Misadventures with the Boss (Misadventures #12)(36)

I couldn’t be pregnant. We’d been so careful. Every single time.

If I was, though, everyone in the office would have to find out who the father was. My career would be ruined. And then, of course, there was Jackson himself.

He’d be in the same position he’d been in all those years ago, trapped with a woman who’d only been a casual fling because she was having his baby.

Shit.

I was already starting to freak out.

I didn’t know for sure yet and wouldn’t for another—I checked my phone—three and a half minutes.

The phone trilled to life, and Hailey’s face flashed on the screen. Reluctantly I answered and pressed the phone to my cheek.

“Are you okay?” Hailey asked. “I tried to call you back about seven times. You hung up on me.”

“I’m… I don’t know,” I panted. “I’m dizzy.”

I sat on the couch, but the world around me continued to spin.

“Did you go buy a test?” Hailey asked.

“I bought three,” I replied.

“Good. That’s, uh, prudent. You’ll be sure.”

“Exactly.”

“And then, when it comes out negative, you can move on with your day,” my sister said, trying to keep her tone light.

“Exactly. Right.” I breathed. A silence stretched between us for a long moment. “But what if I’m pregnant?”

“Well, would you want to… I mean, would you consider—?”

“Adoption?” I asked. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Or, you know, you have other options too,” she said lightly.

I blinked. That hadn’t even occurred to me.

“No, I’ll keep the baby. If there’s a baby to keep. This might all be nothing.”

“It probably is all nothing,” Hailey agreed.

I gripped the phone a little tighter and walked carefully back into the bathroom. Against my ear, the phone vibrated, and I knew time was up. This was it. Where the rubber met the road.

“I’m going to check them now,” I said, but Hailey said nothing.

As I walked toward the sink, I felt like I was walking up to my own coffin. The other end of the line was dead silent, and I realized both of us were holding our breath.

But I knew.

Somehow I just knew even before I saw the little pink plus that it would be there staring up at me. Mocking me like a cruel joke.

I wanted to faint, and again the world went dizzy, and I sank onto the bathroom floor.

“Piper?” Hailey whispered.

“Millions of women try to get pregnant every day and can’t,” I said, my voice hollow.

“They do, but that doesn’t mean you have to…”

“It might not be millions. Maybe it’s only thousands. But still, they all try, and they all want a baby so badly.”

“Piper, that doesn’t mean—”

“I should be grateful,” I said. “I should be happy.”

“You’re pregnant,” Hailey said. It wasn’t a question.

Not anymore.

“I don’t know how I’m going to tell him.”

“Let’s worry about him later. For now, I want to think about you,” my sister said. “Are you sure you want this?”

I pressed a hand to my stomach and leaned back against the bathroom wall. This place, this city. It had all been part of my fresh start. In his way, even Jackson had been part of that.

And now all of that was going to change. Again.

But I still knew the answer to her question without thinking. I’d always wanted children. Of course, in my daydreams, I’d been married first.

“Yes,” I said. “I want this baby.”

“I know this isn’t how you wanted it to be, but for what it’s worth, I always thought you’d be a great mother,” Piper offered softly.

“Thank you.” I still felt numb. The cold bathroom floor was all I could feel, aside from my racing heart. My palms were growing sweaty, and before my phone slipped from my hand, I cleared my throat and said, “Look, I think I’m going to lie down for a little while. Could I call you back later?”

“Sure, of course,” Hailey said.

“And one other thing,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t tell Mom about this either. Not yet.”

“Of course not,” Hailey replied swiftly. “But hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you. And I meant what I said.”

“I love you too.” I hung up the phone, crawled toward my bed, and climbed beneath the sheets, hoping they would swallow me whole.

I was going to have a baby. Jackson’s baby.

Distantly, I wondered if the baby would have his piercing eyes or silky dark hair. Whether I was carrying a boy or a girl.

But it was all too soon for that and all too surreal.

I couldn’t think about the baby or who I would tell or even when I would go to the doctor.

It was too much. And for now?

I was just going to lie in my bed and cry like my heart was breaking. Because the second I told Jackson about this baby, I was going to lose him.





Chapter Seventeen