Undeniably Married (Boston’s Irresistible Billionaires Book 4)
Undeniably Married: Chapter 22

“Seriously? Your grandmother caught you?” Jack laughs raucously as if that’s the best thing he’s ever heard. He knows my grandmother well. Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” has been in my head, mocking me since she gave me a once-over and proceeded to purse her lips disapprovingly. Serena planted the song in my thoughts when she couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes straight on the phone last night, and now it won’t die. Neither will Jack, who’s still laughing.

“Fuck off.”

“Isn’t that what you got caught doing?”

“She caught us after the fact.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this other than Jack is pretty much a vault, and sometimes it’s nice to have a non-family member or a non-Mason person I can talk to. After my grandmother gave me a very knowing, very chastising look last night, we were essentially escorted into dinner and forced to sit there with my entire family—including my parents—at our table.

I got a lot of questioning looks, scowls, and wry smirks.

It was a tense night, let’s just say that.

I think my father and his twin brother, my uncle Luca, were plotting how Mason’s body could wash up in the Charles River without them being implicated.

But when Mason and I got home, he scooped me up and carried me down the hall to his room, giving me no choice in the matter. He laid me down on his bed and made me scream his name six ways to Christmas, and by the end of it, I was agreeing to move into his room and not quit our marriage. I don’t even know how it happened. The man pulled some orgasmic witchcraft on me.

But I guess now we’re trying, and if we’re trying, I don’t have much of an argument against it.

“That’s great.” He laughs harder, and there is no stopping my small giggle even as I try to appear annoyed or indignant or whatever I’m going for. It is pretty funny, and I’m thirty-five, not fifteen. My grandmother can guess I have sex, but still, it’s my grandmother, Boston’s queen, and Mrs. Proper and Manners herself.

“Shush it.” I smack his arm playfully. “But what do I do about the…” I glance around and lower my voice. “What do I do about the marriage part of it?”

“You mean because Mason Reyes wants you to have his babies and stay married to him for life?” he deadpans, and I roll my eyes.

“It’s not quite that extreme.”

He gives me a look. “Men don’t want to stay married unless it is.”

Before I can formulate a response, the overhead PA system goes off with “Code White, Emergency Department. Code White, Emergency Department.”

Jack and I exchange wide-eyed glances and look around. We’re in the back part of the Emergency Department where fast-tracks take place since those are primarily what I float down here to do, but we don’t see or hear anything. Code White is a violent situation, but⁠—

Boom. Out of absolutely nowhere, I’m hit from behind and body-checked straight into the corner of the wall. White-hot searing pain shoots up my jaw and through my cheek, and I drop to the floor in a crumpled heap. Reflexively, I cover my face, whimpering and trying to stave off automatic tears when I feel blood.

“Fuck you, fuckers, I’m out of here!” the person who smashed into me cries out, and I catch a woman wearing only a patient gown and nothing else since her ass is on full display, running zigzag past us. A nurse and an intern are hot on her heels, chasing her like two puppies chasing a car, and Jack springs into action, going after the patient. Only before she can reach the back exit or be properly subdued by the trail of hospital employees after her, she slams into a code cart in the hall, sending it careening against the wall with a loud bang, and subsequently, she goes down like a ton of bricks.

Jack slides to the floor next to her, and I hear the wheezing intern who is splinting his side explain how the patient came in high on something they think might be meth and that before they could examine her or get a full, detailed history, she hit him with a bedpan—thankfully an unused one—and made a run for it.

“Give her 100 mg of Haldol IM and put her in restraints until we know she’s calm. And get a full set of labs, including a tox screen,” Jack orders sharply, and the intern and nurse spew a thousand promises and apologies as they work on the patient. Jack climbs to his feet and comes back over to me, snapping on gloves and crouching before me.

“Are you okay, Dr. Fritz-Reyes?” a passing nurse asks, and I grunt, but this time not from pain. Not her too.

“I’m fine. And It’s Dr. Fritz.” She’s already gone, not having waited for my answer as the patient is starting to regain consciousness and her energy, requiring more hands to attend to her.

