On top of all that, Dante and Damien are going to flip out. I got their unmarried baby sister pregnant. That's going to go over like a lead balloon, especially with Damien since I've hidden our relationship from him. Making matters even worse, I still have to tell all of the Harts about the s.h.i.t that my delightful parents laid on me earlier.

She'd been totally silent the entire time I was thinking, and looking back at her I found her quietly crying. I guess being pregnant with my kid didn't turn out to be such a dream after all. She looked like it was a f.u.c.king nightmare actually, and that killed me. She was probably so f.u.c.king sad when she realized that she was going to be saddled with my s.h.i.tty parenting style for life.

"I tried Spencer... I tried to have a termination. I know that's what you would want, but I couldn't do it. I want our baby."

When she said that, it felt as though I'd been kicked in the nuts. I wouldn't have asked her to get rid of it. "I'm not a monster Delilah. I wouldn't ever ask you to get rid of your baby."

I could only deal with so much, but I knew one thing for sure. No matter what she tried to say, we had to do things my way. I needed to ensure that no matter what, she'd be taken care of and that no one ever said s.h.i.t about her not being married when she has the baby.

"Take a shower and get dressed Delilah. We're driving to Vegas and getting married."

Spluttering, she stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "What? No!"

No? f.u.c.king no was her answer? Was she trying trying to hurt me? What happened to her telling me that she loved me? to hurt me? What happened to her telling me that she loved me?

"It wasn't a question, and it's not up for negotiation. I'm always going to take care of you Delilah, no matter what, just like I always promised you. I want us to be married when we tell the family about your baby."

Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes were filled with tears when she shook her head in the negative. "I'm not getting married without my family there. I can't believe you'd even suggest something so ridiculous. I'm also not marrying you when I can clearly see this isn't what you want. I'm not holding a gun to your head, and I don't want this. The family will learn to deal with it. Yes, my brothers will be p.i.s.sed at first, but they will get over it. I know you don't want the baby Spencer, know that you don't want to be a part of this. I'm prepared for what that means."

Dammit, she was killing me. Why didn't she want to marry me? Had she already moved on in her mind?

"I want to marry you Delilah. You're not having a b.a.s.t.a.r.d baby."

She was off the bed so fast that it was as if she was powered by rocket fuel. She stood before me proud and gloriously naked, hands on her hips as she glared at me. "You're not listening to me Spencer. You've never straight up ignored everything I've said before, and I don't like it. Knock it the f.u.c.k off or I am going to go rage out on you, pregnancy hormone style. Our baby isn't going to be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and if you ever say that again, I'll hurt you. I'll say it again; I'm not marrying you like this."

I jumped up from the bed too, glaring at her. "That's bulls.h.i.t Delilah, and you know it! You know what this tells me? You never planned to marry me no matter what happened, because you know I'm not good enough for you! Apparently I'm good enough to f.u.c.k, but not to marry. Why did you even bother telling me at all if you cared so little about what I'd want?"

She stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language, her expression one of utter confusion. "Is that what you think I'm saying Spencer? That I never wanted to marry you, that I think you're not good enough? That's not what I'm saying at all at all. I've wanted to be Delilah Cross since I was five years old, you idiot. I'm head over heels in love with you, the same way I have been for the last decade. LISTEN to me. I can't want to marry you when it isn't what you want, and I am NOT marrying you in Las Vegas. IF we ever get married, we're having a real wedding. Didn't it occur to you that perhaps you should have tried asking asking me instead of me instead of telling telling me? The way you're going about it makes me feel like s.h.i.t, like a burden." me? The way you're going about it makes me feel like s.h.i.t, like a burden."

Before I could edit myself I shouted, "Because you know that to me, your baby IS a f.u.c.king burden! Not you, it. I'm not f.u.c.king doing cartwheels, because I'm horrified. I'll deal with it because that's what you need me to do, but don't expect me to pretend everything is okay. I told you I didn't want children and I wasn't kidding. Just remember that when you can't stand me because I'm s.h.i.t as a parent."

