Elena decided silence was probably in her best interest right now. This wasn’t the time nor the place to have this discussion. Certainly not while her brain seemed to be scattered and her foot was throbbing.
“Can you stand, Elena?” he asked, finally taking his gaze from her stomach to where she was testing out her ankle.
When he kneeled down and ran his large hands along her tender ankle, she couldn’t prevent the squeak of pain that escaped her.
“Obviously not. You’ve hurt your ankle,” he answered his own question.
“I’m fine. Just go away and let me get my bearings back,” she said, having no doubt her words would do her no good. He didn’t appear to be going anywhere in the near future.
Before he could say anything a nurse came around the corner and spotted them.
“Is everything all right?” the man asked.
“No. Ms. Truman has hurt her ankle. Can you get a wheelchair?” Tyler said before she was able to tell the man she was fine.
“It’s not that bad,” Elena said, but the nurse was already turning to go and do Tyler’s bidding. The man seemed to have that kind of effect on people.
“You’re obviously not fine, Elena. We will get your foot looked at and then you will tell me what you meant about a baby,” Tyler demanded.
The nurse was back in a flash, and then before Elena could protest further, Tyler was lifting her from the ground and depositing her in the contraption. He walked next to her while the nurse pushed her straight back to an examining room just like the one she’d recently vacated.
Tyler was silent as the nurse disappeared, assuring them the doctor would be right with them. Elena refused to look at him. If she pretended he wasn’t there, maybe the man would just disappear, giving her time to think.
That didn’t happen.
A knock sounded on the door and the same doctor who’d examined her about fifteen minutes ago walked in. She held her breath, hoping he wasn’t going to say something that was going to make this situation worse.
“Ms. Truman, the nurse said you had a fall in the hallway,” Dr. Ortega said, taking a seat in front of her.
“Yes, I’m sure it’s nothing, but my ankle is a little tender,” she told him.
He felt her ankle, making her cringe. “It feels like a strain, but we’ll send you in for an X-Ray to make sure. I’m going to also do an ultrasound to make sure the baby wasn’t hurt. They are pretty protected inside you, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Her luck just wasn’t with her.
“Yes, an ultrasound would be good,” Tyler said.
There was no inflection in his voice to give her any clue at all to what he was thinking. And she was too scared to look at him to try to read the expression in his eyes.
“Are you the father?” the doctor asked.
“No,” Tyler said. “We just ran into each other in the hallway.”
Elena’s heart shattered at his words. He was acting as if they were complete strangers.
“I’m sorry about that. We’re going to examine her in here, so if you want to wait outside,” Dr. Ortega told him.
Elena still didn’t look at Tyler. If she did, she was surely going to fall apart. And there was no way she wanted that to happen in front of him or the doctor.
“I’ll be outside,” Tyler said.
She didn’t look up until she heard the door closing in the most final sounding click she’d ever heard. Why would he bother waiting? He didn’t think the baby was his, and he’d obviously just decided their relationship was over.
“Lie back and we’ll get started.”
Time stopped having any meaning at all while Elena’s stomach and ankle was checked. Her foot would heal fine, just a sprain. They wrapped it and she could move slowly on it. The fall, or at least that’s what the doctor thought, spiked her blood pressure to dangerously high levels, though, so he decided he wanted to keep her in the hospital overnight.
She tried to argue with him, but when he brought up the safety of her baby, she gave up the fight. Just because she wanted to go home and curl up with some ice-cream and a lot of tears, didn’t mean she was going to put her baby’s life in danger.
The positive of her being admitted was that it took a while to get her moved to her room. She was hoping against all hope that Tyler would grow impatient and leave. That would give her more time to pull herself together. Because their next words to each other weren’t going to be pleasant.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tyler paced the sitting area of the hospital as he tried to figure out what in the world was going on. When he’d called Piper to find out where Elena was and she told him Elena was at the clinic at the hospital, he’d panicked, and had immediately gone searching for her.
What had happened was not what he’d been expecting.
She was pregnant. That thought stumbled around inside his mind. Was it his child? He didn’t take her as a cheater, but still … He was always careful, always used protection.
Except for one night.
They’d used nothing at the park.
But if she were pregnant, why hadn’t she answered him in the hospital corridor? The only explanation he could come up with was that she knew it wasn’t his child, knew that a DNA test would prove that. Otherwise, wouldn’t she have told him the moment she knew about it, wouldn’t she be trying to get him to marry her and get a nice healthy sum of money for herself?
That was the only thing that made sense for him.
In reality, Tyler should be thanking his lucky stars. This should end his obsession with this woman. He was too hooked on her, too infatuated. Since she was pregnant, that meant she hadn’t been faithful to him.