Page 42 of Accidental Wedding Crasher
The certainty only lasted for a minute, though. Almost immediately, doubt and fear crept back in. Mia knew she was ready to be a mother, even though she hadn’t expected it to come now. She’d been training for years with her students. She loved kids, and this was a lifelong dream. But she knew equally clearlythat Evan wasn’t ready to be a father. How on earth was she going to tell him about this? The pressure on her had increased a thousandfold. Now she wasn’t only a fake girlfriend, but a pregnant one, too.
Mia sank onto the bathroom floor, biting her lip, the test held in her hands.It’s going to be okay,she told herself, but she wasn’t so sure. Evan could easily be so shocked that he’d decide he didn’t want Mia, or the baby, in his life at all anymore.
Mia’s phone dinged, startling her, and she reached for it. It was an email from her father about a movie he thought they should watch together, but it reminded Mia that she had responsibilities beyond panicking on the bathroom floor. She had places to be and people who were counting on her.
Somehow, in a fog, she managed to shower, put on the blue lacy dress she’d brought for the ceremony, and put on a touch of makeup to make herself look a little less pale and worried. As she was doing her hair, Evan returned. She looked up, her heart racing.
“Hi there,” he said. “Sorry for disappearing this morning. I had urgent work to do.”
“That’s fine.” The words came out squeaky.
“Are you okay?” Evan asked, his brow furrowing.
Tell him,Mia thought. A stronger part of her overrode that urge, though.First, let him enjoy the wedding, then you’ll talk.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She managed a smile. “Should we head downstairs?”
“I’ll get dressed quick.”
So, instead of talking, they went downstairs together for the ceremony. They sat in the front row, but soon, Evan was called back to fulfill his best-man duties, leaving Mia alone with the rest of his family who weren’t in the ceremony.
The venue was breathtaking. An archway of grapevines had been constructed at the end of an aisle strewn with flower petals. The bridesmaids all wore tasteful dark purple dresses in slightly different styles, while the groomsmen had tailored black suits with matching ties. Evan looked particularly dashing in his best-man tuxedo. The flower girl was Sarah’s young niece, who’d arrived the day before, and the ring bearer was the son of a family friend. Seeing the young kids pinched Mia’s heart, and she rested one hand subtly on her stomach, thinking of her own child at that age.
Then the live music swelled into the bridal march, and Sarah appeared at the start of the aisle. She looked radiant. Her blond hair had been piled on her head and threaded with flowers. Her makeup was light and gorgeous, and her silver earrings sparkled in the sunlight. Her wedding dress was a mermaid cut and perfectly complemented her figure. The most radiant thing about her, though, was her eyes, which sparkled as she caught sight of Luka at the end of the aisle.
Mia could barely pay attention to the ceremony, though. She vaguely heard that the couple exchanged vows, their “I dos” filled with feeling, but the whole time, her thoughts kept going back to her baby.Theirbaby. Her gaze was drawn over and over to her stomach. It still looked flat under the lacy blue dress, but everything was different. What was Evan going to say? How was she going to tell him? Could she handle being a single mother?
“Are you all right, dear?” Ellen asked, leaning over to put a hand on Mia’s arm during a quiet moment in the ceremony. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m okay, thank you.” Mia smiled and sat up straighter. She couldn’t let anyone notice that she wasn’t feeling well, especially not Evan’s mother.
“You may kiss the bride,” the officiant announced. Luka and Sarah leaned in for a kiss, a longer one than Mia would have expected to happen in front of everyone, then straightened up, turning to smile and wave. Cheers rose from the crowd as the newlyweds ran down the aisle, hand in hand, grinning broadly. They stopped in the middle of the aisle so Luka could sweep Sarah into another tender kiss before continuing.
“Look at the two of them, so in love.” Ellen smiled and leaned closer to Mia. “Maybe you and Evan will be next.”
Mia’s heart plummeted, but she managed a nod. There was no future like this for her and Evan. She would never appear in a white dress in front of all their friends and family. He would never embrace being a husband and father with open arms. The only thing she could do was to find a good, quiet time to tell him so that they could talk things out. And if Mia had to be a single mother, well, it would hurt to lose Evan, but she could do it.
She could do anything for her child.
CHAPTER 18
EVAN
“What did you think of the ceremony?” Evan asked Mia, slipping into a seat beside her. They were at a post-wedding lunch on the lawn. The buffet table strained under the weight of various pastas, salads, pizzas, and meat dishes. A second enormous buffet table held only desserts.
“It was beautiful.” Mia looked down at her plate, and Evan frowned. She’d been a little off all morning; the kiss last night must have gotten to her more than she was letting on. They needed to talk about it, but Evan was dreading the conversation.
“Can I get you a bowl of gelato?” Evan suggested. Mia was picking at her food halfheartedly, but she looked up and smiled at that.
“Actually, yes. That would be nice.”
Evan’s heart soared at her smile. “I’ll be right back.”
He stood and threaded through the crowd to the dessert table. There were far more wedding guests now than before, and Evan found that he missed the quiet family atmosphere from the past few days. He threaded through a group of Sarah and Luka’shospital friends and made it to the table, where he took scoops of pistachio and Baccio gelato: pistachio because he knew it was Mia’s favorite, and Baccio because it looked chocolatey and she’d probably like that.
On the way back to the table, he ran into Luka and Sarah, who were coming out of the building where they’d taken a short break after the ceremony. They were holding hands and beaming, and Evan made a beeline for them.
“Bro!” Luka beamed. “There you are.”
