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“Did you just say wedding?”

Chapter 28- Zane

Three days.

It had been three days since I peed on that stick and watched two pink lines show up and change my whole damn life.

I was spiraling.

I couldn’t eat.

Couldn’t sleep.

Couldn’t stop thinking about what came next. I had pictured a thousand scenarios, and I couldn’t picture this ending well.

Sam was in the living room after we’d come back from buying what was needed for the house we were working on. He was watching a game with the sound low and scrolling through all the pictures and videos the private investigator had sent him. He had been doing everything he promised.

I was sitting in the bedroom with a pillow clutched to my stomach like that would make the thoughts stop.

I was pregnant.

By a married man.

A married man I hadn’t even known a full three months.

And now we were talking about getting married?

Like this was some Black romance fairytale.

My phone lit up with a message from my mama:

Call me. Now.

I didn’t have the strength to reply.

I was scared I would bust out and tell her everything. And what did “Hey Momma, I’m pregnant by a married man” even sound like when I had just started talking to her again after making the mistake of marrying Mark and then spending years in silence?

I didn’t even know how to explain this, and I didn’t want to hear the disappointment in their silence already.

I dropped the phone face down.

I couldn’t do it.

I turned over in bed, sighing.

What was Mark going to do?

He wasn’t the type to just let shit go. I’d seen the look in his eyes when I crossed lines he didn’t approve of. If he found out I was pregnant by another man?

He’d burn the whole world down trying to punish me.

The heat of shame crawled up my neck as I pressed my forehead to the pillow, eyes stinging.

I didn’t hear Sam come in, but I felt the bed dip and knew he had.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just rubbed the back of my thigh slow with the pads of his fingers, like he was easing up to whatever storm he felt coming off me.

“What’s going on in that head, baby?” he asked, voice low and filled with warmth.