Chapter 23
We walk backto our rooms and agree to meet at the botanical gardens in the hotel after we’ve freshened up; Reese and Killian as well. Nerves bloom in my chest, knotting my stomach and making the nauseous feeling more evident. Was Sage right? Could I be pregnant? Fear blankets me and inside I can feel myself trembling. I sit on the edge of the bed, my eyes pinned to the carpet of our room and I can’t seem to concentrate on anything other than the possibility of a baby growing inside of me. How could I have been so stupid. I know I have used protection once with Keaton and TallDarkandHandsome, and I am on my own birth control methods so getting pregnant seems a rarity but not impossible. These things happen. I know that, not all methods are safe. No matter if you were double wrapped. Shit, what was I going to do.
Keaton didn’t want to be a dad, and honestly, I didn’t want to be a mom. Did I? Yeah, in the future I would love to be a mom, but not at the age of twenty-one. I had so much planned. Sure, my plans were derailed slightly with not passing my exams, but still, I was working and I know deep down I would love to go back to medical school and redo my internship. I just didn’t have it in me to return with my year now above me. Maybe in a couple of years when they’re further into their career, maybe then I could go back. But until then. I needed to just keep my job, save enough money and move out. I couldn’t go back home. I didn’t want to go back home. I didn’t want to stay with Keaton forever either. He helped me out and was willing to let me stay while I needed to. It was getting to the point where I didn’t need to be there anymore.
Fuck, and then we got married. What were we thinking? Both too strong headed to back the fuck down like we should have done. Neither of us wanted to be the loser. But now look at both of us. Married. Possibly pregnant with another man’s baby and burning the once steady bridges around us.
Shit. This is fucked up.
Throwing my head into my hands I let out a heavy sigh. I didn’t want to cry, but I could feel the burn in my throat, the sting behind my eyes like a thousand needles.
“Ari,” Keaton’s voice blankets me like a thick velvet blanket and suddenly I feel safe and warm. I look up at him, blue eyes glassy as I let them sweep over his wet upper body. Torso shimmering with shower water, dark hair flattened to his toned chest and a dusting of hair disappearing into his white fluffy towel that is hugged around his waist. My thoughts subside momentarily and are replaced with the thought of running my tongue over his torso, lapping up the droplets of water that run down his tanned skin. To feel the silkiness of him on my tongue.
“Yup,” I look up at him, eyes burning into his beautiful green emeralds.
“Are you okay? You’ve seemed a little quiet since breakfast,” and I hear a small ounce of defeat in his voice. I nod.
“Just trying to wrap my head round all of this.” A laugh catches at the back of my throat. “What the fuck did we do last night?” I shake my head from side to side and stand, Keaton closing the gap between us as his hand cups my cheek.
“We got married baby,” he cocks his head to the side, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his lips and I lean into his hand, letting my eyes flutter shut for just a moment.
“We’re stupid.”
“Maybe,” he chuckles softly, “but honestly, tell me… are you mad about it?”
My lids lift, my eyes widening as I stare at him, mouth opening and closing.
“Are you?” he presses, his tone dark and slow and delicious.
“No,” I manage a whisper, “are you?”
“Not one fucking bit baby,” he pauses for a moment as his thumb pad brushes against my flamed cheek. “But if you want an annulment, or a divorce… or whatever it is. Then I will do it. If that’s what you want.” His eyes dance with mine and I press up onto my tip toes and kiss him softly; my hand on his steady heartbeat, my fingers soaking up the now cold shower water and I let my nerves absorb every ounce of him into my soul.
He was an addiction that I knew I had to curb, but I couldn’t. He was my drug and I wanted and needed him constantly, every waking moment my thoughts were on him, counting down the hours until my fingers were on his skin, our tongues were dancing together, our lips locked as our hearts entwined as one. We shouldn’t work. But we do. I have never wanted anything as much as I want Keaton Mills. It was wrong. We both knew it. But we were both addicts and we didn’t want to quit.
I break away, stepping back as my stomach twists.
“I need to pop to the store, you stay here and I’ll meet you back in the room shortly okay?” I rush out and begin walking to the door, grabbing my bag as I do.
“I’ll come with you, hold up.”
“No, honestly, I’m fine. I need some fresh air, Sage is coming with me,” I give him a tight nod and grab my key card as I walk out the door, letting the heavy door close behind me.
I walk, head up, as I march towards Sage and Dex’s room. Lifting my hand, I knock on the door softly, and within seconds, the door pulls open and I see a wide-eyed Sage.
