Page 71 of The Billionaire's Wife

“Okay? You’ve met them before, right?”

“Sure, when I was in high school.” Not when I’d been married to their son.

“I’m lost. Which, I’ll grant you could be because I’m exhausted, but I don’t think that’s it.”

I glommed onto her words. “Why are you exhausted? Actually, you look pale. Are you coming down with something?”

Megan sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face. “Let’s go sit.”

I looked around the empty bookstore, shrugged, and followed her to the couches. “Is it always this quiet on weeknights?”

“Depends. But yes, mostly.” Megan frowned.

“You’ve got to do the coffee bar. Even if you brought in small bakery snacks instead of worrying about any sort of large menu, that would bring in more people. You know this, right?”

“I guess. I just feel like I’d be betraying the other coffee and food options on the street.”

I scoffed. “There’s plenty of business to go around. You need people to buy books. If they can come in, get a yummy drink, and sit for a bit, they’re going to be more likely to do that instead of ordering online.”

Megan groaned. “You and Cody should get together. He keeps telling me the same things. I guess you’re both right. I’ll spend some time figuring it out.”

“That was easy. You were already mostly there, weren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I’m too tired to fight.”

“And that’s because…” I studied her. She really was pale. And a little green around the gills. Plus tired? I pursed my lips. I could think of one thing that might do that. I leaned forward. “Are you pregnant?”

“What? No. Of course not.” Megan flopped back against the couch. “Probably. I’m too scared to take a test.”

“What? Why? It’s a good thing, right?”

“I don’t want to steal any of Kayla’s thunder. And…I guess after freaking out about it for the last month or so, I’m scared it’s not really real.”

I hesitated. Maybe I could see what she was saying. Sort of. “I think everyone will be happy for you. And I suspect—granted this is going solely on how I think Jenna would respond, since I know her a little better than any of the others—they’d be annoyed with you for worrying about it.”

Megan snorted out a laugh. “You’re probably right. Ugh.”

“So. Pregnancy test. Do you have one? I can run down to the pharmacy and get one if not.”

She sat up. “You’re bossy. Also, you were going home, remember?”

“This feels more important.”

“Ha. No.” Megan pointed at me. “Nice try though, I’ll give you that. Unless you tell me Tristan’s parents were horrible people when you were a teenager, you know you need to go home and greet them.”

I groaned. I could say the words, but they weren’t horrible and no one who knew Tristan would believe otherwise, because I was sure he gushed about them to anyone who would listen. They were the embodiment of good people. Just like their son.

“Exactly.” Megan grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “Go home.”

“Fine. I’ll go home. If you promise to take a test and then text me the results. It can be before or after you tell Cody, I don’t care about that. But no more of this pretending it’ll go away because you don’t feel like dealing with it.” I bit my lip. “I can promise you, that never works out the way you want it to.”

Megan chuckled. “Deal. Now go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I stood. “Night.”

I gathered my things from the back room and offered another wave as I exited the bookstore. The walk home was a nice stretch for my legs, although my feet reminded me that I’d been on them for a good bit of the day. Now that the mess with the Ortegas was behind me, I delighted in being able to walk the streets without looking over my shoulders. For all that they were bad people, no one disobeyed Manuel Ortega’s orders. He’d told them to lay off, so they would.

The temperatures were cooling as the sun set and I made a mental note to start bringing a sweater.

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