I knew as the words were coming out of my mouth that I was f.u.c.king up, but I was scared, freaked out, and stupid. Her eyes were huge in her face as she gaped at me, holding her stomach like I'd punched her. Turning her back on me, she went to her bureau and grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of underwear.

When she was covered, she faced me again. The tone of her voice when she spoke was arctic. "Get dressed and get out."

It was like I couldn't control myself, like my brain was taking a vacation. I dressed in under a minute as she glared at me, and seeing her disappointment, something in me snapped. "f.u.c.k it. I shouldn't be near that d.a.m.n baby anyway."

She was across the room in a flash, slapping me across the face so hard that I wondered if I'd have a bruise. "Don't you ever ever talk about our baby that way. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" talk about our baby that way. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

I needed to escape, to put as much distance between the baby she was carrying and me. Stomping into the living room, I flung the door open and ran out, slamming the door behind me. I'd just gotten to the bottom of the stairs when she came out after me.

Standing at the top of the stairs, she glared down at me. "You forgot your folder, a.s.shole." It was as she went to throw the folder at me that she lost her balance, and I watched in horror as she fell down the stairs like a Raggedy Ann doll. I ran forward to catch her but I didn't make it, and she landed in a lifeless heap at my feet.

I yelled, or maybe screamed, as I dropped to the ground in front of her. She was out cold, and her forehead was gushing blood. Suddenly there were concerned neighbors everywhere, and somebody shouted that they were calling 911. I held her, begging her to wake up, but she wasn't coming around. What I felt like in that moment, the terror that took me, eclipsed any other feeling I'd ever had.

I realized later that at some point I started shouting, "She's pregnant, help her please, she can't lose our baby" over and over again.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Dominique

I sat straight up from a dead sleep knowing something was wrong. I tried to calm myself down for a moment, tried to convince myself that I was having some form of anxiety that must have started with a dream I must have been having. I tried to convince myself, but I knew that wasn't true. Turning on the light next to the bed, I shook Tally to wake her up. "Honey, get up. Wake up."

Struggling, she opened her eyes and looked around. Apparently, the look on my face told its own story, because she popped up next to me and grabbed my head. "Nik, what's wrong?"

I shook my head. "I don't know exactly what, but something's wrong with my sister. I can feel it. Get dressed while I try to get her on the phone. We need to go over there."

We both threw clothes on while I called Delilah's cell and her house phone, neither getting me anything. With every pa.s.sing second, I knew for sure that she was in trouble. Turning to Tally I cried out, "She's hurt. I know she's hurt."

We ran to my car, and Tally climbed behind the wheel, driving us toward Delilah's as I kept trying and trying to get ahold of her by phone. We only lived a few blocks away from each other, so we were turning down her street just five minutes after I'd woken up.

When we made the turn, I saw an ambulance and police cars, and I knew it was bad. I heard a terrifying sound that wasn't quite human, and I was shocked to realize it was coming from me.

I told Tally to call Damien, Mama San and Spencer, and before she even really had time to stop the car I was out and running toward the EMTs that I could see at the base of my sister's apartment stairs.

There wasn't an ounce of control in me, and I pushed forward to see her. They had her strapped to a gurney with her neck immobilized. Her face and her shirt were covered in blood and her eyes were closed. "That's my sister," I sobbed. "Please, please tell me what's wrong."

Before anyone could tell me, Spencer came from nowhere and grabbed me to him. He was hysterically crying, barely making any sense. "She fell. I saw her as it was happening, tried to run toward her but it happened so fast. She fell down the stairs and she won't wake up."

I cried and shook as they loaded her into the ambulance, absolutely terrified and helpless. Normally, Spencer would have been someone I'd turn to in crisis, but he was in worse shape than I was. Tally appeared next to us, dragging us both to the car. "We need to follow the ambulance."

