My voice thick, I say, “More like appalled. That felt like a knife through my heart.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t suggesting that you wouldn’t be involved…” She trails off, then sighs. “Okay, maybe I was suggesting that.” She thinks for a moment. “Actually, it would never in a million years occur to me that you’d even want to be involved. You, with a baby?”
Then she groans and puts a hand over her eyes. “Oh god. This is a disaster.”
I whisper, “Or it could be a miracle.”
She takes her hand away from her eyes and glares at me in outrage.
I say solemnly, “You’re right. Disaster it is. Should I fly into a rage and throw things around the room now, or would you prefer tears? I haven’t cried since I was thirteen years old, though, so I should warn you it might take a while for me to work them up.”
This time when she shoves against my chest, I let her push me away. As soon as I roll off her, she pops up and starts to dress, her shaking hands fumbling with her clothes.
I sit on the edge of the mattress with my elbows on my knees and watch her.
Running away again. Always running away.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe this is a disaster. She’s an iceberg, and I’m the Titanic, its captain too arrogant to bother to correct course, leading to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.
A number that could match how many would die in a war started by a mafia king who fell in love with his enemy’s daughter.
Liam’s words come back to haunt me. “You’re the most controlling arsehole who’s ever lived.”
And where has all that control gotten me?
Sitting on the edge of a bed in a rented motel room, watching the only woman I’ve ever wanted to take my last name freak out at the idea of carrying my child.
I realize with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that this is all there is for me. All there ever has been or ever will be. All that a man like me can expect:
Nothing.
I drag a hand through my hair, exhale a slow breath, and reach for my clothing.
25
Jules
We dress in silence. When we’re done, Killian looks at me with distant eyes, his whole demeanor cool and withdrawn. His voice is cool, too, when he says, “If you need me, you know how to find me.”
Then he walks out the door.
I sink into the nearest chair and press my hand over my pounding heart, too stunned to think straight.
I sit there like that for a long time, until finally my bubble of shock breaks.
I burst into tears.
I cry as I gather my things, cry as I call for a taxi, cry all the way home in the back of the cab. I don’t know exactly why I’m so upset, except that everything is wrong, wrong, wrong. The way he left, the way I feel, how badly my heart is aching.
I wanted this to be over.
Now it is.
Except maybe it isn’t. Because maybe baby.
Because maybe I am the stupidest person who has ever lived.
When I open the door to my apartment, it’s almost ten p.m. Fin and Max are sitting at the kitchen table in their underwear, drinking wine and playing poker.
Max shouts, “You’re fucking cheating!”
Fin laughs. “Just because you have no idea how to play this game doesn’t mean I’m cheating.”
I drop my handbag onto the floor in the foyer. They look over at me. Their eyes widen.
Max says, “Oh shit.”
Fin says, “Hun. What happened? Are you okay?”
I burst into tears again, because that’s just how my day is going.
“Okay, wait. Rewind. Luteal phase? What man on earth knows what the heck the luteal phase is? I didn’t even know, and I own a pair of ovaries!”
Max holds up her phone. She’s just queried Siri, who affirmed the definition for us all.
Fin says, “Maybe the study of women’s reproductive cycles is one of his hobbies.”
Max shoots me a loaded glance. “Or he’s been in this situation before.”
I groan. “Oh god. He could already have kids for all I know. Hell, he could have a wife! I don’t really know anything about him!”
Fin shakes her head. “He doesn’t have a wife.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Married men are neutered. You can see it in the way they walk. That ‘I’ve-surrendered-my-free-will’ slouchy, shuffling walk. They’ve lost the desire to live. Your Mr. Black walks like a peacock. Like a lion. Very unneutered. Very unmarried. His balls are very much intact.”
Max crinkles her nose. “Since when are you such an expert on married men and their balls? Or men at all, for that matter?”
“I’m not in the straight fishbowl. You people can’t see each other clearly, but I’m looking in from the outside, an impartial observer. There’s a married man walk, an unmarried man walk, and a cheating married man walk. That one is super distinctive. Cocky but also furtive, like a fox slinking away from a henhouse with a dead bird between its teeth.”
It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning. We’ve been sitting at the kitchen table for hours, going over everything that’s happened since I left. The two of them are drinking wine, but I’m drinking water, trying to pretend that’s a completely normal thing for me to do on a Saturday night.
We’ve already asked Siri how soon a pregnancy test can confirm if a woman is, in fact, pregnant. To my great dismay, it seems that even the most sensitive tests need about eight days from conception to let you know for certain if Hot Gangster, Jr. will be arriving in nine months.
Max looks at me. When she takes my hands across the table and gently squeezes them, I know it’s going to be bad.
She says carefully, “Okay. We’ve never talked about this before, so I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’m just going to float the possibility that you do have other options besides keeping the baby. You could have an—”
“No.”
Fin and Max are surprised by the vehemence of my answer. I look down at my hands, spread flat on the table, and blow out a breath.
“My mother had this thing about becoming a grandmother. Somebody asked her when she was a little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up, and she said she wanted to be a grandmother. That it seemed like the most wonderful thing to be in the world.”
I have to take another breath before I go on. “She always talked about the day I’d have my own baby. How happy she’d be. How she hoped it was a girl. If I ever do have a girl, I’ll name her after my mother.”
After a moment, Fin says gently, “This is about what you want, though. What’s good for you.”
My laugh is dry. “If it turns out that I’m pregnant, it’s not about me anymore at all.”
Max squeezes my hand and sits back in her chair, smiling at me. “Damn. I never thought I’d be a godmother so young.”
Fin scoffs. “Excuse me, but I’m going to be the baby’s godmother. You can barely tie your own shoes.”
I say loudly, “You’ll be co-godmothers of the maybe-not-even-actual baby. Now can you please give me a break?”
Max is quiet for a moment, then gasps. “Oh, jeez.”