Chapter 1 - THE MAN IN THE WAITING ROOM
Sloan had just learned she was having a boy when she heard Dr. Morrison speaking to someone outside the exam room.
Six months earlier, Sloan had disappeared from Boston with two duffel bags, cash, and a pregnancy test she had shown no one.
She left behind her nursing job.
Her apartment.
And Caspian Reed.
Especially Caspian Reed.
They had met when Caspian arrived in her emergency department with a gunshot wound through his shoulder and a story nobody believed.
He had made her laugh while she cleaned blood from his skin.
Later came dinners.
Long drives.
Quiet mornings when Caspian seemed less like the dangerous man Boston whispered about and more like someone who had spent his whole life waiting for one person he didn't have to frighten.
Sloan fell in love before she understood how powerful he really was.
Then one night she overheard him tell one of his men to “make an example” of someone who had crossed him.
Sloan had spent her adult life saving people.
She could not imagine raising a child in a world where violence could be ordered in a calm voice.
So she ran.
In Providence, she used her mother's maiden name, rented a tiny studio, and found work at a small clinic.
Every ordinary morning felt like victory.
Now, twenty-three weeks pregnant, Sloan stared at the grainy ultrasound image in her hand.
A boy.
Her son.
For several beautiful seconds, she allowed herself to imagine tiny socks, bedtime stories, and a little hand wrapped around her finger.
Then she heard Dr. Morrison's strained voice outside.
Sloan slipped the ultrasound photograph into her bag and stepped into the hallway.
The clinic was small.
Only one corner separated her from reception.
She turned it.
And stopped breathing.
Caspian Reed stood among the worn waiting-room chairs.
Dark wool coat.
Broad shoulders.
Two security men near the entrance.
His expression was unreadable until his eyes found hers.
For one endless moment, neither moved.
Then Caspian looked down.
At her belly.
Sloan watched the shock leave his face.
What replaced it was quieter.
And somehow much more frightening.
“Six months,” he said.
Sloan instinctively covered her stomach with one hand.
Caspian noticed.
His jaw tightened.
“Is the baby mine?”
Sloan's silence answered him.
Caspian closed his eyes for one second.
When they opened again, he wasn't looking at her like an angry man.
He looked wounded.
Then Dr. Morrison stepped between them.
“Mr. Reed, my patient needs—”
“I won't touch her.”
Caspian's gaze never left Sloan.
“I just want the truth.”
Sloan swallowed.
“You're looking at it.”
His eyes dropped again to the curve beneath her sweater.
Then back to her face.
“A son?”
Her hand tightened around the strap of her bag.
“How did you know?”
Caspian's expression changed.
Because Sloan suddenly understood something.
He hadn't.
Until she asked.
May you like
And now he did.
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