Kiss in the Dark by Jenna Mills Page A

Did you let him into your bed after he walked out?”
    “No.” The mere thought sickened her.
    “Then—”
    “No!” she said, realizing he was trying to link her pregnancy with the night in the mountains. The thought rocked her even harder. “No. I can’t conceive naturally. If I’m pregnant, it’s from artificial insemination.”
    His expression hardened. “What are you talking about? You and Lance are divorced, for crissakes.”
    “Not Lance,” she whispered, emotion ripping through her. “I … I saw no reason to quit trying just because I was suddenly single. I—I wanted a child.”
    “Whose?”
    She put her hands to her stomach. “Donor.” She hadn’t really expected it to work, not after all the years trying, but her doctor had encouraged her. The memory of that day cut deep, how alone she’d felt. How bittersweet and nostalgic. That’s why she’d driven to the mountain retreat.
    And found Dylan.
    He stepped from the bed, as though he’d been standing too close to the edge of some place deep and dark. The planes of his face tightened, paled. His body was tense, his hands balled into tight fists. He looked angry, shocked, like she’d just confessed to killing Lance in cold blood.
    “Why?” he asked in an oddly hoarse voice.
    “Why what?”
    “Why didn’t you tell me you might be pregnant?”
    Her throat thickened. “Why would I?”
    “Because it changes everything.”
    She couldn’t dispute that. For days now she’d been suspended in an alternate world where time held no meaning and feeling brought only pain. But now a few rays of sun had broken through the clouds, and whispers of warmth overrode the chill.
    “It changes my life,” she said softly. “Not yours.”
    She might as well have slapped him. He recoiled visibly, his eyes going even harder.
    “I had no idea,” she added. Had long since given up hope. “I took a test after the last procedure. It came back negative. And then I started to bleed.”
    “Many women spot during their first trimester,” Dr. Lyons put in. “It’s just the body’s way of adjusting.”
    Dylan stood back from the bed, but he’d yet to look away from her. It felt odd having him there, listening to her and the doctor discuss intimacies such as bleeding, but the look on his face made it clear Special Forces would be required to make him leave.
    After issuing a few more instructions, including the recommendation that Beth see her ob-gyn, the physician left.
    There was just her and Dylan now, but the cubicle seemed smaller with the two of them than it had with three.
    Silence pushed in from all directions. Her throat and chest were tight, breathing hurt. So did looking at Dylan. Looking at him crushed nine years into nine minutes, and too easily she saw him staggering out of the bathroom, pale and dark-eyed, holding the plastic wand of the home pregnancy test in his hand.
    “Bethany?”
    She looked from his trembling hand to the hard line of his mouth. “Oh, God. Dylan.”
    “When were you going to tell me?”
    His expression mirrored that of so long ago, prompting her to draw her hands to her stomach. “Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered.
    He didn’t move, didn’t change expressions. “How?”
    “Like I’ve—” betrayed you “—done something wrong.”
    Swearing softly, he crossed the room and with a simple touch, shattered her. “You’re crying.”
    She blinked rapidly, but the tears kept coming, spilling over her lashes from eyes long dry. She hadn’t been able to cry for years now, not after all the failed attempts to become pregnant, not when she realized Lance was involved with another woman, not when he moved out, not when she realized she really didn’t care. Not when she found him dead.
    But God help her, the tears wouldn’t stop now. And more than anything, she wanted Dylan to pull her into his arms and hold her. Just hold her.
    “I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “I’m going to have a baby.” Her throat