"Fantastic. Thank you, Harper. You’ve been so helpful,” Don said.
"You can wait in the waiting room or head home and I’ll call you with the results," Harper said.
"I'll wait out in the waiting room," Don said.
I followed Don and Harper out of the exam room. Don went off to the left toward the main waiting room. Harper went to the right, down the hallway towards the labs.
"Got to hit the head," I said to Don. "I'll meet you back in the waiting room in a minute."
"All right," Don said. I hastily followed Harper down the hallway. There was a utility closet on the right, and I grabbed her elbow and pulled her inside.
"What are you doing?" she asked me angrily. I put my arms on her shoulders and I could tell she was trembling.
“I like your hair,” I said. “You took out the braids.”
“That was just for vacation. Like us.”
“It’s always vacation when I’m around,” I said, looking deep into her caramel colored eyes.
She sucked a breath through her teeth and licked her lips. The sight of her tongue flicking out of her round mouth made me instantly stiff. Goddamn, she was so beautiful.
"What do you have to say to me?" she asked.
"Harper, that night in Brazil. I can't stop thinking about it. About you."
"Andrew," she started.
"Call me Crash. Everybody calls me that now."
"Crash, that night never should have happened." I knew she was lying to herself. She’d loved it as much as I had.
"I seem to remember you enjoying yourself," I said, pressing my hard cock against her. She looked away but ran her hand up my arm and over my shoulder before looking at me again.
"That isn’t the point."
"What is the point?" I asked, grinning. I rubbed against her, drawing a little moan from those gorgeous, full lips.
"The point is that it was a mistake in the first place. And for another thing, you might be Don’s son. You realize what that means, don't you?"
I put my hand over her shoulder against the wall and looked straight into her eyes.
"Of course I know what that means. Apparently my estranged father is your mother's soon-to-be husband."
"And if you are Don’s son, when my mother and your father get married, you'll be my stepbrother."
"I don't see what that matters," I lied, leaning in to claim her lips.
My cock throbbed, and I was ready to turn her around and push inside her. She went liquid against me, throwing her arms around my shoulders with a heavy sigh. I had her. My tongue darted in her hot little mouth, and I gripped her breast.
She pushed away and went for the door. "Of course it matters," she said. "I don't want my mother to hate me."
She flung open the door and charged out of the room and down the hallway. I watched her as she walked away, feeling like a vice was gripping my heart.
Chapter Nine
I slipped into the lab, feeling like I was about to faint. How could this be happening? Crash was the last person I ever expected to see again. Now he was coming into my hospital with my soon to be stepfather, asking for a DNA test to prove that he was Don’s son. It was all going to make my head explode.
I couldn’t believe he’d kissed me, and I’d let him. My panties felt soaking wet and my nipples were as hard as cut diamonds. Damnit. I wanted that boy. Against all my better judgement.
This all had to be some kind of mistake. Maybe Crash was playing some kind of twisted joke on me for a sadistic kick. But I knew that couldn't be true. Crash might be a player, but the time we’d spent together in Brazil had been real. There was no denying that. I knew he wasn't messing with me now.
I went to check the equipment and it was free, so I started the DNA test. I didn't know if I hoped it was positive or negative. Part of me wanted the chance to be with Crash again. But the other part of me didn't ever want to see him again. It was just the representation of a giant mistake I’d made.
I dropped Don's swab into the machine and it calculated the results. Then I did the same thing with Crash’s swab. I input some information and waited. It was the longest five minutes of my life. My heart slammed against my ribcage, and my hands were numb. The machine beeped, and I looked up. When I saw the results, my mind went blank.
Positive match: 98.996%
Don really was Crash’s father. I would have to go tell them the truth now. This changed everything. Not only did I have a new soon-to-be stepbrother, but the biggest mistake of my life was now going to be a huge part of it.
I made a printout of the results and left the lab. Walking down the hall, my head was swimming. I'd never felt so faint before in my life, and I was on the first four hours of my sixteen-hour shift. I had a good night’s sleep the night before. This whole stepbrother thing was really getting to me.
I found Crash and Don in the waiting room and stood over them with the results printout in my hand.
"Well, congratulations. It's a boy," I said, my voice shaking. I handed the results paper to Don, who was positively beaming. I knew Don didn't have any children of his own. My mom had told me it was something that he really regretted. Now he had the son he'd never had.
Crash’s face was completely blank and unreadable. I could barely stand anymore because of the waves of dizziness swirling around in my head. I slid into a chair across from them.
"Well, holy fuck," Crash said, shaking his head. "I believed my mom was telling the truth. But…I never imagined this."
"I never imagined it either, son," Don said, patting Crash on the back. Crash cocked his head and gave his father a sly smile.
"Well, I guess you can call me son now," he said. "But I don't think that you've earned the title of father."
Don just shook his head and laughed. "You're a good kid, Andrew," Don said.
"Everyone calls him Crash," I said.
"Is that right?" Don asked.
"It's a nickname I got in the service. Now it's the name I fight under.”
"You're a fighter?" Don asked. "Boxing?"
