All Chapters of Fighting Back (Fighting For Love 5): Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

“Help Nick. I know.” Katie wasn’t backing down now, not one goddamn bit. “You’ve called about two hundred different clinics – here and in Canada – begging the doctors to take a look at Nick’s medical records, begging for them to give you a second opinion. When you didn’t like it, you got a third, then a fourth. How many did you get in the end?”“I don’t know,” Mia muttered.“Well, I do,” Katie said relentlessly. “Thirty-six. You had thirty-six different doctors tell you that amputation is the only course of action in Nick’s case, and every single time that happened, you just buckled down more. Fought harder. ”“Again, how is this a bad thing?”“You don’t eat,” Katie said. “You look like you’ve dropped about fifteen pounds in less than a month. You don’t sleep. You don’t talk, not to us, not to Nick. Did you know that you’ve been sitting in that chair for three hours straight, Mia, and that you didn't say a word to any of us until Marnie asked if you wanted a coffee? You haven’t even m

“You’re also… I don’t know. Making up for lost time, maybe. It’s like you feel so bad that you weren’t there then, so you’re killing yourself to be there now. It’s some kind of penance, but again, what you need to get straight in your head is that Nick made the choice to not let you support him. He didn’t talk to you, Mia, and he didn’t talk to me.” Those eyes were so soft in his hard face, and Mia saw real worry and regret there. “If he’d asked, you’d have been there. I know that, and he knows that, and you’d damn well better know that. He didn’t ask, though, and that’s not your fault.”“It’s not yours, either.” She forced herself to speak though the lump in her throat. “I know that you’ve been running yourself ragged at The Rock, picking up the slack from Nick missing work. Katie said that you sleep maybe three hours a night, and that if you’re not running the gym almost single-handedly, then you’re spending time with Nick. So you’re also doing penance, Adam. Also punishing yourself

“Of course she will.” Will was watching his son closely. “Is that a problem?”“I –” Nick swallowed hard. “No. Yes. Well… no.”“Which is it? Yes or no?”“I – I don’t know. Neither. Both.” He shut his eyes. “Fuck.”“Uh-huh.” Will Spencer leaned back in his chair, regarded his only child. “Some advice about Mia, Nick?”Stunned, Nick gazed at his father. The man had never – not once in recent memory – offered Nick any advice about his personal life. His education, sure. His professional martial arts career, for damn sure. How to run his business? Will had been a geyser of information and advice, most of it as annoying as hell, though also usually bang-on correct. But women? No, that was strictly a no-go topic of conversation between them, and Nick was cool with that. Even after his girlfriend Shelley had been killed and Nick had gone off the deep end with one-night-stands, his Dad had stayed out of it. So his father wanting to say anything about Mia was shocking to the point of being dam

Stunned at what he was willing to show her, what he was trusting her with, Mia lay still. Didn’t move a muscle, barely breathed, stayed silent. She just held him, and let him hold her.Time stopped then, as Mia lay in Nick’s embrace. His grip tightened around her and her fingers curled around his hospital robe, pulling him as close as possible. And for just a little while, they both forgot what was coming. They just breathed.They breathed together.After about ten minutes, Mia felt him shift his weight, and she lifted her head to meet his eyes. When she saw the pain in them, she stiffened in worry and quickly pulled away.“No,” he rasped, hating how empty his arms felt all of a sudden. “Stay, babe.”“You’re hurting,” she replied, not even bothering to phrase it as a question. “I’m going to get the doctor.”“Not yet,” he said. “First, I want to tell you something.”“Nick.” Mia tried to sit up, tried to move away, but once again, his upper body strength was nothing that she could even

Two days laterKatie forced herself to stay in the kitchen for exactly three minutes. Then she dashed back to the bathroom and grabbed the stick from the counter next to the sink.And…One line. One goddamn line.She stared down at the home pregnancy test, happy that she’d decided to wait until Adam had gone to the gym to do this. She knew that he wanted to be a father more than he wanted anything on earth… and the sight of yet another negative test would upset him deeply. This was the fifth negative test in over four months, after all.Yeah, sure, he’d put on a brave face and kiss her, tell her that they’d keep trying. He’d probably crack a joke about how much fun he was having with all the trying – and the whole time, Katie would see the hurt in his hard blue eyes.Hurt that she’d caused by letting him down again. By failing.She sighed, tossed the test in the garbage, then crumpled up some toilet paper and covered the test with it. She didn’t want Adam seeing it later and asking an