare it to. I blinked my eyes open, unsure what I was going to find. The hospital room wasn’t on my list of things to expect to find. There were tubes coming from all directions: oxygen in my nose, an IV in my left arm, and a heart monitor on my chest. I shifted my legs and my entire body protested in pain. A whimper escaped me.
Strong, cold fingers brushed across my forehead. “Angel?”
“Drake?” I whispered his name. My lips were dry and cracked, my throat felt like I had swallowed glass. “What…happened?”
He was pale with a few days growth of hair on his jaw that hadn’t been there when I last saw him. “I’m sorry, Angel. This is all my fault.” His voice cracked and I saw the tears in his eyes.
I gripped his hand, scared. “Nothing is your fault. Stop thinking things like that.” I tugged on his hand, pulling him closer. I had no idea what had happened, but I knew that Drake wasn’t to blame for anything. “I love you, Drake.”
The sob that left him made my heart ache. “I love you, Angel…” He kissed my forehead. “I love you more than anything in the world.”
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. “Why do I hurt so bad?”
He closed his eyes. “You had a miscarriage. Our baby is gone.”
If I thought I was in pain before, it was nothing compared to hearing those words. “I…” Tears blinded me. “I was pregnant?”
Drake nodded. “I’m sorry, Angel. I should have protected you.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry!” I cried. “You aren’t the only one that is in this relationship, stupid. I knew we weren’t being careful…” Maybe I had hoped for something to happen, like getting pregnant. I hadn’t been worried about not being careful because deep down I had wanted Drake’s baby. It was selfish, but I had secretly wanted that tie to him.
And I hadn’t even known it had actually happened. Our child had been growing deep inside of me, and I hadn’t known. A sob felt like it was being ripped from my chest. “Drake, our baby!”
He gathered me into his arms as much as he could without hurting me. “I know. I know, Angel,” he whispered brokenly as he gently rocked me.
The door to my room opened so suddenly I was startled. A man with graying hair and a white coat came in with a nurse in pink scrubs right behind him. “Miss Daniels,” he greeted, and I raised my head from Drake’s chest. “It’s good to see you awake.”
I frowned at him. “How long have I been out?” Maybe that should have been my first question to Drake, but I was still a little disorientated and was finding it even harder to focus with the news that Drake had given me.
“Three days, off and on.” The doctor put his iPad on the little table beside of my bed, and Drake reluctantly stepped back to give the doctor access to me. “You have had everyone in the waiting room on pins and needles waiting for you to wake up. Mr. Stevenson here has refused to leave your side, and your sister has been driving my staff up the wall wanting an hourly progress report...” a small smile tilted his lips “...but we have managed.”
I couldn’t find the will to return his smile. I hurt too badly, physically and emotionally. “Drake said I had a miscarriage.”
The doctor nodded. “Yes… These things sometimes happen in first pregnancies, but yours was a little different. You had an ectopic pregnancy, where the baby settled in your fallopian tube, and as it grew that tube ruptured. You nearly bled to death. I had to remove the tube.”
My hand went to my lower stomach, and I felt the bandage that covered the incision. “Will I…” I broke off and raised my eyes to meet Drake’s “...will I be able to have another baby?”
“Because of the removal of the fallopian your chances of conceiving have been cut in half, but I see no reason for you not to be able to have another baby.”
Relief washed over me and the tears started falling once more. “Really?”
The doctor nodded. “You are a healthy young woman. There is no reason that you shou
ldn’t.”
It took the doctor ten minutes to examine me. I was one big ache by the time he and his nurse left with a promise of bringing me pain medication soon. I lay back against the pillows while Drake continued to look out the window where he had been the whole time the doctor was checking me over. “Drake?”
His shoulders lifted and fell as he let out a long breath, but he didn’t turn around. “I do nothing but hurt you.”
I closed my eyes, scared that he was about to tell me goodbye. “No.”
