Page 50 of My Favorite Lost Cause (The Favorites #2)
MAREN
C harlie heads off for his run after breakfast, so I’m alone in the kitchen when Elijah strolls in and finds me crying. His cheerful whistling comes to a sharp halt when he sees me.
“Who died?” he asks, and I look up at him with bleak eyes before I cover my face again.
“I’m pregnant,” I whisper. I don’t know why I told him this thing I can’t tell anyone else. Not any of my family, whose first question would be about the child’s parentage. Not the baby’s father, who considers fatherhood a fate worse than being murdered.
Elijah’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Hey now, it can’t be all that bad. I thought…didn’t you want to be pregnant?”
I nod, still crying. I did. So much. But not like this. Not by losing every other thing that makes me happy, by which I mean Charlie. “It’s just…a fucked up situation.”
“Because you’re having your brother’s kid,” Elijah says.
“He’s not my brother, and he’s…wait, how did you know?”
Elijah releases a quiet laugh. “You two are the only people in the world who think it’s subtle . What did Charlie say? ”
I freeze, then dry my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt.
“I haven’t told him. I don’t know if I can, so please don’t say anything.
You know what he said once? That my infertility was the sexiest thing about me.
I mean, he was trying to make me feel better, but he also meant it.
” I release a sad laugh and hiccup on another sob.
“He really, really doesn’t want kids. He’s going to feel tricked. ”
He gently leads me to a chair and encourages me to sit before he crouches in front of me. “Maren, you know him better than that, and you’ve got to tell him. You know that he’ll do the right thing.”
“That’s the problem, though. I don’t want him to do the right thing. I want him to be as thrilled as I am, and he won’t be. He’ll be the opposite.”
I don’t want to condemn Charlie to that life, and I don’t want to condemn myself to marrying a guy who never wanted any of the things I did in the first place. It would be easier just to do it alone.
He rises and begins to pace, his hands linked behind his head. I suspect he doesn’t like my answer, but also knows I’m correct. “So, what are you going to do?” he asks.
I really have no idea. Charlie made it pretty fucking clear this morning where he stands on having children—and it’s where he’s always stood. So I either tell him and make him miserable or…I find a way to let him off the hook.
If I leave, if I go away for a year and have the baby somewhere thousands of miles from Manhattan, I might be able to pull it off. I can lie about the birth date or just say she arrived early.
Will Charlie believe that? I don’t know.
Or…I suppose there’s Andrew. He was ready to be with me in any way he could.
Does he want me enough to pretend someone else’s kid is his own?
Do I want to protect Charlie enough to go along with the ruse, to marry some guy I like but ba rely know?
I’m so tired right now I can’t even think straight, but I’m not going to think any straighter here with Charlie breaking my heart every time he comes into view.
“I’m going to Barcelona early,” I say, sitting up straight. “And if I can come up with a believable way to let Charlie off the hook, that’s what I’m going to do.”