Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(67)

“So?” asked Kyrstin. “What’re you goin’ to do?”

Laire sniffled, shaking her head. “I don’t know.”

“I just thought you were eatin’ too many doughnuts.”

“Don’t joke,” said Laire.

“I’m not!” insisted Kyrstin. “You got yourself a little poochie tummy, Laire. Ain’t goin’ to be long before others notice it too.”

“I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

“You can’t what? Can’t have it or can’t kill it?”

Laire had been staring at a crack in the tabletop’s Formica, but now she snapped her head up and looked at her sister in horror. “I’m not killing my baby!”

Erik’s baby.

For the first time since receiving the devastating news, her heart clenched with the awesomeness of it: Erik’s baby. Inside her body. She dropped her hands to her belly and rested them over the small swell protectively.

“Great,” said Kyrstin, nodding curtly at the waitress who brought their coffee. “Choice one made. You’re keepin’ it.”

“I’m keeping it,” whispered Laire, unable to keep her lips from turning up in a tiny smile, as she allowed herself to remember, for the first time since she left him that morning, how beautiful she felt nestled naked in his arms.

“Where, exactly, are you raisin’ it?” asked Kyrstin, stirring some creamer into the steaming cup and forcing Laire back to earth.

Laire reached for the sugar and overturned the cylinder, letting the white crystals spill into her coffee. They reminded her of sand in an hourglass, moving too quickly when she needed more time.

“I don’t—”

“It’ll kill Daddy,” said Kyrstin, her voice no-nonsense and eyes lethal. “Just so we’re clear, li’l Laire, let’s review the facts: you runnin’ around with some unknown boy gave him a coronary. Knocked up and unmarried? It’ll kill him.” Kyrstin clenched her jaw before sipping her coffee. “So I’m askin’ you again: where you gonna raise your baby?”

A chill went through Laire, freezing her brief moment of happiness.

Kyrstin was right.

Finding out his eighteen-year-old, unmarried daughter was pregnant would kill Hook Cornish, so she had a couple of options: one, get married, or two, leave Corey before she really started showing.

“Get . . . married?” she asked Kyrstin timidly.

“Fine. That’s an option. Get married, and then you can tell Daddy it was a weddin’-night baby. Everyone will know it wasn’t, but nobody’ll say anythin’ if you’re married.”

Laire stirred her coffee absentmindedly, allowing her mind, for the first time in over two months, to think—really think—about the possibility of a future with Erik Rexford.

“So who you gonna marry?”

“What do you mean, who?” Laire cocked her head to the side. “The baby’s father, of course.”

“And he’ll be just thrilled about this, huh?”

Laire dropped her sister’s gaze, thinking about Erik’s beautiful face, his desperate voice on the phone, the way he’d looked at her, spoken to her, held her. I love you, Laire.

“I don’t know if he’ll be thrilled, but he loves me.” She nodded. “I think he’ll do what’s right.”

“Laire,” said Kyrstin. “I never asked, but that was him, wasn’t it? At the hospital that day?”

Laire met her sister’s eyes, gulping as she admitted the truth. “Yeah.”

“Is he local? From Ocracoke? Or—”

She shook her head. “Summer dingbatter.”

“Oh, fuck,” whispered Kyrstin. “From where?”

“He has a house in Buxton.”

“From where?” asked Kyrstin again.

“Raleigh.” She took a deep breath before leveling her eyes with Kyrstin’s. “His name is Erik Rexford. He’s . . .” She gulped again. “He’s the governor’s son.”

Kyrstin stared at her for a moment, her mouth open. “The governor of what?”

“N-North Carolina.”

“What? What the fuck are you talkin’ about?” She held her coffee cup frozen midway to her lips. “You were datin’ the goddamn governor’s son all summer? He knocked you up?”

Laire nodded, taking a small sip of the coffee but finding it too bitter to enjoy.

“Oh, Laire,” said Kyrstin, taking a long sip, her wide eyes over the rim registering complete and utter shock. “Oh, my God.”

“I’ll go see him,” said Laire quickly. “We had . . . we had a plan . . . to meet at Thanksgiving.”

“You had a plan?” Kyrstin scoffed. “We don’t know how people like that work! Laire, you don’t know he’ll do right! Oh, my God. This is—”

“He will. I know he will. I know him. He loves me.”

“How do you know that?” Kyrstin leaned forward. “I thought you broke it off with him that day at the hospital. It’s been months. Long enough for him to move on.”

Kyrstin’s well-chosen words hit a tender spot, and Laire winced, reaching up to wipe the tears that had started falling.