Page 52 of Bossy Ex's Brother

“Because,” he said. “You’re going to be a father.”

I blinked at him, still not making any connections in what he was saying.

With a chuckle, he rolled his eyes and said, “Your woman’s pregnant.”

TWENTY-ONE

JANE

I thought I’d heard wrong.

“I’m what?” I gasped.

The doctor, a smiling older man, said, “Pregnant.” He handed me a page of paper with a bunch of words and numbers on it that meant nothing to me. “The early test confirmed it. You’re about four weeks along. I would say.”

Nope. No, that didn’t make any sense.

Pregnant?

I turned my horrified gaze to Luca and saw that he had the same blank expression on his face, like shock mixed with confusion. His heterochromatic eyes snagged mine, and we remained like that for several seconds to minutes, neither of us saying anything as we let the news sink in.

I was pregnant.

The doctor glanced between the two of us, and the smile on his face slowly slipped off, giving way to discomfort. “I’m guessing this is not good news to either of you, is it?”

I slowly shook my head, still too stunned to speak. Luca didn’t address the doctor’s words. His eyes were brimming with intensity, his jaw tightening.

“Well, this is awkward,” the doctor said, finally drawing Luca’s attention. The look on the latter’s face was practically a glare, but the doctor shrugged with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, man, I thought you guys were already planning for this. I mean, you’re usually so careful….”

He trailed off when Luca’s glare became even more severe. The doctor winced.

“Alright, I’ll shut up now,” he said and reached over, snagging a few brochures from a compartment on the wall. He handed them to me. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk about it. But there are options for you. You can read this if you want to find out more about them. I would also recommend that you see a specialist first before deciding one way or another, and I can recommend one for you if you’d like….”

I tuned him out as he droned on, the words drowned out by the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. My mind was bouncing around erratically as well, plagued with so many different thoughts that it was difficult to settle on one.Pregnant. The word echoed in my head like a gong, announcing my eventual doom.Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.

How the hell could I be pregnant? The only person I’d had sex with within the past three months was Luca, and we’d used a condom the first time. Except…

My breath caught.

“You might want to take care of it,” he’d said. “I think the condom ripped apart inside.”

I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten his warning due to how hectic that day—and the few days after that—were. I’d never taken the morning-after pill because it completely slipped my mind.

God, I was so stupid.

I groaned, burying my face in my hands.

How on earth could I have been so careless? I was usually on top of things like that, to an anal degree. And the one time I wasn’t, this was what happened.

What the hell was I supposed to do now? With a baby? I could only laugh at myself, feeling like the worst fraud and hypocrite in the world. Bethany would have a field day with this.You pretend like you have it all under control and know what you’re doing, but now look at you.And I’d told Felix not to worry, that I would never end up like my mother.

But here I was, following in her footsteps and making the same mistakes she’d made. I’d slept with a guy I knew was no good for me, and now I was pregnant by him too. And at least one could say that my mother made those mistakes because she didn’t know better. But the most painful part of it was that I did. I knew better than to be so careless.

And I’d been anyway.

I felt Luca shift, more so than I saw, and the sound drew my attention back to him. The doctor had left already, and Luca was now standing, leaning against the wall, and watching me with that same solemn look in his eyes.

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