Undone by Her Tender Touch (Pregnancy & Passion #4)(10)

“Now, I assume from your reaction that you aren’t on any sort of birth control.”

“No one can ever accuse you of being stupid.”

“Cut the crap, Pippa. I get that you’re scared and caught off guard. This isn’t a picnic for me, either. You taking this out on me helps neither of us.”

Realizing she was doing exactly as he’d accused, she went silent, her grip still tight around the phone. She should have thrown it when she’d had the urge. If she had, she wouldn’t be having this harrowing conversation right now.

“I think you should move in with me, at least until we know if you’re pregnant.”

Her mouth fell open and her brow creased in disbelief. “What?”

He sighed again. “Perhaps this isn’t a conversation we should be having over the phone. I can pick you up in an hour.”

She got her wits back in time to utter a hoarse, “No.”

“Then what’s your preference?” he asked impatiently.

She put her hand to her temple and dug her fingers into it, massaging the increasing ache.

“Look, Cam, I’m not moving in with you. That’s about the most absurd suggestion I’ve heard. We don’t need to talk face-to-face. Right now, I have no desire to see you. I’m in shock. I need time to figure out my options. I don’t need you breathing down my neck. If it turns out I’m pregnant, I know where to find you, and believe me, you’ll be hearing from me then. Until that point, I’d appreciate it if you just backed off.”

“Damn it, that’s not what I want. Look, Pippa, I need to know that you and the…baby…are safe. If there is a baby, I mean. The best way to do that is for you to be close where I know you’re taken care of.”

There was quiet desperation in his voice and an odd detached tone that suggested to her he wasn’t even focusing on the real issue at hand. His head seemed to be somewhere else and that annoyed her all the more.

He was worrying about her and a theoretical baby’s safety, and at this point she was just worried that there was a theoretical baby.

“I don’t care what you want,” she said evenly.

She pulled the phone away from her ear and punched the end button. Then realizing that Cam was the persistent sort, she turned it off and thrust it away.

She sat there for several long minutes, staring into nothing as she tried to absorb the implications of that broken condom. She wasn’t stupid enough to laugh it off and say something absurd like, Who gets pregnant from that one time? There were any number of pregnant women who’d naively asserted the same thing. She wasn’t one of them.

She shot to her feet, needing to do something. Information. Probabilities. She knew the timing was probably good, but she hurried to her bedroom to dig out her diary where she kept information on her menstrual cycle.

Any single, sexually active woman was a moron if she didn’t keep track of such things.

She slipped to the page where her last entry had been written and then calculated the days in her head. Then she let out a harsh groan. Could the timing have been any better? Not that she could possibly predict when she was ovulating, but if she went with averages, there was a good possibility that this weekend had been her prime baby-making window.

Okay, so it was entirely possible. The next thing she needed to do was figure out her options, if she had any.

She went back to that damnable phone, turned it on and ignored the cacophony of sounds signaling missed calls, voice mails and text messages. They were probably all from Cam. The man was likely on his way here.

She punched in Carly’s number and hoped like hell her friends were available.

A moment later, Carly’s sunny voice spilled over the line and Pippa sagged in relief.

“Pip! How’s it going? Have your lease all straightened out? I have to tell you I’m so excited for you! How did Ashley’s housewarming go? I was so sorry to miss it. I hope she wasn’t too disappointed.”

Pippa flinched from the onslaught and waited to get a word in edgewise. “Carly, are you free? I need the girls. This is an emergency.”

There was a brief silence and then Carly said, “Pip, are you all right? What’s happened?”

“I’ll tell you when we’re all together,” Pippa croaked. “Can you call the others?”

“You bet. Oscar’s?”

Pippa hesitated. “Yeah, but make sure we get a private table.”

“Do you want me to call Ashley?” Carly asked. “Is she still in Greenwich?”

As much as Pippa wanted and needed Ashley there, she wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. But she was just selfish enough to see if Ashley would make the trip in for her.

“See if she can make it,” Pippa said in a low voice. “But make sure… Tell her I want her to be careful.”

“If she knows you need her, she’ll be there,” Carly said in a comforting voice. “We’ll all be there, Pip. You know that.”

“Yes, I do, and I love you all for it.”

“Give me some time to get everything ironed out and then I’ll text you with a time everyone can meet. In the meantime you know you can come over. I only have one appointment this afternoon. You can always hang out here at the salon. I’ll even do your nails.”

Pippa smiled. “Thanks, Carly, but I’ll just meet you guys later. I need to figure some stuff out.”