Jack smirks for a half-second before it slips, and he’s right in my face. “Are you okay?”

I nod, though I’m not sure I am. It was a hell of a blindsided hit, and my face hurts like hell.

“Can you stand, or do you need me to get you a wheelchair?”

“I can stand.” Because I’d rather die than get into a wheelchair in front of the entire emergency department.

Jack shields me with his body, one hand taking mine, the other looping under my arm to help me up. He tucks me against him and walks us slowly toward an empty patient room where he shuts the glass door behind us, jerks the curtain closed, and helps me onto a clean gurney.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” I tell him.

He gives me a look. “Why are Fritz women always so stubborn? You were just attacked and knocked into a wall. Your cheek is bleeding and swollen and you winced about sixty times just getting up on the gurney. I’m going to check you out unless you want me to call in someone else to do it. I think Layla is on soon, and I can see if she’s already here, or do you want me to page Katy?”

I shake my head. “No. Just do it.”

“Okay. I’m going to have you lie back for me.”

I do, squinting against the harsh LEDs overhead. He uses some saline-soaked gauze to clean the wound on my face and starts to examine it, pressing around on the bones and skin. I wince as a fresh wave of pain zaps across my cheek.

“We’re definitely getting an X-ray of that,” he tells me. “And possibly some glue unless you want plastics to come down and stitch you up.”

“Glue is fine unless it’ll make me look like Frankenstein.”

“It won’t. It’s a tiny cut, just deep and a bit of a bleeder.”

“Glue away.”

“Ribs first. Are you okay with me lifting your shirt?”

“Yes, Jack. I’m fine.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “I have to make sure. You have a thing for ruining your friendships with men.”

“Har, har. That was a low—” I hiss out a breath. Jesus, that hurts. “Blow,” I finish, holding my breath and releasing it slowly as the pressure of his fingers leaves.

“Those are getting an X-ray too, though there’s no redness or bruising.”

“The pain wasn’t terrible, just a bit of a shock.”

“That’s good at least. Hopefully, they’re not cracked.”

He pulls his stethoscope from around his neck and checks my breathing to make sure I don’t have a collapsed lung or, worse, a hemothorax or hemopneumothorax, which is blood or blood and air in my pleural space.

“Lung sounds are clear. I’m going to get the portable X-ray. Any chance you’re pregnant?”

“Nope,” I answer automatically, but for some reason, he holds his gaze on my face. “What? I’m not. I’m on the pill.”

He gives me an unimpressed look, and I huff. How many times has a patient come in and told us they were on the pill only to turn up pregnant? Too many to count is the answer.

“When was your last period?”

I sigh, already knowing where this is headed. “I don’t get one. I’m on a progesterone-only pill.”

“Great. Pregnancy test it is. Can you go to the bathroom and leave a specimen, or should I get you a bedpan?”

Ugh. “You’re an asshole. Help me up.”

He chuckles, grasping my hand and back to sit me up, though it feels like someone is stabbing me with razor blades. Gingerly, I make my way down the hall and into the bathroom, holding my stupid specimen cup in hand. It takes me forever just to be able to sit on the toilet and then even longer to be able to pee into the cup because, fluffernutters, injuring your ribs is no joke.

Once that’s done, I screw the cap on the cup, flush, and go to wash— “Oh, shit, my face.”

I look like I just lost a boxing match. People will get the wrong impression about this, and I couldn’t blame them for it. I’ll have to talk to Mason. The press is finally starting to quiet down, and Brody’s emails are less and less frequent. I think he’s starting to get the message it’s over, though he’s still trying, I guess.

Now this happens.

With the pace of a snail, I come back to the patient room I was in and set my lovely cup of urine down on the metal tray. Humiliation has nothing on me now. Thankfully, Jack is all business as he snaps on fresh gloves.

“Nothing says friendship like doing a dipstick on your female friend’s urine.”

He throws me a sideways grin. “If anything, it’ll bring us closer.”