Once we got in the car, she told me she'd gotten ahold of Mama San and that she'd be meeting us at the hospital, and that Damien and Brooke were in Laguna Beach and would get there as soon as they could.

Thank G.o.d for Tally, because she drove and kept as calm as she could while I shook and tried not to vomit and Spencer sobbed in the backseat.

When we got to the hospital we ran into the emergency room, and Tally took care of talking to the intake people, telling them who we were there for. A few minutes later Mama San came flying through the sliding doors, white as a sheet and crying. "Where's my little girl?"

I shook my head at her, told her everything we knew and explained that we hadn't talked to any doctors yet. Her phone rang and she picked it up, quietly crying as she filled Damien in.

The entire time, Spencer said nothing. He just sat crying, absolutely incoherent. We all tried to talk to him, but he was totally gone. Even when I told him that I felt like Delilah was going to be okay, he said nothing. I wondered if he was going catatonic on me, and it scared the s.h.i.t out of me. I'd never seen him like that, so broken I wasn't positive he could make his way back.

It took over an hour for a doctor to come see us, and when he did we all breathed a sigh of relief. He came to all of us but spoke directly to Mama San. "Your daughter is going to be fine, but we need to keep her for observation for the next forty-eight hours. She hit her head on the way down, and that's why she was unconscious. It's also the reason she was bleeding. That took six st.i.tches. Not huge by any means, but that's where all of the blood came from. Facial bleeding tends to look more extreme than it actually is. She'll definitely have some bruising on her body, but all things considered, she got very lucky."

The doctor paused for a moment, and in that time Spencer snapped out of it and jumped up. He stepped forward to frantically say, "The baby... is our baby okay?"

I realized that she'd told him she was pregnant, and I was relieved. He deserved to know, and I was happy to hear that he referred to the baby as being theirs. He cared, and I felt stupid for ever even considering that he wouldn't.

We all held our collective breaths as we waited for the doctor to answer. Facing Spencer, he smiled. "Your baby is fine, but Miss Hart's pregnancy is part of the reason we want to observe her. It's a precaution, but we like to be sure."

I saw Spencer sag in relief, and my heart broke for him. He had been so terrified for the two of them that he'd scared all of us. "Thank G.o.d our baby is going to be okay," he said. With that, he fainted dead away.

My already frayed nerves went haywire, but thankfully the doctor was right there to keep us calm. He called for smelling salts, and within a few minutes Spencer was sitting on a gurney drinking a fruit punch while we all hovered around him to make sure that he was alright.

Normally he would have been embarra.s.sed, but he was far too worried about Delilah to care about himself. Once we had Spencer settled, the doctor told us that one of us would be able to go check on Delilah, while the rest of us would have to wait until morning.

Turning to Spencer he said, "Normally we'd let the father of the baby go, but since you aren't married, you need to work it out with her mother."

Spencer deferred to Sandra immediately, never even telling the doctor that she wasn't actually Delilah's mom, but Sandra surprised us all by saying no. "Spencer, it's lovely for you to offer, but you just fainted because you're freaking out. You need to see her."

Turning to Tally and I she explained, "She'll want Spencer and we all know it. I want to see my baby girl, but I know she'd rather have him than anyone else. I just want her to be happy."

I'm not sure if I was the only one that noticed that he grimaced when she said that, and when he got off the gurney to follow the doctor, he didn't look too confident.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Delilah

I hurt everywhere and my head was pounding. I'd woken up in a room full of people taking my vital signs and asking me questions, and at first I couldn't remember what happened. A few minutes later it came back to me like a tidal wave, and I remembered seeing Spencer's face freeze into a mask of pure terror as I lost my balance and started to fall down the stairs.

Most of the doctors and nurses had talked at me and not to me, and everyone insisted that I take it easy and relax. "You were out for almost twenty minutes," one of the doctors finally told me. "There was a lot of blood, but that's normal with these things. We cleaned you up and in time you'll be good as new."

