She nodded.

“A good one?”

She cleared her throat. “The day after the diagnosis, I went to see Dr. Martin—the oncologist I did my undergraduate research under. He’s the one who sponsored my application to Hopkins. He got on the phone with a colleague who specializes in breast cancer oncology here and then set up my consultation and surgery in Maryland.”

My mouth dropped open. “How did you afford all that?”

She took a deep breath and shot me a fearful look. “Um. Credit card and…the engagement ring.”

I looked away, and wildly, a chuckle rose in my throat. A strange orphan of a creature, this cynical, dry laugh. It was born from the bizarre irony we found ourselves in. That ring—that symbol of my trying to take control of a situation quickly slipping away from me, used instead by her to assert her independence, so she wouldn’t have to come to me for financial help.

I pulled my hand away from hers. It probably should have hurt my feelings more than it did but at this point I was starting to feel dead inside.

“You need a second opinion. I’m going to find out who the best is and you are going to see him or her.”

She stiffened next to me. “I have my treatment plan in place. I’m already—”

My voice rose. “Oh really? What part of your plan involved getting pregnant?”

She blinked. I instantly felt like a dick for blurting it out. I reached out and took her hand again. “I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t what you planned. I’m just…” and I let my voice die out.

“Scared?” she said.

Fucking utterly pit-in-my-stomach terrified was more like it. I looked away, nodded. My hand tightened around hers. Was Heath right? Was getting her pregnant like handing her a death sentence?

“I’ll find a good clinic, too. I’m sure there’s something fantastic up in LA where we can have it done quickly.”

She frowned. “Have what done?”

“The abortion.”

She sat back, pulling her hand away from mine. “I haven’t made that decision yet.”

I turned on the couch so that I was fully facing her. “The decision has been made for you. You have cancer. You need chemotherapy. You can’t have that and be pregnant. And who knows what damage the radiation has done…”

She shook her head. “I finished that before I conceived. There’s no risk after the fact.” Her eyes drifted to the window, her head tilted, thinking. “As for the chemo, I could delay it.”

My fist closed on the couch beside my thigh. “No, you can’t. You have no time. You need to fight this shit now.”

Her gaze returned to mine. “There are some forms of chemo that are safe for a fetus in the second trimester.”

Yeah, I’d just read that. But it wasn’t the type of chemo she needed and the second trimester was at least two months away. “You don’t have that kind of time. I’ve been sitting here reading about this and it’s worse than most other types of breast cancer and—”

She put her hand out to stop me. “Please. I know and I don’t need to hear this right now.”

“But maybe you need to be reminded that your type of cancer is particularly sensitive to hormones. That’s why you had to stop taking the pill, right?”

She nodded.

“And what do you think the pregnancy hormones are going to do to you? What do you really think your oncologist is going to say?”

She slumped back, rubbing her forehead. “Please tell me you aren’t saying all this because you don’t want this.”

“What I want doesn’t even belong in this conversation, besides the fact that I want you to have the best chance to fight this. To live.”

“Where would I be if my mother had made the choice to abort her pregnancy?” she said in a quiet voice. “She had the choice and she chose not to.”

Ah fuck. Fuck. She was actually considering this lunacy. “Her circumstances were different. If she were here right now she’d tell you that exact same thing.”

She turned to me, paling. “Please don’t tell her. She’ll get worried. She might get sick again—Please, Adam!”

That was an argument for another day. I wouldn’t make that promise. If I determined that Kim was the only one who could talk sense into her daughter, then I sure as hell was going to tell her. And for fuck’s sake, there’d been more than enough secrecy about this already.

“You can’t go through with this.”

“My father wanted my mother to get an abortion,” she said in a raspy voice, glaring at me.