“Yes.” His movements were jerky as he finally turned around to face me. “I took advantage of you back in December then cheated on you the next day.” I flinched at the remembered pain that had caused. “Then I turn around and do the same thing. I’m all kinds of wrong for you, Lana.”
“Angel,” I whispered, and he frowned.
“What?”
A tear spilled down my cheek, and I quickly brushed it away. “Angel. Not Lana, never Lana again. I’m your angel, Drake. Don’t ever call me Lana again.”
“I…”
“And you are wrong. I don’t think you cheated with Gabriella. Even drunk, you wouldn’t do that, especially with her.” I lifted my hand, offering it to him, silently begging him to come to me. “You aren’t wrong for me, Drake. You’re the best thing in my world. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
He took a hesitating step forward. “I love you, Angel. More than anything, I love you.”
“I love you too.” It came out a vow, which it was. “Hold me, Drake. Please hold me.”
He moved quickly and then his arms were around me, and I felt some of my tension ease. “I thought I had lost you.” His tears soaked my neck as he buried his face in my shoulder. “I thought I had lost my reason for living.”
I combed my fingers through his hair, soothing us both a little. “You could never lose me, babe. I’m yours, forever.”
--
I was almost asleep when I heard the door to my private room open. Thinking it was Drake coming back after visiting hours, even though I had made him promise to go home and sleep, I raised my head. If I were honest, I would admit to being selfish enough to want Drake to come back, even though I knew he was dead on his feet after sitting beside my bed for the last three days.
It wasn’t Drake, however. I blinked in the dim lighting coming from the tall street lamps outside my window, thinking at first that I was indeed asleep and dreamed the man that quietly made his way toward me. I was awake, and he was very real.
“What are you doing here, Cole?” I demanded, my voice hoarse from the tube that had been down my throat during my emergency surgery three days before.
He stopped a few feet away. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dim light, but his face appeared pale. “Axton and I came to visit you yesterday, and I spoke to your sister and brother-in-law.” His voice was gruff, full of some emotion I couldn’t place in the old rocker. “Why didn’t you tell me, Lana?”
My heart turned cold, and I pulled the covers up to my chest. “Tell you what?” I tried to play dumb, but he wasn’t having any of that.
“You are my daughter.” He thrust his hands into his jean pockets as he frowned down at me. I wished I could see his eyes, those eyes that were identical to my own, but they were in the shadows. “Would you have ever told me yourself?”
I clenched my jaw, upset with my sister and Jesse for telling this man anything. “Probably not,” I told him truthfully.
A small grin tilted his lips even though his brow was still furrowed. “At least you’re honest. You have fire, Lana. God, you remind me…”
“If you say I remind you of you, I will throw something at your head!”
“…my sister,” he finished, a full blown grin making his face relax in a way that made him look at least ten years younger. “You remind me of my sister. You look a little like her, actually. I’m surprised that I didn’t notice it before.”
I didn’t want to get into a big discussion with Cole Steel. “What do you want, Cole?”
The grin disappeared. “I wanted to see how you are doing. To make sure that you were okay.”
I felt anger start to boil in my veins. “As you can see I’m alive.” He flinched as if I had slapped him hard enough to knock a few teeth loose, but I refused to feel sympathetic toward him. For me, his concern came eighteen years too late.
“I know you don’t like me much, Lana. I don’t blame you in the least for hating me, actually. When you were born, I wasn’t a very nice person, more like a real bastard.” He sighed. “I lost everything and I blamed you for it, even when I knew that you were the only innocent one in the whole damned mess.”
“I never wanted your money,” I spit the words at him.
“And I never planned on stopping the child support.” He surprised me by admitting that. “It was just a ruse to force your mother to let me see you.”
Despite myself, I found myself wanting to know more all of a sudden. “Why?”
Cole grimaced. “At the time I thought I was going to die of throat cancer. I wanted to make peace with everyone in my life, you included. That was before they removed the nodule on my vocals and discovered that it was benign.”