The agony I felt in that moment gutted me. I'd lost our baby. I knew Spencer wouldn't be sad, but I was devastated. When the doctor left the room, I turned my head into the pillow to quietly cry. For one beautiful moment I'd been full of life, but now Spencer and I were done and I had nothing.

Sometime later I heard the door open. The shift in the air told me that it was Spencer, and my heart broke. We'd never fought before, not ever, but I didn't see how we could get back from this. I could forgive him, but I'd never be able to look at him without knowing that he was relieved that the baby was gone. I'd never get over the fact that I'd been so filled with love and he'd been so filled with... not love.

He came and pulled up the lone chair in the room to the side of the bed and grabbed my hand like it was a lifeline. "Delilah, baby. I'm so sorry. This was my fault. I'll never forgive myself for getting you so upset that you fell down the stairs, but I promise that I'm going to try to be everything you need me to be from here on out."

My heart broke into a million tiny pieces and I shook as sobs erupted from me. "It's not your fault I fell. Accidents happen, and I don't blame you at all. But I can't do this Spencer. It's too late."

I couldn't even look at him, but I heard his sharp inhalation. "No, Delilah, please don't do this. I swear to you that I'll never let you down again. I didn't mean anything that I said, I promise you. I just f.u.c.king panicked. I know I was an a.s.shole, and my only defense is that I'm scared. I'm here baby, and I'm never leaving you or pushing you away again."

I heard an inhuman wail and then was shocked to realize that it was me. "I can't even look at you now. You called our baby 'it'. You couldn't even say the baby was ours or yours. You just kept saying that it was my my baby. Now that OUR baby is gone, you want to go back to the way things were. That kills me Spencer, absolutely destroys me. I lost our baby and you..." baby. Now that OUR baby is gone, you want to go back to the way things were. That kills me Spencer, absolutely destroys me. I lost our baby and you..."

He put his hand over my mouth, interrupting me. "Delilah stop, you're upsetting yourself for no reason. You didn't lose the baby. You're still pregnant. Our Our baby is fine." baby is fine."

My heart stopped beating for a moment as I tried to process his words. Lifting my pounding head up, I looked at him. "But the doctor said there was a lot of blood, told me once I healed I'd be good as new."

Cupping my face with his free hand, Spencer smiled through his tears. "Oh angel... he was talking about your face. You got a gash on your forehead and it was a gusher. He a.s.sured me that our baby is fine."

I stared at him in wonder as my heart took flight. Our baby was still growing inside of me, and I felt such joy that I was weak with it. I started to cry again, this time tears of joy. My hand went to my stomach, rubbing gently as I mentally told our baby how happy I was, how much I loved him already.

When Spencer's hand covered mine, I looked up in confusion. He was still crying, his eyes pleading with me to listen. "I don't think I'll be worth s.h.i.t as a father, but I'm going to be here for you and our baby until the day I die. I want you to know that I was relieved that our baby is fine, and I was devastated when I thought you might have miscarried. I'm sorry; I was a jacka.s.s because I was scared s.h.i.tless. When you fell, I was terrified that I'd lost you both. I want you to have the baby Delilah. I love you more than anything, and I'll love the baby too. How can I not when it's a part of you?"

Grabbing his hand, I held it tight to my stomach. "This baby is a part of you, and that's why I couldn't have a termination. I was scared and upset when I found out that I was pregnant, but the truth is that once the idea settled, I was thrilled. I couldn't help but fall in love with this life that we created together."

Watching his face, I realized that he was terrified that he'd fail as a parent. But now that I knew that he was going to throw himself into it, I knew that he wouldn't. Spencer has never let me down, and I know he won't let our baby down either. He doesn't know that he was born to be a father, but I do. The baby and I just needed to show him the way. We'd been given a second chance, and I was going to make sure we used it.

