Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RICH
Annie came into the kitchen with a look of shock on her face. “Is that Lucy throwing up?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling.
“Uh, yeah. I didn’t think you were home.”
I eyed my daughter suspiciously. There was something she wasn’t telling me. “I’ve got a meeting in London next week, so I thought I’d come home early and sort out some things. Why? What’s going on?”
“Oh. Nothing.”
I’d been able to tell when this kid was lying from the day her first lie fell out of her cute little mouth. This was one of those times. She wasn’t making eye contact as she moved around me and put the kettle on.
I raised an eyebrow and looked at her. “Annie. What is it?”
Annie sighed and leaned against the counter as the kettle boiled. “It’s not my thing to tell you.”
Panic filled me. “Is something wrong with Lucy?”
Annie gave me a look that confirmed it but also told me she wasn’t willing to tell me more.
“Is she okay? Should I call her mum?”
Annie shook her head. “No! Don’t do that. It’s something she needs to deal with without her mum first, I think.”
“Annie, you’re worrying me.”
My daughter’s shoulders sagged. “Look, she just found out she’s pregnant. But I didn’t tell you that.”
I wanted to reply in a sensible way, but I couldn’t. “What? That can’t be right. I mean, I’ve...” I caught myself before saying the final part of that sentence. I tried hard to keep my emotions in check before they became obvious to Annie. My heart thumbed in my chest and stomach flipped in every possible direction.
“You’ve what?”
“Taught you girls better,” I said in the hope it worked as a way to get me out of this situation.
Annie rolled her eyes at me and went back to finishing the tea she was making. “As I told Lucy, not everything is one hundred percent effective, Dad.”
I nodded absently. A vasectomy was meant to have been, though. But if I was honest with myself, I’d never had it confirmed that the vasectomy had been a complete success. Erica blew up our marriage before I had to, and then I was too much in a dark fog of booze and depression to attend the follow-up appointment.
Shit .
“I’m just going to take this back up to Lucy.” Annie held the mug up and headed back to her friend. Her friend, pregnant with my baby. My stomach sank to my feet when I thought about how messy everything had just become. Sure, it was messy before, but we’d just amplified that by about three thousand percent.
Lucy was going to have my baby. Her mum was going to kill me. Annie was never going to forgive me.