Page 42 of Forced Arrangement

I do some quick math. “I don’t know, about four weeks?”

She looks down at the floor for a moment, then meets my gaze again. “Have you been sleeping with Angelo the whole time you’ve been here?”

I feel like a boulder has been dropped into my stomach.

“Oh my God,” I whisper, pressing a hand to my belly. “But, I’ve been taking my pills.”

“On time?” she asks me.

I wince. “I mean, mostly,” I admit. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wall. This cannot be happening.

“Well,” Justine says, “these things do happen, even when people are on the pill.”

I feel a tear slip down my cheek. This is not how I wanted to find out I was pregnant. This is not how I wanted to become a mother.

“Let me have Franco take me to get some tests. Or maybe I can send him out for us.” She giggles.

I grab her hand before she can move. “No!” I cry out, making her stop abruptly. “No, you can’t do that. No one can know.”

She frowns at me, confused. “Babe, we need to know if you really are pregnant. You need to stop taking the pill, you need to go see a doctor…”

I shake my head, despite how it makes my nausea ratchet up. “No, Justine, we cannot, must not, do that. No one can know about this. It will make me seem weak, vulnerable, like I can be taken down. And,” I grimace as a new thought occurs to me, “everyone will want to kidnap our child to try to force Angelo’s hand, or even my hand.”

Justine sighs, coming to sit down next to me. “Well, fuck,” she says.

I laugh despite the fear coiled within me. “Indeed,” I agree.

She takes my hand, squeezing it. “We’ve kept secrets before,” she says softly.

I look over at her and meet her gaze. There are tears standing in her eyes and I feel my own eyes prickly with moisture.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I’m going to be the best auntie ever!” she whispers fiercely before a tear slides down her cheek.

We share a sisterly smile, and she leans over to hug me.

As we pull apart, I realize that I’m feeling a little better. “I think I want that tea now,” I tell her.

Justine smiles primly at me. “If you would have just let me get you some to start with you would have been right as rain by now.

I laughed, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” I tell her.

We walk toward the kitchen, Justine prattling on about the handsome mafia men all over the place and how she wants to see the museums in the city.

“Please, Jus, don’t start with Franco,” I plead at one point as I rummage through the kitchen looking for tea.

“Oh, once I’ve started, you know I can’t stop.” She winks at me “I’m not blind, babe. I saw the way he looked at me when I got here. He’s stoic, brooding, completely infuriating... but hot as hell. And I like a challenge.”

“I don’t think Franco is the type to…”

“To what? Be swayed by my undeniable charm?” she shoots me a grin as she grabs some mugs from a shelf. “Watch me work my magic.”

I sigh. Justine is incorrigible, but I’m glad she’s here. I know she still has no idea what we are up against. And as much as I want to believe her words, this isn’t a game I can win with a little charm.

The weight of the situation settles back on my shoulders as we sip our tea. The house is too quiet. It’s the kind of silence that makes you think too much—the kind of silence that makes you question everything.

I glance over at Justine, opening my mouth to say something to her, when I realize that she’s scrolling through the Instacart app on her phone.

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