Free Provocative (Tempting Book 3) by Alex Lucian

just been there. Not long ago. Living inside of me.
    Nothing.
    The entire time, Nathan stared intently at the screen as if he could will the technician to find the magical baby that we’d seen so recently.
    The next hour moved slowly, with words like “empty sac” and “d & c” and sorrys laden with hurt eyes. Nathan brought his hands to his face, shielding his eyes and mouth from me as he dragged his fingers down his cheeks.
    Nathan was inches and lightyears away from me during all of it.
    Did he blame me?
    I did.
    Snow fell outside the window, heavier now. It collected along the bottom of the window pane, causing a fog to form around the corners of the glass. I wished to reach it, to rub my finger along the cold. To see if I’d feel anything from it, because right then all I felt was a profound loss of everything.

Chapter Twelve
    S hortly after we ’d come home, Nathan had hugged me but it didn’t reach the places of me that hurt the most. He tucked me into the bed and then left. I wasn’t sure when he returned, but when I woke at two in the morning, he was fully dressed beside me, fast asleep.
    I wandered the house that night, staring at myself in the mirror. Dark circles ringed my red eyes. My hair looked greasy, and my skin was nearly its same pale color. I examined my nails as I washed my hands, finally seeing the blood that caked under my nails. The sight of it made my stomach clench down and I began rubbing at it until my skin was raw.
    Downstairs, the ultrasound photo was on prominent display on the fridge. Yet another painful reminder. But I didn’t have as visceral of a reaction to it. Instead, I calmly removed the Nantucket magnet that held it to the fridge and then tucked it into a drawer. At the back of the drawer.
    I couldn’t be surrounded by the baby, not when I had lost it.
    I grabbed a box of cereal from the pantry and dug a handful into it, pressing the tiny O’s into my mouth.
    I wanted to be filled up. Because I felt so empty.
    When I pushed the last O that would fit into my mouth, I nearly choked. A fresh wave of tears stung the back of my eyes and a strangled sob wrenched its way from my throat, muffled by the O’s. I turned to the counter and gripped it as the tears slid down my face and cereal sputtered from my mouth.
    My stomach ached, my chest heaved, and my cheeks were coated in fresh tears. The emptiness was unbearable.
    And now, two weeks later, my cheeks were dry. I spent most of my days staring at the television, waiting for something to distract me. I think I pressed the channel up button on my remote a hundred times, but I lost track of how many times I passed one of the sports channels so it was likely more than a hundred times.
    I was wearing yoga pants—not the ones from the hospital. No, those were folded and tucked into a box at the bottom of my closet. Out of sight.
    But the internal bleeding hadn’t yet abated. Two weeks after the D & C and I was still grieving, and now, I was alone. Completely alone.
    Nathan had resumed his schedule from before, being gone all the time, but now it seemed as if he was gone more than before. I didn’t even bother even leaving a mess in the kitchen for him to find and scold me.
    I’d done that for the first week, leaving splatters of milk on the counter, a cupboard door open. I left reminders of my presence all over the house, because it seemed as if me standing in front of him wasn’t enough in and of itself. He hardly existed, moving around like a ghost.
    So, after the first week of me leaving messes—begging for him to notice me—I cleaned them up as soon as I made them. They annoyed me, because I saw how childish my attempt was.
    The house was pristine. Back to how Nathan had it before I moved in. I wondered who the ghost was: me or him.
    A sharp knock on the door caused me to jump up from my place on the couch. The remote fell onto the floor with enough force to pop the batteries out.
    I looked out the window and saw a small