Chapter 81

Olivia

Nathan and I spent the rest of the night in the hospital, neither of us sleeping for very long stretches of time between the humming of the lights and the beeping of the machines.

It was early in the morning when Angela, with her jacket on and her purse slung over her shoulder, slipped back into my room.

“Your shift is over?” I asked.

Angela nodded. Then, after a pensive silence that seemed to stretch on forever, finally let out a sharp exhale. “I decided to do it,” she said, her voice wavering just slightly. “I forged the paternity test for you.”

Both Nathan’s and my eyes widened as Angela walked over to Nathan and slipped something into his hands — a small, nondescript envelope, our ticket to a lie that had to be told.

I watched as he held it carefully, as if it was the most precious thing in the world.

“Thank you, Angela,” Nathan whispered.

Angela nodded again in affirmation. “If it’s discovered that the paternity test was forged, you had better not—”

“Of course,” Nathan interrupted, slipping the envelope into his jacket pocket. “I would never throw you under the bus like that.”

There was another long moment of silence, broken only by another sharp exhale escaping from Angela’s lips before she turned abruptly on her heel and walked over to the door. When she reached it, she stopped, her hand lingering on the handle.

“I had no idea that all of this was so complicated,” she said, staring down at the floor.

“You had no way of knowing,” I interjected, trying to portray the understanding in my voice.

Angela sighed, then looked over her shoulder, her eyes meeting mine. There was a newfound gentleness there, a sense of comradery between us. I think that she understood, deep down, that there was still more to my relationship with Nathan than met the eye.

“I’m glad we can be friends,” she uttered. “Good luck… With all of this.”

With that, Angela swung the door open and disappeared from the room before Nathan or I could utter a word.

Now that she was gone, the room returned to its previous palpable silence, made even more palpable by the weight of the forged paternity test in Nathan’s pocket.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the silence was broken once more by the doctor entering the room. Tensions rose as he checked my vitals and my chart, but those tensions dissolved as a smile crept across his face.

“Everything looks good,” he said. “You can go home now.”

“Really?” I asked, my eyes lighting up. “Will I bleed more or have any more pain?”

The doctor, much to my surprise, shook his head. “Not as far as I’m aware. It’s a funny thing, a mate’s touch… It can heal a surprising amount of things. We’re still trying to understand it.”

My eyes widened slightly at the doctor’s words, and I couldn’t help but glance over at Nathan at the mention of a mate’s touch…

Nathan wasn’t my mate. My wolf was dormant, and yet, somehow, Nathan’s presence managed to ease the symptoms.

However, when I looked over at Nathan, he wasn’t paying attention. He was looking out the window with his hand in the pocket, thumbing the envelope that contained the forged paternity test.

…

On the drive home, Nathan remained silent, lost in his thoughts.

I took a moment, marshaling my own thoughts, before finally breaking the quiet. “Nathan,” I ventured nervously, “can I ask you something?”

“Hm?” he responded. I could see dark circles under his eyes from where I sat, a somber indicator of the night spent awake in the hospital.

I swallowed hard. “What… What made you change your mind?”

He glanced at me, then focused back on the road. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke.

“I've been thinking, Liv,” he said, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “I think... I think my stubbornness has made you sick, hasn't it?”

I was taken aback. Was that guilt in his voice?

“What makes you think that?” I asked, curiously cocking my head to the side.

Nathan shrugged. “I think I’ve been selfish. All this time, I’ve been thinking so much about how important it is to be taken seriously by the Alpha Council, how important it is for our ‘relationship’ to be believable. Maybe if I hadn’t been so stubborn as to suggest something as outlandish as a fake wedding, you wouldn’t have been so stressed last night that you had all of that pain.”

I raised my eyebrows in response, shocked by Nathan’s sudden candidness.

“It’s not your fault,” I said gently and reassuringly. “These sorts of things just happen. I don’t think that the fake wedding had anything to do with it.”

“I think that it had at least a little bit to do with it,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on the road ahead of us. “At the very least, maybe you would have woken me up so I could have taken you to the hospital myself. But you didn’t, because I hurt you.”

There was nothing that I could say; in a way, Nathan was right. But he wasn’t completely right. I was stubborn, too, stubborn for being so closed off about my baby, stubborn for making such a big deal out of the fake wedding thing when I could have dealt with it in a mature way.

Before I could come up with anything to say in response, Nathan cleared his gravelly throat.

“I just want to make sure you're okay,” he continued, his voice dropping. “And not just you... our baby, too.”

His words hung in the air between us, heavy and meaningful.

‘Our baby,’ he had said, not ‘your baby.’ The subtle shift didn't escape me. It was a small change, but it spoke volumes.

Maybe it was just his exhaustion muddling his brain, blurring the lines that were already muddled from our fake relationship and hidden feelings.

But to me, in that moment, it hinted at a sense of shared responsibility, a declaration of his intent to be involved. But was I ready to face the implications of what he was saying?

A part of me wanted to confront him, to make him clarify his words. But I hesitated, opting instead to let the moment pass.

There was a bit of a silence, several minutes where no words were spoken between us as Nathan carefully guided the car around the gentle curves in the road.

The town eventually came back into view, its quaint buildings and tall trees accented against the dim blue glow of the morning sky as dawn spread its wings. Eventually, the pointed cupolas of my aunt’s little villa poked above the trees, beckoning for me to come home.

It was a relief to see home come into view. My bed called for me, that sacred space that filled me with comfort. As we pulled into the driveway, I felt my body relax and deflate, begging to lay my head on my soft pillow.

Nathan parked the car, then came around and opened my door for me, helping me out with a gentle touch. As we walked up to the front door, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning my head on his shoulder, grateful to have him by my side.

“Nathan…” I started, then paused, choosing my words carefully. “I appreciate everything that you do for me. I really do.”

Nathan smiled down at me, his face wrought with exhaustion. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to.

I decided not to probe further, not to mention the shift from ‘your baby’ to ‘our baby.’ It was a conversation that could be saved for another day.