Page 168 of Made in Love and Blood

“Oh, my God,” Carina breathed.

His head snapped her way again. “What?”

She didn’t answer, just stood straight with Frankie’s bag hugged against her middle. Her own Birkin sat forgotten on the seat.

Nico reached for the bag. “What’s in it?”

Carina jerked the bag out of his reach, giving him a look that stung. “Don’t you ever go inside her bags, especially her purse, without asking or being told to. Do you hear me?”

He didn’t have the first clue how to handle the situation, but Frankie jogged under their sideline tent to pick up where he left off.

“What are you doing with my stuff?” she asked Carina.

Carina’s gaze dropped down Frankie’s body and then back up to meet her eyes. “I’m going to ask you something, okay?”

“What were you doing in my bags, Carina?”

“I’m going to ask you something,” Carina repeated, “and I need you to be honest with me, Frankie. It’s important. And before I ask it, I want to tell you a couple of things, so please listen. What I’m going to tell you is important, too. Just in a different way.”

Arms folded, Frankie’s suddenly wary gaze darted between Nico and Carina. He still didn’t understand what the hell was going on.

“Can somebody fill me in here?” he asked. “On whatever this is?”

Neither looked at him again. They just stared at one another.

Frankie’s knee began bouncing with the tap of her foot against the green turf. Carina started talking, as if it were just the two of them behind a closed door in private.

“I know what’s it like to find yourself in a situation where you don’t know where to begin to deal with it,” Carina told Frankie, taking a moment to wet her lips after she spoke. “And I know what it’s like to do what you have to do until you figure out what you’re going to do—you lie about it, even to people you care about, and you do everything you can to hide it. But most importantly, I know what it’s like to be eighteen and want that thing so badly that you would do anything—absolutely anything—to keep it. I know. I understand, okay?”

A tear tracked a line down Frankie’s cheek. Her leg kept bouncing, but now, she’d started chewing on her lip.

Nico started to think he had missed something here. Something big.

And maybe, so had Frankie.

“So, now I’m going to ask you what I need to ask you,” Carina continued, not even noticing Nico’s panicked restlessness that had him flexing his hands at his sides. “And before you answer, just know, now is the time we need to be told. Not in two months, or three. Now. Because your father is trying to do something, but he can’t focus on you and that, at the same time. Now would be the time for us to know. Okay?”

“Okay,” Frankie whispered.

“Can I ask now?”

Frankie nodded jerkily.

“Are you pregnant?”

Frankie didn’t answer right away.

Nico moved closer, leaning around her to make her look at him as he asked the same question. “Are you pregnant?”

Another tear escaped after sliding off her long lashes as she held his gaze from the side. She tilted her head down like it made looking him in the face easier as her lips pressed together in a thin line. Still, she nodded.

Nodded.

“You’re fucking pregnant?” he asked again.

“Nico—”

His face found his hands as he took two big steps backwards and mumbled, “Holy shit.”