"No, MMA," Crash said.
"Wow, that's brutal."
"It suits me.”
"I need to get back to work. My break is over," I said, rising from my chair.
I could feel Crash’s eyes on me as I walked away. My head was still swimming. When I walked into the locker room, a wave of nausea hit me like a tsunami. I ran to the bathroom and emptied my stomach.
A tear slid down my face as I clutched the porcelain. Rising up, my mind reeled with confusion. I didn't understand what was happening. I walked toward the sink and washed my hands. As I looked at myself in the mirror, the reality of what was happening came into stark focus.
I'd been ignoring it all this time, even though I knew it was a distinct possibility. The timing correlated perfectly with my Brazil trip and the night I'd spent with Crash. I sucked back a sob and tears started to stream down my face. I was a doctor for God’s sake. How could I be so stupid? So blind?
"Harper, what's wrong?"
I turned to find Ava standing behind me, pulling on her scrubs.
"I'm just tired out from the long hours," I said.
"You?" she said, chuckling.
I gave her a weak smile and walked past her.
"I didn't get enough sleep on my day off," I said.
I hurried out of the locker room and down the hall to the lab. I had to find out now. I couldn't wait anymore. Inside the lab, I pulled a specimen cup off the rack and went back out to the bathroom to fill it.
A few moments later, I stood in front of the testing equipment, my hands still shaking. I wondered if Crash and Don were still in the hospital or if they’d gone home. A few technicians were working on equipment on the other side of the room.
One looked up at me with a questioning expression on his face. I shrugged and went back to work. A pregnancy test involved testing urine for a specific protein. In a lab setting, the results were one hundred percent accurate.
I
squeezed a few milliliters into a pipette and deposited it into the testing solution. The color instantly turned blue. Fucking positive. My heart jumped into my chest and my already numb fingers couldn’t hold the pipette. I gasped audibly and dropped the pipette into my sample.
It splashed all over the counter.
Fuck.
The technicians looked up at me.
“Do you need any help over there, Doctor?” one of them asked.
“No. I’m fine. I can clean this up.”
I grabbed a sterile paper towel and a bottle of cleaning solution to fix my mess. After throwing the test and sample in the toxic waste garbage, I cleaned everything up.
“You okay?” the technician asked as I strode toward the door, my hands in my white coat.
“Fine. Just doing a quick test for a friend. It’s no big deal.”
“You aren’t supposed to do that.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” I said, giving him a quick wink.
My youth and cuteness had gotten me out of hot water more than once. I hated trading on it, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do in that moment.
My head was swimming with panic. Pregnancy hormones were already raging in my body. What was I supposed to do now? There was only one person who could be the father, and he was about to become my stepbrother.
I couldn’t tell anyone. The shame swirled in my gut, and I almost felt like I’d puke again. I just had to make it through my shift. Then I could go home and sleep and maybe I could think more clearly when I woke up.
I’d be stuck in the house with my mother and Don, and there was nowhere I could go to escape. Now Crash, the father of my bastard child, would be a part of my life as well.
My break was definitely over, and I hurried to where my attending physician was doing rounds with the rest of my resident class.
She looked up at me with cold concern in her eyes.
“Late again, Dr. Kelly? Are you planning to make it a habit? Dying people don’t work around your schedule.”
“No. Of course not. I’ve been mildly ill. It’s nothing. Something I ate.”
“Let’s not let that happen again.”
The rest of my class looked up at me. Some of them were smirking. I’d dominated in school. Now that we were graduates, no longer interns but real doctors, I was falling behind.
Everything I’d ever worked for had been for this moment in time. Now I was failing. Why? Because of a stupid drunken mistake I’d made in Brazil, on a vacation I never wanted to take in the first place.
We did our rounds, working with the attending in the ER. A bus accident came in and the ER became controlled chaos with blood and bones everywhere.
I helped stabilize a man who had a puncture wound in his chest, through his lung. He’d need surgery as soon as possible, but the operating rooms were all full.
Once he was stabilized, I sat with him, manually pumping air into his lungs so they wouldn’t collapse.
I looked at his battered face. He looked how I felt. After twenty minutes of manually pumping his lungs, the nurses carted him off to the operating room.
The ER had settled down by then. We’d lost a man in the next stall over. I’d never lost a patient. Not yet. And I was glad I hadn’t been working on him.
The way my emotions were raging, I might have broken down in tears. The attending physician was already on my ass. The last thing I needed was to appear weak and incompetent in the middle of an emergency.
Toward the end of my shift, the chief of surgery came through the ER and pulled me aside.
“I’ve read your status reports lately, Dr. Kelly. I have to say, I was disappointed. Is there something going on that I should know about?”
Ever since I’d met Dr. Wells, he’d been a combination of teacher, mentor, and father figure.
He rubbed his graying black beard, his dark brown eyes scrutinizing my every facial expression. As one of the few African-American doctors in my class, it seemed the other black doctors either took me under their wing with tenderness or dissected me with hostility.
“It’s nothing,” I lied.
“I’ve known your mother a long time. I know she’s getting remarried. I can understand why that might throw you off.”
