My legs give out and I’m back on the floor, my back against the cabinet, staring at those two lines. I can’t seem to look away from them. I can’t process what they mean.
I’m pregnant with Leo Santoro’s baby.
The man my father wants to kill. The man who kidnapped me from my wedding six weeks ago. The man I fell in love with despite every reason not to. The man whose bed I sleep in every night, whose arms I wake up in every morning, whose future I can’t imagine not being part of.
I’m carrying his child.
The emotions hit me all at once—a tidal wave that threatens to drown me. Terror and joy and panic and wonder all tangled together until I can’t tell which is which. My hand goes to my stomach automatically, pressing against the flat plane of it even though there’s nothing to feel yet, nothing to see.
But knowing it’s there—knowing there’s a tiny life growing inside me right now, a collection of cells that’s half Leo and half me—changeseverything.
I’m going to have a baby.
Ababy.
The tears start then, hot and fast, streaming down my face. I press my hand harder against my stomach and I let myself cry for the impossibility of it, the timing, the complications it will cause, for the fierce protective love I already feel for this tiny life.
I want this baby. I want it so much it physically hurts.
I don’t know how long I sit there on the bathroom floor, crying and trying to process this. Eventually the tears slow and I’m left feeling wrung out and exhausted and terrified and weirdly, impossibly happy.
I need to tell Leo.
The thought makes my heart race all over again. He deserves to know. He deserves to hear it from me before everything—before whatever’s coming comes. Because something is coming, I can feel it in my bones. Dad doesn’t give up.
What if something happens to Leo before I can tell him? What if my father succeeds? What if Leo never knows he’s going to be a father?
The thought makes me feel sick all over again.
I force myself to stand up, my legs unsteady. I splash cold water on my face, trying to clean up the evidence of my tears. My eyes are red and swollen, my face blotchy, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.
I pick up the pregnancy test, staring at those two lines one more time. Proof. Evidence. A secret that’s about to become real the moment I share it.
I tuck it into my pocket and head for the bathroom door.
I need to find Leo. Fuck his conference calls. I need to tell him. Now.
But as my hand touches the doorknob, I hear it.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Gunfire.
Distant but unmistakable. Coming from outside.
Then shouting. Alarms start blaring. The security system Leo installed after the bombing screaming through the house.
More gunfire. Closer now.
No. Notnow. Not when I just found out. Not when I need to tell Leo.
I run to the window outside my old room. This area of the house faces the front of the property, and when I look out I can see them.
Men. At least forty of them, maybe more. Armed. Advancing on the house.
And at the front, commanding them with the confidence of someone who owns the world?—
My father.