Reaching his hand into his pocket, he stared at me for a minute before pulling something out. I watched in shock as he dropped to his knee and opened a white jeweler's box that held the most beautiful ring I'd ever seen in my life. Looking into my eyes, he smiled. "I've had the ring for weeks Delilah. I bought it because I had to, even when I thought we couldn't be together." Putting his hand over his heart he went on, "In my heart, I've always been yours. We're forever angel. Will you marry me?"

I smiled like I'd just won the lottery. "There is nothing in the world that would make me happier. I love you more than anything, and I always will. Of course my answer is yes!"

He put the ring on my finger as I cried tears of joy. It was official! I was going to be Mrs. Spencer Cross. My lifelong dream was coming true, and soon we'd be sharing our love with the baby we created together. The night started off terribly, but it was now easily the best night of my life.

We were interrupted by a nurse coming to kick Spencer out. He begged her to let him stay, but she stood firm. He asked her for just a few minutes so that he could say goodbye, and she reluctantly told him that he had three minutes, and not one second more.

I could see what it was going cost him to have to leave me, and my heart filled up with such love for him I thought I almost overflowed with it. Any thought that I'd had about him not loving me anymore, or hating me for being pregnant, had clearly been preposterous. I felt the truth of what he'd said weeks ago about my being his sun, and I smiled at him in wonder even as my head pounded.

Leaning over the bed he held my hand and looked into my eyes. "I love you Delilah, and I'll love you until the day I die. You're the reason that my life wound up being worth anything angel, and I swear to you that I'll move Heaven and Earth to be worthy of you, always."

My eyes were filled with more tears as I lifted my free hand and brushed his hair off his forehead. "Your life was always worth something baby, I just help you make sense of it all. You've always done that for me too, you know. You're more than worthy. You're perfect for me because we were born to complete each other." Cradling his face in my hand, I smiled at him. "I love you Spencer Cross, and we're going to have a beautiful family. Have faith."

My heart lodged somewhere in my throat when he bent forward and laid his head on my stomach. I knew he was struggling so I patiently ran my fingers through his hair. Lifting his head up, he smiled at me. "I bet she's beautiful, just like you."

Shaking my head, I beamed at him. "Or he he could be beautiful like you. Whichever way it turns out, I can already tell that our baby will be perfect." could be beautiful like you. Whichever way it turns out, I can already tell that our baby will be perfect."

I saw the panic in his eyes and I tucked that away in my head. He was more afraid of having a son than a daughter, and I knew it tied right back to his childhood and the issues with his father. I'd have to work on that with him, because I had a very very strong feeling that I was carrying our son. strong feeling that I was carrying our son.

The nurse chose that moment to come back and boot him out. He kissed me again, fighting panic as he turned to leave. "I'll be fine Spencer. Tell the family that I can't wait to see them tomorrow. It's just a few hours away baby. It's okay."

Pulling my hand up, he kissed my engagement ring. "I'll be here as soon as they'll let me in tomorrow. I love you baby."

Smiling, I pushed his hair off his forehead. "Love you too baby. See you in a few hours."

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Spencer

It killed me to leave her in that hospital room all alone. I couldn't even tell myself that she needed her rest, because the nurse had already informed us both that they'd have to wake her up every ninety minutes through the night as a precaution.

Once the nurse forced me out, I headed back into the waiting room. Aunt Sandra, Dominique and Tally had been joined by Damien and Brooke, and when I walked in Damien jumped up and started barraging me with questions. "Is she awake? Can she move? Does her head hurt? When can she come home? Do you really really think she's okay?" think she's okay?"

Aunt Sandra put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Honey, give him a chance. He's still upright and functional which tells me that she's okay. Am I right Spencer?"

Right before I went to answer, I realized the key question that he hadn't asked. He didn't ask me about the baby, which meant his still didn't know. I knew that everyone else in the room knew, with the exception of Brooke unless she'd been told, but apparently they hadn't shared the information with him.

Deciding that I'd have to ask to talk to him alone, I started updating everyone on Delilah's condition.