Page 15 of Forking the Billionaire

I sighed. “Yes.”

She nodded. “I ask patients to always wear a gown for consistency. It makes your appointment longer if I have to leave in the middle for you to put one on for an examination.”

“That makes sense.”

“Next time, we can make sure it’s based on what I’ll be examining if that makes you more comfortable.”

“I’m not even out the door and you’re already trying to rope me into another visit.” I let out a nervous chuckle.

Why did I say that? Right, because I hated this whole situation, and being uncomfortable made me just the tiniest bit testy.

“You will need to come back,” she said.

“Of course.” I might not like it, but I did believe in preventative medicine and whatnot.

“Especially in your condition.”

Her words repeated in my head, with more gravity than she’d used when she’d said them. “What condition? Don’t tell me I’m dying. It’s probably just me getting used to the water, right? That’s what you said before. That it was probably the water.”

“It’s not?—”

“If it has to be a food thing, it better not be something in the cheese patties. You’ve had those, right? The little hand pies withthe spices and the gooey deliciousness. If it’s the patties, I don’t know if I can quit.”

“Esme.”

Her voice was laced with practiced gentle authority, but I was seriously into cheese patties.

“I’ll eat them until they kill me,” I said, though that may have been a slight exaggeration. They weren’t worth death, but were they worth intestinal distress? Yes, they were.

“It’s nothing you’ve consumed. You’re pregnant.”

“Say what?”

“Your labs came back showing that you are pregnant.”

“That’s not possible.” None of this was making any sense. I was practically celibate. “I always use a condom.”

“The only absolutely infallible form of birth control is abstinence. Condoms tend to be about eighty-five percent effective when accounting for human error.”

“But I just had my period. I haven’t even done the nasty since then. Period means not pregnant. That’s the whole point of suffering the cramps and bloating and acne.”

“Sometimes spotting can occur during the first trimester, leading women to believe that they’ve had their period.”

I didn’t know what to say. She had to be wrong. Sure, I understood that it was possible for a condom to break. I understood that she was the expert, and what she was saying could be the case for some women. But not me.

I was just starting my best life. Plus, even in the before times, even when I’d wanted to be a wild, rebellious, carefree badass, I hadn’t been. I’d only had sex with one dude, my long-time high school boyfriend, and that had been way too long ago. No one could be pregnant for two years. Plus, if he couldn’t make me come, he shouldn’t be able to get me pregnant. That had to be a law or something.

It hit me then, like a fist to the gut.

Ihadbeen with someone else.

It was just one time, and we’d used a condom.

First Contact.

This wasn’t happening, not to me, not now. None of this was real. There had to be a mistake. The labs Dr. Squailly had seen belonged to some other woman, one who was in a place in her life where she could take care of another human being, where she actually knew what she was doing. I didn’t even trust myself to be a responsible cat mom.

Panic boiled up through my gut before expelling itself right onto Dr. Squailly’s shoes.

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