Page 80 of Our Little Secret

Her stomach tightened and roiled and she felt the sudden burst of saliva bloom in her mouth. She was going to . . . oh hell! She raced to the bathroom off her bedroom and barely made it to the toilet before she heaved into the bowl. Everything she’d eaten that afternoon and evening came back up before she dry heaved twice.

Shaken, she flushed the toilet and sat on the cool tiles before finally realizing she wasn’t going to hurl again. She stood on wobbly legs, turned on the tap, and leaned over the sink to take a drink, rinse her mouth out, and spit.

She caught her reflection in the mirror, pale and wan, hair a mess, and then her eyes rounded as she thought just briefly of feeling like this fifteen years earlier. When she’d been pregnant with Marilee. Her nausea hadn’t been an early morning thing. There was no schedule. It had come day or night.

Gripping the counter, she told herself it couldn’t be, then did a quick mental calculation. When was the last time she’d had a period? Her cycle had always been erratic, unlike so many of her friends. She pulled out her phone and confirmed the timing, her heart sinking.

Six weeks?

No, that couldn’t be right. But she’d marked the date on her phone’s calendar. She’d been late before. Often by a week, possibly ten days. Each time had proven to be a false alarm.

After giving birth to Marilee, she’d been prescribed the birth control pill to help straighten out her cycle, but on the medication she’d gained weight, suffered serious mood swings, and lost most of her interest in sex, even on a low dose. So she’d decided not to bother and accept that her body was different than most women’s.

But now . . .

The cold reality was horrifying. She clutched the counter in a death grip, the sharp edges cutting into her palm. Her mind raced to the past several months and the times she’d been with Gideon in his bed, always careful, and yes, she and Neal had made love, but it had been very recent because they had been recently separated.

Her pulse pounded in her brain.

Sweat dappled her skin.

She couldn’t be pregnant. She silently said as much to the woman in the reflection. No damned way. She wasnotcarrying Gideon Ross’s baby.

Bile rose in her throat again, but she swallowed it back and stared at the wan, frightened woman looking back at her with wide, horrified eyes.

CHAPTER 19

Rap. Rap. Rap.

“Brooke?” Leah’s voice called from the hallway as she rapidly knocked on the bedroom door.

Brooke blinked.

Oh no. She’d forgotten about her sister.

How long had she been standing here, frozen in the bathroom, denying what was most possibly the truth? That she was pregnant? With Gideon’s child. Her stomach churned as she attempted to collect herself. With a deep breath, she walked to the bedroom door and cracked it.

Leah was crying, dabbing at her eyes with a wadded tissue. “Is—is everything all right?” she asked. “I heard fighting and then someone getting sick and—” She let out a shuddering breath.

“That’s not why you’re crying.” Brooke opened the door wide.

“No, of course not.” She sniffed. “Sean texted me. He’s been to an attorney and the divorce papers are coming through. He wants everything, Brooke: the house, the accounts, our time share, even my car.”

“What? No. There must be laws in Arizona that split things evenly.”

Her eyes slid away. Uh-oh. “What, Leah?”

“I, um, I may or may not have signed a prenup.” She began blinking wildly and shredding the tissue.

“And—”

“It gives him everything.”

“Including the money you inherited.” Brooke’s voice was a death knell.

“I was in love and, okay, stupid. I thought this one would really work out, but of course it didn’t.”

Brooke tried to concentrate, to let go of her own problems for a few minutes. “Let’s not talk here,” she said with a glance at Marilee’s firmly closed bedroom door. “Downstairs.” She ushered her sister into the living room. “I told you I would help.”