“Er… did I interrupt?” I ask, my cheeks pinching red.
“Nope, well… maybe, but?—”
“You did!” Dex shouts out and Sage rolls her eyes.
“What’s up, is everything okay?”
“Not really, no. But, I need to go to a drug store or something. I need to grab a…” I pause, not sure if she has even mentioned it to Dex or not. I didn’t want anyone else knowing about this until they had to.
“Sure thing, let me just…” she thumbs behind her and I give her a nod, stepping back as she closes the door. Bad enough I encroached, I didn’t want to overstep more, so thought best to let her finish what she had started.
Nerves swirl like rapids in my stomach and my chest aches. What the fuck was I going to do? My dad would murder Keaton if I was. I was sure of it. Then he would lock me away.
Oh how ironic.
Dad and grandpa at the same time.
Sucks to be him right now.
I am pulled from my thoughts when Sage opens the door, dressed in a completely different outfit and large sunglasses on.
“Ready?”
“Nope.”
“Good, then let’s get going.”
The autumn sun in Vegas was still hot and it felt so good to have the sun on my skin, I missed it. I didn’t like the cold winters back in New York, but I loved the winter sun. The sunshine always made things better. Whether it would make this situation any better, we will find out soon, but normally, the sun does indeed make everything better.
The strip was busy, too busy for eleven a.m.
“How’s the hangover?” Sage knocks into me and I let out what sounds like a growl. “That good aye?” I look over at her, narrowing my gaze on her but she wouldn’t know that because I am hid behind my glasses.
“Sage what am I going to do?” I say quietly as we round a corner and down an alley where some shops are located.
“You’re going to boss it. Of course, you are.” She links her arms through mine, and I have never been more grateful than I am now to have someone by my side like Sage. What am I going to do when she moves back home? Fear claws my throat.
“Sage, I’m scared,” I stop in my tracks and turn to face her, and I hadn’t even realized a tear escaped, running down my cheek as I palm it away.
“Of course, you are, I would be worried if you wasn’t.” I nod, dropping my head for a moment. “How do you think Keaton will take it, hypothetically speaking…” she pauses.
“It’s not just Keaton I have to worry about…” I focus on my chunky loafers, my bare legs out.
“Another man?”
“A one-night thing.”
“Work?” her brows raise high enough to lift over the thick rims of her black sunglasses.
“I do cam girl work… well, did. One of my clients paid for a private room a few weeks back… I hadn’t ever done anything like that before. He took my…”
I can’t even bring myself to say the words when I feel my shoulders sag and a choked sob vibrates through my chest, my lungs burning and my eyes leaking with salty tears.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” Sage breathes, pulling me into her arms and folding me into an embrace as I cry into her chest. “It’ll be okay.” Her hand is stroking though my hair as she lets me cry and soak her black peter pan collared dress.
“I am just hoping it’s Keaton’s.”
“And if it isn’t?” She asks the burning question.
“Then I have no idea,” I whisper, lifting my head from her chest and pushing the glasses onto my head as I angrily wipe the tear stains off my face.
“Keaton is a good man… I think he will prove you wrong.”
“I hope you’re right, I really do,” I tremble before she drags me back towards her and holds me tightly, not letting me go until I am ready.
Walkingout of the store with a handful of pregnancy tests, I stash them inside my bag as we take a slow walk back to the hotel. I still couldn’t believe I had gotten myself into this situation. I knew me and Keaton hadn’t used protection a couple of times, so, given the odds of Keaton versus TallDarkandHandsome, Keaton was coming up trumps. But life doesn’t work out that way does it. Life can be cruel, and given the hand I have already been dealt in this shitty life, chances were the baby would work out to be his, whoever he was. I was blindfolded that night, I heard the sound of the wrapper being ripped open but what if he actually never used it? It was my first time; I don’t know how it should have felt.
Such an idiot.
We approach the hotel and I stop walking, looking up at the large building and my heart is drumming inside my chest at rapid speed as it skips beats.
“Whatever the outcome…” Sage says and I lock my hand with hers, our fingers linked as I give her a reassuring squeeze.
“Time to rip the plaster off…”
“Band-aid,” I correct her.
“We say plaster,” she scrunches her nose up.
“You’re in America now baby, we say band-aid,” and she swats the top of my arm and walks me back into the hotel where I am about to learn my fate.
And I think deep down I already knew what was about to come.
I just didn’t want to believe it.