“I’m so glad that when you found out you weren’t going to kick the bucket you decided I wasn’t worth your time after all.” I rolled my eyes at him, angry with him and myself for even daring to wonder about that time in my life. “I think you should go now. I’m tired.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Lana. I’m sorry that I have.” His face was full of remorse, but I wasn’t willing to let myself care.
“Did you ever sort things out with your son?” I called after him before he had reached the door. The fact that I had a brother had never really mattered to me. Even at the age of eight, when I had first realized that I had a brother, I knew that the boy I shared blood with was a douche bag.
Cole turned. “No. His mother poisoned him against me. Now, even as successful as he is in the movie business, he isn’t much to be proud of. Not like you, Lana. You, I have always been proud of. For not turning out like your mother, for growing up to be so mature and independent.”
“Layla was a good role model. She raised me, took care of me, and did the things that you should have had the balls to do.” The words came out full of venom. “You weren’t man enough to take care of your responsibilities. Others had to do your job.”
“I know.” He wasn’t making excuses and that made me even angrier, which was completely crazy.
“You don’t deserve to be my father.”
“I know that too.”
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Just stop it!”
“Stop what, Lana?” he asked, his voice calm in my fury. “Stop agreeing with you? I know that I’m a piece of shit. I know that I let you down when I should have done everything in my power to protect you. Not a day goes by that I don’t wake up hating myself because of what I did to you. Fuck, girl. I didn’t even know your name until Jesse Thornton nearly tore my head off yesterday. And when I realized that the little girl I had tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage was you… That my little girl had been so close to bleeding to death, and I hadn’t gotten to tell you all the things I wanted—needed—to tell you, I lost it.”
Angry, frustrating tears spilled down my cheeks, and I scrubbed them away with the hand that wasn’t tangled in my IV line. “And you think that coming here and baring your soul will wipe away the past?” I shook my head. “It doesn’t work like that, Cole.”
“God, I know that, sweetheart. I know that nothing I say or do will ever make up for the past. I’m even prepared for you to hate me for the rest of your life… I just needed to talk to you. To tell you…” he blew out a long sigh that was full of regret. “I’m sorry for your loss, honey. And I hope that you and Stevenson are happy together. He doesn’t deserve you, but if he makes you happy, then you hold on tight.”
I opened my mouth to yell at him again, but nothing came out but a choked sob.
Through my tears, I watched as my dad turned and walked out the door to my hospital room.
--
I spent three more days in the hospital. By that time, Nik had flown out with Mia and Lucy. I hadn’t seen my baby sister since I had moved to New York, so it was a bitter sweet reunion when I got to see her. She was keeping her hair shorter now, all those long dark ringlets now short little curls that ended at her chin just added to her beauty.
My emotions were all over the place at the moment. The doctor told me that it was completely normal, that I would have some postpartum even though I hadn’t been very far into the pregnancy. Seeing Mia, so beautiful and healthy, made my heart ache for the unknown little being that had been growing inside of me…
I was so glad to go home. I felt like I was going to go insane locked up in the hospital room. Instead of going back to my apartment, Drake asked me to go home to his. He wanted me to move in, and I was more than willing to do just that. I didn’t want to spend a day away from him ever again if I could help it. Layla and Jesse tried to talk me into going back to California with them when they went home, but I couldn’t. To me, New York was home now. I only hoped that Drake felt the same way.
Every night, Drake slept beside me. He held me close, and we talked like we had never talked before. I felt like I knew him inside and out now, but something was missing. He kissed me often, but never tried to take it further. Even when I got the green light from the doctor six weeks later, it was as if he was scared to touch me.
I didn’t know what to think about that. I knew that he still wanted me, could feel his erection every time he kissed me. Each morning, I woke to his dick hard as a rock, twitching against my ass. When I tried to make things happen, he would always pull back. To say I was frustrated was the understatement of the century.
Other than being sexually frustrated, life was returning to normal. I was getting through my depression with Drake’s help as well as help from my friends. Layla called every day to check in on me, and Lucy was constantly sending me crazy texts. Jesse was being a little overbearing, acting like the protective alpha male that he was.