“Yeah. It’s weird. She’s been single for so long. I thought it would be that way forever.”
“I’m rooting for you, Kelly, but you’re going to have to pick up the slack. You can’t be late for rounds. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Now, get back to work.” He gave me a grin, showing his straight white teeth.
I smiled weakly back at him and halfheartedly laughed.
The rest of my shift went by without a hitch. We delivered a baby in the ER because the little guy couldn’t wait for an obstetric room to be born.
Everyone cheered at the new life, happy that mother and baby were doing well. My shift ended in the middle of the night. I could either sleep at the hospital to be back at noon the next day, or I could drive over to Don’s house and sleep in that insanely comfortable bed.
I couldn’t even think about the fact that I was pregnant. I just pushed it right out of my mind. I wanted to avoid all of it. I wanted to avoid facing my mom and Don. But the lure of the comfy bed over the lumpy cot in the residents’ quarters was too alluring.
Out in the cool night air, I could see stars poke through the smog of the Los Angeles sky.
It reminded me of that night in Brazil, as Crash held me in his arms. When he was deep inside me, and everything was all pleasure and promise. The whole world could have disappeared in that moment. It had felt so right.
Now, everything just felt wrong. The one thing that had once been my source of pride was now a source of stress. I wasn’t keeping up with my classmates because of my personal issues. How easy it was to fall from grace.
I climbed into my car and made the short drive to Don’s house. The exterior lights were on, illuminating the driveway.
I parked my car and climbed out, feeling bone tired and fragile as hell. Up in my bedroom, I peeled out of my clothes and climbed under the warm, soft blankets on that giant, luxurious bed.
The mattress conformed to my back, and every muscle in my body relaxed. I let out a heavy sigh and closed my eyes.
Even if my life was going to hell, at least it would go there sleeping in this insanely comfortable bed.
Chapter Ten
I woke up to diffused sunlight streaming through my bedroom windows. I groaned and pulled myself out of my bed. Lifting my cell phone from the bedside table, I checked the time. It was still fairly early in the day. For that, I was grateful.
I was getting used to the fatigue of long hours at the hospital, but there was nothing worse than sleeping until right before I had to go back. It just made it that much worse. I trudged to the bathroom and turned on the water in the magnificent standup shower.
Slipping out of my bra and panties, I stepped in under the stream of warm water. I let out a sigh of pleasure. The shower faucet sprayed water down over my hair and skin. It felt so damn good.
There were high end shampoos, conditioners, and body washes already stocked in the shower. I used the ones that seemed like they would work best for me, lingering in the shower longer than I usually would have. Hot water never seemed to run out.
When I stepped out of the shower, I pulled a fluffy white bathrobe off the hook on the wall beside the shower and wrapped it around my shoulders. The towels stocked in the bathroom were no less luxurious than anything else. I dried my hair and walked out into the bedroom. My mom had already had my things brought over from my old house, and they had been hung in the closet and folded into the dresser.
I found some comfortable clothing and hastily got dressed. Then I finished my hair and makeup and slipped into a pair of tennis shoes. Out in the hallway, I could smell the faint scent of bacon and toast. I followed it to the dining room where a buffet of breakfast an
d coffee was set out against the wall opposite the windows.
My mother and Don were sitting at the table. Don was reading a newspaper and my mother was reading an iPad. They seemed so content and comfortable with each other, sitting in silence as they individually read the news or social media.
My mother looked up at me and smiled. “Good morning, Harper. I wasn’t sure if you would make it to breakfast or not. Selena said she heard you come in late last night.”
“I got in at three in the morning,” I said, picking up a plate from the buffet.
I scooped up scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast along with some mixed fruit. It was all expertly prepared by Gloria, the cook, no doubt. I poured a glass of orange juice and brought my things to the table to sit opposite my mother with my back to the view of the ocean.
“Thank you for your help yesterday at the hospital,” Don said.
“It wasn’t a problem,” I said. I didn’t want to admit that it was a huge problem. It was the biggest problem I’d ever had in my entire life. Not only was the man who I’d slept with in Brazil going to be my stepbrother, he was also going to be the father of my child.
A wave of panic hit me suddenly, and my hand began to shake as I held my fork. What was I going to do? What would happen to me if I had a baby? I couldn’t possibly tell my mother and Don who the father was. I couldn’t tell anyone. What would they think of me? What about my career? There’s no way I could make it through my resident schedule in the ER, being pregnant or having a child.
“Now that we’re all here,” Don said. “I wanted to talk to you about the Crash situation.”
“I think it’s wonderful that you found out that you have a son, Don,” my mother said. “I know you always regretted not having a child of your own.”
Don reached over and took her hand in his, giving her an affectionate smile. “I’ve offered to let Crash stay here at the house since he is between places right now. His mother just died, and he had to clean up all of her things and vacate her house. From what I understand, he’s been overseas for quite some time. First with the military and then doing his mixed martial arts fighting in Brazil. Weren’t you just in Brazil recently, Harper?”
Crash: A Bad Boy MMA Romance Page 6
