She had gotten better at pushing down the guilt her original motives for being in this relationship still caused her. After all, that was ancient history now—well, at least, it was weeks-old history. She hadn’t spoken to Oliver Norcross since the day she had contacted him to let him know that she didn’t want his money. There was nothing at all there now, no business deal, noteven any communication. Her relationship with Elijah was pure, just as she wished it always had been.
Most of the time, that was good enough.
But there were some days—days like this one—when the past seemed to catch up with her, and she found herself unable to forget the things she had done. Even if she had set it right, she knew Elijah would be devastated if he ever learned the real reason she had started seeing him.
Eventually I’ll get over it.
She hoped that was true. In the meantime, though, she was struggling intensely. It was almost funny—it would have been funny if it wasn’t so painful—the way her emotions had taken on physical reality. It was as if the knowledge of what she had done was actually making her ill.
She sat up slowly and felt her stomach lurch in response.
The worst part about this was that she had beenasleep. It wasn’t as if she had been sitting around pondering their beginnings and thinking about it had led her to this self-recrimination. It simply lived somewhere within her, deep enough in her psyche that it could reach up and poison her without conscious thought. And that let her know just how hard it was going to be to let it go. She would spend a very long time tormenting herself for the bad decisions she had made.
Stephanie dragged herself to her feet. The best thing to do when you were feeling upset about something was to get moving, she knew. She just needed to start her day, that was all. If she stayed in bed letting herself feel morose about what had happened, the guilt would only get worse, until eventually it swallowed her.
She moved slowly toward the kitchen, thinking that a glass of cold water would make her feel better, but she only made it halfway. As she stepped into the hall, the world swung wildly around her. She had to grab at the wall for support, and with a horrible gag, she clapped her hand over her mouth and changed course. She sprinted into the bathroom, closing the door so that Bruno couldn’t follow her in there.
After emptying her stomach into the toilet, she sat back on the cool tile floor and pulled the flush, gasping for air. She was covered in sweat, but she felt steadier now, her body already beginning to cool down.
What the hell?
Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. When it came to controlling her emotions, Stephanie was well-practiced—it was a skill you needed if you were going to present yourself publicly to promote your own small business. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been completely overwhelmed by something she was feeling like this, and she didn’t like it.
This is not good. I can’t go on like this, losing my cool every time I think about the fact that I took an agreement with Oliver Norcross. I’m not even doing anything wrong, not anymore. Why is my body rebelling against me over it?
The unpleasant thoughts crawled through her mind like snakes…
But it was strange. Even though she was still feeling awful about it all, her stomach had begun to settle. The nausea had been much worse in the moments right after she had woken up. She would have thought that thinking about it would make it worse, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
Unless maybe this isn’t guilt. Maybe I’m actually just sick.
Maybe. But that didn’t add up either. She’d been feeling perfectly fine when she had gone to bed last night, and even now, she was feeling all right. It didn’t match the way she ought to have been feeling if illness was the problem.
This was something else.
A gnawing dread began to grow in the back of her mind.
Without meaning to, she started to do the math. She didn’t really even need to do it. She was already aware that she hadn’t gotten her period since the beginning of her relationship with Elijah. Just the other day, she’d brought a box of tampons over to his house just in case. She hadn’t reflected that day on how long it had been since she’d needed one, but she was sure thinking about it now.
Isn’t this what morning sickness is supposed to be like? It comes on out of nowhere, and then it goes away just as quickly and leaves you feeling more or less fine?
But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. She couldn’t have gotten pregnant. As complex as everything about all this had been so far, that would make it ten times worse.
Things were going well with Elijah. They were happy every time they were together. But they still hadn’t known each other that long. How could she possibly drop news like this on him?
And if I did, then what? Then we would stay together for the rest of our lives, raise a child together? Or we would have to break up, and I’d have the child alone? What would my preference even be? What do I want here?
It was impossible to imagine telling him she was pregnant without knowing what she hoped his response would be.
But the truth was that it didn’t matter what she hoped for. Hopes weren’t going to have anything to do with the outcome. The only thing that mattered was what was true. And if she was going to find out what was true here, there was only one way to do it.
She was going to have to get a pregnancy test and find out once and for all whether this was actually happening.
Who knows—maybe once I’ve taken the test, I’ll learn that it was all a false alarm. Maybe I’ll never have to answer any of these questions at all. Maybe this is just a scare.
Forty-five minutes later, Stephanie sat at her kitchen table staring at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test.
It wasn’t just a scare.