“Closer like you and Owen closer or closer like you and Wren closer?” I bounce my eyebrows and regret that too. I need to stop moving. Or breathing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Riiight. That’s why I heard you’re trying to switch students with Montgomery.”

“Shut up.”

I smirk and lie back down. Sitting sucks.

He dips the stick in the urine and sets it down on a paper towel, leaving it as he sets up the X-ray.

“Face or ribs first?” he asks.

“Doctor’s choice.”

He cleans my cut with Betadine and applies a small amount of Dermabond to the cut. It stings a bit, but it doesn’t last long.

Once he’s satisfied with the wound’s approximation, he goes back over to the waiting stick. “Do you have someone to drive you—” His voice cuts off as he stares down at the stick, and a spike of alarm shoots through my blood, making my muscles tense.

My lips part to ask him why he looks as though the Grim Reaper is doubling as my pee, but I can’t make the words let alone any sound come out. It’s impossible, I immediately think, only my body seems to know better as a tidal wave of nausea hits me.

“Jack?” I finally utter, and he turns remorsefully to me. Without a word, he walks the stick over to me so I can see it. Two pink lines, clear as fucking day. No! I shake my head, my mouth opening and closing like a fish. I stare at the lines, my heart racing and my thoughts swirling. “Do another,” I whisper so low I’m not sure he heard me, but he must have because he returns to the tray, pulls another out of the box, and repeats the process.

He stands over it, watching, and I can’t get up because my fucking ribs hurt like hell, and oh my god, I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant with… fuck. FUCK!

With a sigh, he wheels the tray over to me and sits down on the gurney beside me, taking my hand and helping me to sit up so I can see it for myself. A tear slips out quickly, followed by another, and I sniffle.

“Glad we checked.”

I nod, licking my lips and tasting my salty tears on them. I wipe my face and let out a humorless laugh. “I don’t know…” My voice catches, and I swallow to clear it. “I don’t know who the father is,” I admit and break down, only crying makes the pain racking my body excruciating.

He squeezes my hand tighter.

“I don’t get a period,” I continue, battling hysterics. “I don’t know how pregnant I am. The last time I slept with Brody was a week or so before the wedding, and I slept with Mason the day after I ran out on Brody and married him.” Oh, Jesus, this is bad. So freaking bad. I’m the ultimate cliché. And it sounds even worse when I say it all out loud. I was tested a week before the wedding, and Brody and I last slept together the night before that. Either it was too soon to tell I was pregnant, or I wasn’t pregnant yet. Then I remember the pill. “I missed a pill and doubled up when I was in Vegas.”

“That shouldn’t necessarily do it, but on progesterone-only pills…” He trails off, and I know. You have to be especially careful with those. They have to be taken at the same time every day religiously. So maybe, hopefully, it’s Mason’s and not Brody’s.

“Oh god, Jack. I can’t be pregnant. My life is a mess. My ex ruthlessly cheated on me, and my husband isn’t even my real husband. We’re not… I mean, we’re not even fully together. I told him only last night I’d try, but trying isn’t the sort of thing that lends itself to pregnancy, and I just got out of my relationship with Brody a month ago.”

Hysteria starts to consume me, making my limbs shake with adrenaline.

“Shh,” Jack soothes, running his hand down my hair. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. First things first, you need an ultrasound to determine how far along you are. That should tell you who the father is.”

“Right.” More tears, and there is no stopping them. I wish Serena were here. Why does she have to live in Paris? I could call Stella or hell, even Layla or Katy, but I’m not ready to have this passed through my family yet. Speaking of, I laugh and then wince and cry some more.

“I could do the ultrasound, but it needs to be transvaginal and⁠—”

“No.” I blow out a tight breath and force myself to get my shit back together. “I’ll go up and see Keegan. Thank you, though. You’re an incredible friend, and I’m so grateful you’re here right now. I swear, I’ll never tease you about Wren again.”

He gives me a sad sort of smile. I can’t even tease him well right now.

Pregnant. How can I be pregnant?