Page 86 of Conviction
His head flies up from where he was looking down at the water. Eyes wide. His mouth hangs open for a few seconds.
“The night you left him? You mean the night he attacked you…” his words trail off, and I can see his thought process registering in his eyes and facial expressions. His frown deepens, and he actually backs away from me a couple of steps.
“No. Meebs. Baby, did he..?” he trails off shaking his head no, as I nod mine yes. He moves at speed toward me, pulling my body to his. Wrapping me in his protective arms.
“Fuck, baby. Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I try to speak, to explain, but I can’t talk around the ball of emotion that’s well and truly lodged in my throat. Ella Henderson is singing about a ghost, and I listen to the soothing tone of her voice to calm me down.
Eventually, I manage to form words. “I love you. I love… I’m so sorry, Con. I wish it was yours. I’ll love the baby regardless, but I wish it was yours.”
He kisses my head, my hair, my face and nose. He kisses away my tears.
“He will be mine, Meebs, he’ll be mine and yours. The genes don’t matter. He’ll still be ours. Anyway, you don’t know that he’s not yet.”
I look up at him, confused. “How can he… it, be yours?”
He shrugs and smiles. Through all this shit, he finds me a smile.
“Well, think about it. You’ve been trying all this time with Marcus and nothing. A coupla months with me and bang, you’re pregnant.”
“But we’ve been careful.”
“No we haven’t, not every time.”
He leads me inside by the hand and pulls me into him as we lay down on the bed.
“That first week, remember? Once on the kitchen worktop and twice in the pool. That’s three times, Meebs. That makes the odds more likely to be in my favour.”
We’re both very quiet as we consider this. I listen to the strong, steady rhythm of his heartbeat and despite the turmoil churning inside me, that combined with the way Conner strokes his fingers up and down my spine, I’m soon drifting off to sleep. As I do, I have one continuous thought running on a loop through my head…I’m pregnant, and I don’t know who the father is.
When I wake later, I’mlying in the middle of the bed with the duvet folded over me. I’m alone, but I can hear Conner’s voice from somewhere. After listening for a few seconds, I realise he’s out on the balcony.
“So, who would you recommend?”
“Well, could you find out?”
“Could you do that for me? Get me a name and a number, and I’ll get it sorted so that we can be seen Monday.”
He laughs. “Too fucking right Jen, not always, but sometimes itisgood to be me.”
He’s talking to Jenna, but I’m not sure what about.
“Love you too, Jen, thanks for this and don’t forget, for now, it’s just between us.”
He walks back into the bedroom, just as I’m pushing myself up to a sitting position in the bed. I feel like shit. My face feels dry, and it stings from the salty tears I’ve cried. My eyes feel puffy, and I don’t even want to consider what my hair might be doing.
Conner, on the other hand, wow. He’s showered, his hair’s still damp and pushed back from his face, which is tanned from all the sun we’ve been getting the last couple of weeks. Those bluey-green eyes look amazing against his darker skin, and I love the way they’re all over me right now. He gives me a smile, a different smile. It’s a combination of the boy I used to love smile, his sexy, I’m Conner fucking Reed smile and something else.
“Let’s get married,” he suggests as he walks toward the bed. My belly does a few backflips, followed by a forward roll.
“I’m still married to Marcus.”
“Fuck, yeah. How could I forget about the orange?” he crawls across the bed as he speaks, pulls the duvet back and settles on his knees between my legs.
“What orange?”
“Marcus, that orange.”
