She had told Joanna she needed to understand the word love before saying it, but now Addison believed she had finally grasped the meaning, so the decision to have Joanna end the pregnancy, while tragic, made perfect sense to Addison. The child Joanna was carrying was a stranger. A nameless, faceless, sexless stranger with no qualities other than a heartbeat, but Joanna was real. She was breathing and smiling, loving and feisty, and she had become a part of Addison’s world, a part that Addison was not willing to lose...for anything.

The door to the master suite had barely opened when Addison leapt off the bed. “Did you read them?”

“I told you I would,” Joanna said, coming into the room.

“Thank God,” Addison said in a breath. “I’m sure if you call the doctor first thing in the morning—”

“I have no intention of calling the doctor.”

“What? But you just said—”

“I said I read your grandfather’s notes and looked at the Bibles, but Addison, I have no intention of aborting this child.”

Addison rocked back on her heels. “You have to!”

As she had promised, Joanna had spent over an hour reading through Xavier’s notes and looking at the information written in the Bibles. Although it was hard to believe, Addison was right. Every Kane wife had died in childbirth, and on the three instances of fraternal twins prior to Addison and her brother, while both children had survived their birth, only the boy had lived a long and prosperous life. All three girls reached maturity and then married, but died giving birth to stillborn children, confirming what Addison had said. She had no cousins, aunts, or uncles. Her lineage was a very thin, straight line, and the baby Joanna was carrying was at the end of it.

Sadness was the prevailing emotion Joanna felt while reading what Xavier had written. She had no idea why the women had died or why the Kane family had such a tragic history, but there was nothing written on those pages that could have changed Joanna’s mind...for her instinct was maternal and unwavering.

“No, I don’t,” Joanna said calmly. “There’s nothing to say those women were in the best of health, or if they weren’t, and medicine back then was...well, it isn’t what it is now.”

“Stop being so bloody stupid about this!”

Joanna’s entire body went rigid. “Don’t you ever call me stupid.”

“Then stop acting like it!” Addison shouted. “It’s clear my family is cursed and—”

“Cursed?” Joanna said, scrunching up her face. “Jesus Christ, do you hear what you’re saying?”