Holy fuck! What have I gotten myself into?

“I want to be upfront with you though,” she says, her voice remaining calm and soothing, a perfect contradiction of the chaos running through my entire being right now. “Because of the lesions on your uterus, the likelihood of you carrying this baby to term might be lower. This will be a high-risk pregnancy because of that.”

Another wave of confusion hits me when her words spark a swell of sadness in me.

What the hell is wrong with me? This should make me happy, right? I can’t have a baby, so if my body naturally expels it, then problem solved. So why does the thought of that happening make me sad?

When I don’t respond, she asks, “Do you need a moment?”

“A moment?”

She gives me a nod, saying, “Yes. I’d like to go ahead and run an ultrasound to see how far along you are and get a few measurements of the baby.”

“Baby,” I whisper, repeating her foreign word.

“But if you need a moment—”

“No. I’m fine,” I say, interrupting her.

“Okay then. I’ll have my nurse call one of the ultrasound techs. She has a mobile station, so you won’t have to switch rooms.”

Dr. Leemont adjusts the table, allowing me to lie down while we wait. My heart pounds hard against my chest and the sound is all I can hear as I try to sort this all out in my head. I can’t grasp on to a single coherent thought as they all tumble into each other in a maniacal collision, aside from the one piece that remains untouched and clear as day: I’m pregnant.

The door opens and a young tech wheels in the large machine. She introduces herself, but I remain quiet as I watch her set everything up while she and Dr. Leemont go over my labs.

Once she’s set up and I lie down, she opens the front of my gown and squirts a warm blob of gel on my stomach. Pressing the wand down, she tells me, “Since we don’t know how far along you are, I’d like to see if we can get a good view of the baby externally. Normally we do an internal exam, but I’d like to try this out first.”

“Okay,” I breathe as I keep my eyes glued to the monitor screen.

She begins clicking away on her keyboard while she presses the wand firmly onto my lower abdomen, almost painfully, but then she says, “There we go,” and my heart stops. “See that?” she asks as she points to the white peanut on the screen, and as soon as she makes the slightest adjustment to the wand, she freezes the screen.

“Oh my God.”

“Let me get a couple measurements to see how far along you are,” she says, but holy shit, I can clearly see a head and a belly. Not a tiny blip you often hear about that doesn’t look like anything. I clearly see a baby: head, belly, and four tiny nubs for its arms and legs. She doesn’t even need to dissect the image for me because it’s unmistakable. Never has reality hit me so hard with a truth that’s undeniable.

“Nine weeks, five days,” she says, and then looks at me with a smile before she turns to look at her conception calendar on the monitor. “New Year’s baby, it looks like.”

I can’t speak. All I can think right now is Bennett, Declan, and Pike. I haven’t had sex with Pike in over a month, but nine weeks ago, I was having sex with all three of them. God, I’m a sick human being, carrying a baby that could belong to any one of them.

“I’m showing October tenth for a due date,” she tells me, and then she presses a button and a loud woosh woosh woosh woosh comes through the speakers at a rapid rate.

“What’s that?”

“Your baby’s heartbeat.”

“Oh my God,” I whisper again. A heartbeat? It’s so real. So alive. Hearing that fast heartbeat inside of me is almost too much as I lie here, trying not to completely lose it.

“Good and strong,” she says before turning the sound off and when it disappears, I close my eyes and replay the soothing sound in my head. How is this happening?

When she’s done, I sit up and cover myself back up with the gown while she prints me off a few photos and hands them to me, saying a happy, “Congratulations.”

But knowing my situation, and knowing what Dr. Leemont said about me being high-risk, there’s nothing to be congratulating me about. She hands me the pictures, and both she and the doctor step out of the room so that I can get dressed, but I don’t. I just sit here and look down at one of the pictures, a picture that shows a top view: head, belly, and four nubs. A weird laugh slips out through my tears when I compare the baby to a marshmallow.

My hand goes to my belly. I wouldn’t even believe it if I didn’t just see it with my own two eyes.

A baby. My baby.

I never thought I wanted one. Never thought it was even a possibility. But now that I have one, I don’t know how I feel because I’m feeling so much. I’m scared and ashamed, but under that, I feel an overwhelming sense of protectiveness for it. Never have I had anything that was solely mine, and knowing what a fucked up world this is, I’m comforted by the fact that this baby is safe inside of me.

After I’m dressed and have made my next appointment, I head outside. As soon as the cold air hits me, I’m scared to resume my life—resume the lies.

A baby.

What does this mean for me? Will it even survive to see a moment of this world? Do I want it to? The questions multiply as I stand here on the sidewalk, people moving about, cabs honking their horns, life. The wind kicks up and I begin to cry, exposing myself to these strangers around me, but nobody stops to notice. Turmoil is a dark cloud that finds its home over me right now.

I leave my car and walk. I don’t know where I’m going, but I need to move. Time passes as I wander the streets of the loop, all the while, crying. Do I tell Bennett? Is this something I can hide from him? If he knew, he’d assume it was his. What if it is? God, I can’t have him in my life. But could I kill him? The father of our baby?

Yes. I could. I’d have to because the thought of having to share this with him makes me sick to my stomach. The thought of having to look at his face, the thought of giving him a baby, giving him happiness and joy, it’s all sickening.

I desperately need someone to help me. To come and hold me, tell me it’s going to be okay. Someone to take care of me, hold my hand, and take away all my anguish. I’m sick of always feeling so alone.

I step off the curb and start crossing the street when I hear a horn blasting. I startle and jerk my head around to see through my blurred vision, a car, heading straight towards me, and I freeze.

“NINA!” a man’s voice screams in a panic.

I close my eyes, more tears falling down my cheeks when something crashes into me. I’m no longer on my feet, I’m being carried, and when I finally touch the ground, I know I’m safe by the smell.

Declan.

“Are you okay?” he asks as I open my eyes to look up at him and then at my surroundings. I’m in the lobby of his hotel.

“What happened?” I whisper as I look out of the glass doors to see the street, busy with cars.

“I was in my office when I happened to see you walking. I went outside to catch you when you stepped out into oncoming traffic. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I don’t . . .” my voice trembles, and then, like a porcelain doll falling to its death, I shatter. Falling into his arms, the sobs begin ripping out of me.

He quickly scoops me off my feet, cradling me in his arms, as he rushes me out of the lobby and into the elevator. He doesn’t say anything as I cry against him with my arms clinging around his neck. He holds me like a child and it comforts me in a way only he can do, whispering, “Shhh, baby. I’ve got you,” softly in my ear.

The elevator opens and he carries me into his penthouse room and sets me down on the couch as he crouches down in front of me. When I drop my head into my hands, he pulls them away, and I can’t stop the tears from falling as I look down at him. His face is covered in worry and I know there’s no way I could keep this from him because I need him so badly right now. He’s the one I want reassuring me. He’s the only one I want—always. So when he asks, “Baby, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me,” I don’t hesitate for a single moment when I tell him, “I’m pregnant.”