Rachel Bailey - Return of the Secret Heir

“Well,” he drawled, “I’m not buying your delayed sunstroke theory. Although now I think about it, you fainted in my arms once before. Remember?” He’d taken her for a ride down by the river on a bike he’d just finished rebuilding, and they were walking along the river’s edge. Luckily he’d had an arm around her waist and had been able to catch her. Especially because she’d been pregnant.

The blood in his veins froze.

She’d been pregnant.

All traces of humor gone, he dropped his arms to his sides. “Pia, tell me you’re not pregnant with my child.”

Her eyes became large and round. “I’m not. I can’t be.” But her huge eyes reflected that same concern, then slid away. She’d wondered the same thing, too. And she was just as horrified by the prospect.

His head pounded. He stroked his fingers across his scalp to try to relieve some of the pressure building there. He had to do something, use the adrenaline coursing through his body. Find out the facts so they could make a plan.

He looked down at her, sitting on the bench. So vulnerable despite her reluctance to admit it. This situation needed to be addressed as soon as possible for both their sakes. “Are you okay to walk?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice wavering on the one word. Tentatively, she stood and smoothed down her dress before facing him with a falsely bright smile.

“Good.” He nodded once. “We’re leaving. I’ll bring my car to the side entrance so you don’t have to walk far.”

She stood a little straighter, seeming to have found her strength again. “We didn’t come together.”

“No, but we’re leaving together.” With a hand at the small of her back, he guided her out into the sunlight, back to the real world. “Don’t worry, you won’t be seen with me-my car has tinted windows and you won’t need to get out.”

She allowed him to lead her, but she held her chin high, not capitulating completely. “Where are you proposing we go?”

“To the nearest drugstore.” He looked down into her anguished eyes and felt that same emotion coursing through his body. “To buy a pregnancy test.”

They pulled up outside her apartment in JT’s silver coupe, but Pia didn’t move. She sat, gripping the pregnancy test, stomach churning, wishing she were anywhere but here, about to do this test. Why had she thought she was safe? She’d been taking her daily protection, but hadn’t considered that her cold might reduce the pill’s effectiveness.

JT had been silent on the trip, probably as lost in his own thoughts and memories as she’d been in hers. The first time they’d taken a pregnancy test together, they’d been scared, but so full of love for each other and the life they’d created that anything had seemed possible. Both so certain they’d be together forever, starting a family had seemed natural and thrilling, if earlier than they’d planned.

What had they known? Her heart spiraled low. They’d been two clueless teenagers with rose-tinted glasses. The family they’d planned had become a train wreck-their little girl gone before she’d lived, and her parents not seeing each other again until now.

She glanced over at JT’s profile as he stared out the windshield, his hands clutched tight to the steering wheel of his stationary car. This was an even less auspicious start for a child than Brianna’s had been.

Please, God, don’t let me have brought a baby into this mess.

And yet a rebel flicker registered behind her breastbone, an awakening of maternal yearning. She squeezed her eyes shut against its power. Not here. Not now. Not with this man.

JT blew out a harsh breath and pulled his keys from the ignition. “Let’s get this over with.”

“JT, if-”

“We’ll do the test first,” he said with harsh certainty, “and talk about everything else after we know the result.” He stepped from the car, ending any chance for discussion.

She sighed. He was right. There was no point generating options until they had the facts of the situation. She released her seat belt as JT opened her door. Searching his face for his feelings, she took his extended hand and stepped out onto the sidewalk, but his aviator sunglasses effectively hid any clues.

He placed an impersonal hand at her back as they crossed the street, passed through her foyer and into her apartment. Despite the gesture being something she knew his mother had drilled into him and it having no meaning, Pia drew strength from his palm’s warmth as it seeped through to her skin.

Once they were inside, he dropped his hand and she felt the loss keenly, which only brought a new concern to the fore-she couldn’t allow herself to depend on JT, not even in this minor way. She was an adult who needed no one to lean on. She stretched to her full height. “This will take a few minutes. Perhaps you could…” She made a waving gesture with her hand, not really sure what she wanted him to do in the meantime.

He scrubbed his hands through his hair, as if waking from a trance. “I’ll make coffee.”

“Good idea,” she said, then walked on unsteady legs to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Conflicting emotions swirled through her veins in a nauseous dance. Fear that she was pregnant foolishly fought with fear that she might not be. She leaned back against the cool wood of the door. Did she want there to be a baby or didn’t she? If she wasn’t pregnant, would she be relieved…or would she be devastated that she’d lost another chance at motherhood?

Her eyes slowly lifted to meet their reflection in the mirror, and held. She looked as terrified as she felt-eyes too wide, lips quavering, skin bleached of color. Part of her wanted to rush and get this over with, get past this mind-numbing unknowing. The other part pulled her back, fighting against finding out-not wanting to confirm that she was pregnant, not wanting to miss out on motherhood again…

And then there was JT. If this test showed she wasn’t pregnant, she’d show him the door and never be caught alone with him again. If she was carrying his baby…

Breaking the connection, she ripped open the packet and performed the test quickly, trying to think of something-anything-else.