We said our goodbyes and I walked towards my hotel room, and with every step that drew me closer, my heart thumped a little harder in my chest.
Letting myself in the room, my eyes seek out Keaton who gives me a handsome smile as his eyes land on me.
“Was thinking you may have done a runner on me, wife?” he teases, and my insides knot at the word wife leaving his lips.
It has no right sounding as hot as it did.
“Never,” I whisper, clutching my purse tightly under my arm.
“You okay?” his brows furrow as he steps closer to me and I step back, nodding.
“I just need to use the restroom,” I drop my eyes from his, suddenly it feels too much to be staring into the window of his soul when I could potentially wreck his world in the next five to ten minutes.
I don’t wait to hear what he says, just slip inside the room and lock the door behind me. Placing my purse on the countertop of the vanity unit, I curl my fingers round the edge and drop my head.
“Please, whoever is looking over me, whoever is guiding me down my path… please let this work out the way it should.”
Finally lifting my heavy head, I stare at myself in the mirror. This is it. I needed to pull my big girl panties up and pee on the stick.
Giving myself a nod at my reflection, I reach for my purse and grab the small brown bag with the tests in. Sage told me to get a normal and a digital and to do both, so, that’s what I was going to do.
Then come the waiting, and honestly, it was the longest three minutes of my life.
A knock on the door has me jumping back and spinning to face where the noise came from.
“Yeah?” I call out, nerves suffocating me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine, just come over a little nauseous.”
“Do you need anything?”
“No thanks.”
There is so much more I want to say, but the words are struggling to fight through the thickness of my throat.
I turn around, heartbeat drumming in my chest, blood thumping in my ears when I finally allow myself to lift the tests up and read the results.
“Oh my god.”
I stared at the two tests in front of me.
One with two pink lines.
The other with the words ‘pregnant 2-3 weeks’.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This is fine. It’s all fine.
Is it?
Shit.
No, it’s not fine.
FUCK!
I slam my hands down on the work surface before wrapping my fingers back round the edge of the unit, my head tipped back as silent tears fall from my eyes.
Married.
Pregnant.
My life literally turned upside down in a day.
It’s going to be fine.
I silently reasoned with myself.
Slowly letting my head roll up, I look at my blotchy face and tear-stained cheeks and smile at myself in the mirror. It had to be fine.
Because it wasn’t just me anymore.
Dusting the tests into my purse, I then splash my face with water.
Standing up a little taller, I roll my shoulders back and walk out of the restroom and back to a pacing Keaton.
“Are you okay?” He rushes to my side, cupping my face in his hands as his eyes search my face for something, anything to give him an answer.
I nod, biting the inside of my bottom lip to stop the tears that are threatening to fall once more.
“Hey, hey, talk to me,” he ushers, his thumb collecting a tear that escaped.
“I’m pregnant, Keaton.” there is no point beating around the bush, no point stalling the inevitable. “It wasn’t stomach flu, or motion sickness. It was pregnancy. I’m having a baby.”
And I wait. And wait. And wait a little bit more for him to freak out. For him to start yelling and screaming about how stupid I am to get knocked up and how reckless it was of me to throw my life away so young with a pregnancy.
But he doesn’t. I see the way his eyes soften, the way his lips turn up into a smile and then the light green of his eyes mists over.
“You’re pregnant?” he whispers, my fingers wrapping round his wrists, and I nod, tears now streaming down my face, but then the harsh reality kicks me in the stomach like a horse hoof.
“But…” I pause.
“But,” he hangs on my word.
“There was the guy before you…”
“But it was only once?” he looks at me confused.
“It only takes once, Keaton,” and my tone is soft, our eyes locked on each other’s gaze.
“But we have done it so much more,” his brows wiggle in a playful manner and I couldn’t love him more than I do in this moment.
“But…” I pause, “the buts don’t matter Keaton. I can’t promise this baby is yours… and I completely get if you don’t want to—” he pushes his finger to my lips and shakes his head from side to side slowly.
“I’m not going anywhere Blossom, it’s me and you,” his lips press to my cheeks, soaking my tears up.
“But,” my bottom lip trembles.
“The buts don’t matter baby…” his hands slowly pull from my face and rest on my lower stomach as he recites my earlier words, “it’s just the three of us. Genetics don’t matter, it’s you and me and our little baby. I’m not going anywhere. I promise you.”
And I sob. Full on ugly sobbing as I throw my arms around his neck, holding onto him like he is my lifeline and I never want to let him go.