Page 68 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

CHAPTER SEVEN

PORTIAPOUREDHOTwater over the teabag, carefully putting the tea canister away then getting milk from the fridge. She paused, drawing a slow breath, before grabbing a cloth and wiping down the already clean kitchen bench. Cloth in hand, she looked around for something else to clean.

Stop being a coward. It’s time.

Another slow breath, deeper this time, as she tried to settle the butterflies that felt more like fire-breathing dragons, swooping and diving in her stomach.

Dropping the cloth, she took the three steps needed to reach the end of the bench. To the small plastic item resting there so innocuously.

She didn’t touch it. There was no need. The result was clearly visible.

Positive.

She swallowed and it felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done.

That foolishness made her laugh, the sound somewhere between a giggle and a sob. There’d been much harder things in her life than this.

Before she could stop them, memories seeped through the barrier she’d erected against them. Darkness and pain. Grief and raw despair.

She stiffened, forcing them away, focusing on the present. Riding out the quiver of emotion and shock until her shaky knees strengthened.

She was pregnant. With Lex’s baby.

After all these years, to be carryinghischild.

They weren’t even in a relationship! For a brief time they’d come together again, spurred by whispers of the past and a combustible passion that surely stemmed from a sense of matters not resolved between them. But in reality they were strangers now. No matter how amazing their physical compatibility, they both understood their lives no longer intersected.

Lex had taken her at her word. She’d said she didn’t want to see him again and he hadn’t argued. That confirmed what she’d already told herself, that their relationship lacked depth or meaning. He wanted the sex but that wasall. The liaison could lead nowhere.

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. He’d dropped her at the station that day, waiting to ensure she made the connection into the city before driving himself to the airport.

Portia hadn’t kissed him goodbye, too fearful that any physical contact might weaken her resolution.

Because she’d wanted, badly, to see him again. To prolong the affair. But spending more time with him would only make her weak and dangerously needy for a man who could never be hers.

Her gaze strayed again to the test result.

It was as if fate enjoyed throwing them together, making her confront her weakness.

She was tempted to get out the other kit she’d bought. But this was the second positive result. Did she really need a third? In her heart of hearts she’d known the truth. She’d suspected when she’d first noticed her tender breasts. Had been fatalistically unsurprised when her period was late, even though they’d taken precautions.

She couldn’t remember Lex being careless with protection. Which meant theirs had to be one of those few cases that defied probability.

Reaching for her tea, she sank onto a nearby chair. She might have expected the positive result, yet she couldn’t get her head around the enormity of it.

Or maybe you’re too scared to think about what this means. About what the future might hold.

She raised the mug to her lips, sipping and hoping the routine act of drinking tea would restore a sense of normality to a world that had suddenly turned upside down.

Her laugh was strained in the quiet room. She had the feeling her world would never benormalin the way she’d known it again.

But what would it be like, the future? She had some serious thinking to do. She took another sip of tea and found her other hand had slipped down to cover her abdomen.

We need to go our separate ways. Thank you, Lex, and goodbye.

It had been over a month since he’d heard Portia’s voice but her words, her tone, were as clear in his head now as they’d been that weekend when she’d dismissed him.

Dismissed him!

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