When it was done, she slipped into her bedroom and changed out of her blue dress and heels and into soft pants and a sweater, wanting the reassurance of comfortable clothes to face what lay ahead.

Picking up the little stick that would foretell her fate, she emerged into the kitchen. JT stood at the counter, three mugs in front of him, eyes squeezed shut, skin pulled taut over his face. What was going on in his mind-was he sending up a prayer for the test to be negative? Bargaining for the chance to walk away from her? She bumped a chair and he swung toward her, his eyes wide and alert, yet giving away no clues to his silent thoughts.

She dug one hand into her pants pocket to stop it fidgeting, and held the test aloft with the other. “It has about two more minutes. We need to wait the full five minutes for a definite result.”

Relaxing a fraction, he nodded, then gestured to the steaming mugs. “I wasn’t sure whether you’d be having coffee or herbal tea, so I made one of each.”

Her eyes stung with emotion at his thoughtfulness, but she blinked the moisture away. “Because we don’t know yet, I’ll take the herbal tea.”

He handed her a peppermint-fragrant mug, his gaze on the stick in her other hand. “Are those tests accurate?”

“The box says ninety-seven percent.” Fingers still tightly wrapped around the test, she walked to her window seat-her favorite spot in the garden apartment. She’d made cushions from pale pink satin and covered the foam base with a checked rose-pink fabric. She hesitated as it occurred to her that the colors were those in the bunny rug she’d bought for Brianna. Perhaps that’s why this was her favorite place to sit. She folded her legs up underneath her and sipped the tea. She wasn’t even sure where that rug had gone-it’d simply disappeared from her cupboard when she arrived home from the hospital.

JT dragged a dining chair over and sat within touching distance, all the while keeping his eyes trained on the clock on her wall. She didn’t need to watch, the ticking was loud in her ears, counting down to her fate.

“It’s been a couple of minutes,” he said as he turned to her.

She pointlessly looked up at the clock. Swallowing her fear, she lifted the stick.

Double pink lines.

Her stomach plummeted and her vision blurred as she thrust the stick at JT. She was pregnant. The entire world shifted on its axis leaving her dizzy.

JT took it from her numb fingers. “We’re pregnant,” he said, his voice barely a rasp.

Unable to find her own voice, she nodded. Silence, heavy with all neither of them said, descended over her living room. Perhaps sensing the change in the emotional atmosphere, Winston appeared and leaped onto her lap. She put her tea down on the window sill and absently stroked the cat’s soft fur, taking the comfort he offered.

She was pregnant for the second time in her life. By the same man. The child conceived in the same spot.

The room began a slow spin around her.

JT cleared his throat. “What do you want to do?”

She understood his meaning-it was the issue they hadn’t once discussed the first time. And this time, having learned that JT’s own father had wanted him disposed of, she knew, if anything, his feelings would be stronger. Hers were the same without question, despite the tangled web their decision would create.

“I’m keeping it.” This was a tiny little life and nothing would ever hurt it, she’d make sure of that.

“Yes,” he said, gripping his mug as if it were a lifeline.

But everything else would be different this time. This time she wouldn’t have any naive romantic notions about JT and their future. That direction led inevitably to heartache.

“In case you’re wondering, I don’t expect anything from you.” She rubbed the purring Winston’s ears, not looking at JT. “There’s no need to get married or create any artificial situation here.”

“I wasn’t planning on proposing. I won’t go down that track again. But this baby has a right to expect everything I can give. And she or he will get it,” he said with a quiet fierceness.

She’d known he’d support their baby in any way possible. Some things may change over the years, but that core of decency and his love of children wouldn’t alter. If this baby made it to term, it couldn’t wish for a better father than JT.

If.

With her lower lip caught between her teeth, her hand crept to her stomach. Losing another baby was inconceivable. Her throat ached with years of repressed memories, with the self-recriminations and the grief that haunted her dreams at night. Nothing would hurt this baby. Certainly not her.

“I won’t make the same mistakes this time, JT,” she vowed. She wouldn’t take a single risk. “I’ll be careful.”

He nodded. “Of course you will.” Then his gaze-hyperalert now-snapped back to her, and he put down his mug. “Pia, you weren’t to blame for Brianna’s death.”

She frowned as she tried to read his features-was he bolstering her up or did he really believe that? “Of course I was. Brianna paid the price for my recklessness. If I hadn’t been climbing out the window to run away from home, she’d be alive now.” Her teeth clenched as the pain ate into her heart. She’d killed her own baby through bad choices. It’d been the night she’d realized she needed to grow up and stop taking irresponsible risks. That she needed to make a break from her unhealthy obsession with JT. “She was totally dependent on me, and I failed her.”