Page 129 of Diego

“No,” she says quietly. “That’s not what this is.”

I study her. “Then what is it?”

She looks away again.

I give her a moment.

Then another.

My instincts are telling me to push, but something about the way she is standing makes me stop myself. Blair does not look indecisive. She looks frightened.

That realization wipes the last of the flirtation out of me.

I step closer, slowly enough that she can move away if she wants to.

She does not.

“Blair.”

Her eyes close briefly.

When they open again, she looks directly at me.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

For once, I do not fill the silence.

Blair draws in a breath and lets her arms fall from where they are folded across her chest. Her fingers flex once at her sides before she looks down, gathering herself.

Whatever this is, she has rehearsed it. I can see that now. She has probably been rehearsing it all day.

When she finally looks at me again, her face is pale.

“I’m pregnant.”

For a second, the words don’t process in my mind.

I hear them.

I understand them.

My brain simply refuses to connect them to anything tangible.

I stare at her.

Blair swallows. “I found out a few days ago. I took a test at home, then I went to the doctor and had it confirmed.”

The room seems to narrow, and my vision turns into a long dark tunnel with Blair at the end.

Pregnant.

Blair is pregnant.

I look at her stomach before I can stop myself.

There is nothing to see. She looks exactly as she did the last time I saw her. Exactly as she did an hour ago, a minute ago.

I lift my eyes back to hers.