Slightly Unexpected (Irresistible #3)

Prologue

Late October, Montrose

The cramping had been getting worse for three days.

I shifted in the waiting room chair, pressing my hand against my lower abdomen as another wave of nausea rolled through me. Twenty years of coming to this office, and I’d never felt this anxious sitting here. But then again, I’d never felt this awful for this long either.

When Dr. Bedi finally called my name, I was ready for answers. What I wasn’t ready for was the concern etched on his face as I followed him down the hallway to his office.

I settled into the chair across from his desk, the same spot where we’d talked through my daughter Tia’s cancer diagnosis fifteen years ago. He closed the door behind us before moving to his chair.

“Your blood work came back,” he said, setting his tablet down on the desk.

“And?” I shifted in my chair. “Is it some kind of virus? Because I’ve felt like death for two and a half weeks, and I need it to stop.”

“Deanna.” He met my eyes. “Your hCG levels are elevated.”

“My what?”

“Human chorionic gonadotropin. It’s a hormone produced during pregnancy.”

I laughed. “That’s impossible.”

“The levels are quite high, actually. Higher than I’d expect for early pregnancy, which sometimes indicates—”

“No.” I stood up so fast the room tilted. “You’re reading someone else’s results. Run it again.”

“Deanna—”

“I can’t be pregnant. It’s literally impossible.”

“I can see why you’d think so.” He gestured to the chair. “But before we dismiss this, when was your last menstrual period?”

The question stopped me. When was my last period? I’d been so busy with work, comforting Tia through her heartbreak, and with trying to forget the summer...

When had I last...

The private beach. The motorboat cutting through crystal waters.

Him navigating around rocky outcroppings to show me his secret cove.

Racing into the sea together, the cool water a relief from the heat.

Him untying my bikini in the shallows, laying me back on wet sand where the waves still lapped at our bodies.

My period had started right after. I remembered because it hadn’t stopped him from having sex with me again that night, after we’d returned to my villa.

That was August.

And I hadn’t had one since.

Two months. I’d missed two months of periods and hadn’t noticed.

“I’m forty-two years old. My twenty-two-year-old daughter is getting married in two months. I am not pregnant.”

Even as I said it, my hand moved to my stomach. To the bloat I’d blamed on PMS. The weight I’d blamed on hitting middle age. My body had been telling me for weeks, and I’d refused to listen.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“I understand this is shocking,” Dr. Bedi said quietly. “But the hCG levels don’t lie. They’re elevated significantly—over 50,000 mIU/mL, which suggests you might be further along.”

The words bounced around in my head. “Your lab made a mistake.”

He moved around his desk, his demeanor shifting to understanding. “Let me perform an ultrasound. That will give us definitive answers.”

“Fine. Let’s prove your lab screwed up.”

Twenty minutes later, I was lying on my back with my feet in stirrups and a wand where no wand had any business being at ten in the morning. This wasn’t my first rodeo with stirrups, but I felt exposed.

“See?” I kept my tone light. “Nothing there.”

“Deanna.” He turned the screen toward me. “I need you to look.”

I looked.

The image was grainy, black and white, and impossible to make sense of. Just shadows and shapes that could’ve been anything…

Then I saw it. A flicker. Fast and rhythmic.

“That’s a heartbeat,” Dr. Bedi said. He kept moving the wand around, and I tried not to think about how uncomfortable the whole thing was. “And that’s another one.”

“Another what?”

“Heartbeat.” He pointed to a second flickering shape, distinct from the first. “You’re carrying twins, Deanna.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could only stare at those two flickering heartbeats that had no business being there.

“No,” I whispered. “That’s not... it can’t...”

“Based on the measurements and the hCG levels, I’d estimate you’re about ten weeks along.” He continued to take measurements. “That would put conception around late summer.”

Late summer.

Greece.

Five months ago, I’d followed my twenty-two-year-old daughter to Greece under the guise of protecting her. What I’d found instead were passionate nights with a man whose touch made me forget why I’d come in the first place.

Looking back, I should have stayed home. Should have listened to my ex-mother-in-law, Mama Nettie, and my best friend, Kandi, when they told me to let her be an adult. But the thought of Tia being alone in a foreign country for months had me imagining all the worst-case scenarios possible.

“Check again.” I shook my head against the examination table. “That can’t be right.”

“I’m looking at two separate gestational sacs, two yolk sacs, and two distinct fetal heartbeats.” Dr. Bedi sounded patient, as if he’d had this conversation before. “You’re definitely pregnant with twins.”

“I had my tubes tied fifteen years ago. Your wife did the surgery.” My voice was getting louder. I didn’t care. “This doesn’t happen.”

“It’s rare, but it happens. The fallopian tubes can reconnect spontaneously. And when they do, fertility can be enhanced for a period, which might explain why you conceived multiples.”

“Two babies?” I whispered.

Twins by a man whose son was engaged to my daughter.

And yes, her fiancé, Santo, was sleeping in the downstairs guest room instead of with her, because that’s how things worked under my roof when you weren’t married.

The fact that I had no moral high ground whatsoever to stand on while enforcing that rule was beside the point.

“Yes.” He removed the wand and handed me tissues. “You can get dressed. Take your time. When you’re ready, we’ll discuss your options.”

Options. I didn’t like that word, but there was no playbook for this. No guidebook for how to handle being pregnant with your daughter’s future father-in-law’s babies.

Mama Nettie would listen. Before I was her daughter-in-law, I was her foster kid. Showed up at her door at sixteen with too much attitude and not enough trust. She kept me anyway. That woman loved me. I knew it the way I knew gravity worked.

But I needed to sit with this news before I said it out loud to anyone.

Dr. Bedi left, and I stayed on the table, staring at the blank ultrasound screen. How was I going to tell Tia? How was I going to look Santo in the face, knowing I was carrying his half-siblings? How was I going to keep building my business while dealing with morning sickness and baby stuff and...

My phone buzzed. Three missed calls from Chauncey Jones, my creative director and the guy who’d been with me since I started my marketing agency six years ago. If Chauncey was calling three times before lunch, something needed my attention immediately.

I looked at his text.

Need your eyes on the Black Ember deck. Brand positioning section isn’t working.

The Black Ember pitch. Perfect. Apparently, finding out I was pregnant with twins wasn’t enough drama for one day.

We’d been working on this proposal for six weeks, ever since we made it to round two of Black Ember Distilling Co.’s search for a marketing agency. They were a heritage bourbon brand with an incredible story and virtually no digital presence.

They wanted a complete digital makeover. A multi-year partnership that could transform my agency overnight. The kind of opportunity I’d been working toward for years.

We had three weeks to nail this pitch. Three weeks while I was apparently going to be dealing with whatever the hell came next from this impossible situation.

I texted Chauncey back while my brain processed how completely my world had flipped upside down.

Everything I’d worked for, everything I’d planned, felt as shaky as those two little heartbeats on the ultrasound screen.

Two heartbeats that were about to change absolutely everything.