Page 119 of Reaper and Ruin

Yet that pregnancy test felt like it had been left there for me. A little gift from Whip’s wife, rather than a leftover from when they’d been trying.

I gave in to temptation and picked up the box, flipping it over. It was definitely out-of-date.

Clearly not a sign from a dead woman that I might be pregnant.

And yet I couldn’t put it down. My fingers shook and clenched around the box.

My other hand came to my belly, resting there, like my heart already knew if I took that test it would be positive.

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Part of me knew, that deep down, the reason I hadn’t been at all careful when we’d had sex was because I desperately wanted a family of my own. That despite what doctors had told me, I still had belief in my body. That if just given the chance, it could bring me the family I’d always dreamed of.

Guilt plagued me. What I’d done wasn’t fair to any of those three men out there in the kitchen.

And yet none of them had brought up contraception as more than a passing thought either.

“This is stupid,” I whispered to myself in the mirror. “You don’t even know you’re pregnant.”

I tried to force myself to put the test back down. To walk out of the bathroom and deal with everything that had happened tonight. I had to be in shock. I’d murdered a man tonight, and there were two very traumatized children out there who’d watched me do it, who I needed to deal with. Yet here I was, standing in a bathroom, daydreaming about babies I probably couldn’t even have.

I ripped the packaging off the test. Read the instructions three times before my brain comprehended the words and worked out what I was supposed to do.

I peed where I was supposed to pee. Then set the test down on the counter and stared at it, counting seconds in my head because I didn’t have a watch or my phone and didn’t dare stick my head out of the bathroom door and ask for one.

The test said it would take up to five minutes for a result to show.

Mine showed up positive in under sixty seconds.

I stared at the two pink lines until my vision blurred. And then I blinked a few times fast to clear them and stared at it some more.

But there was no mistaking the bright-pink lines that said I was very definitely pregnant.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I whispered. The test was years out-of-date. It could very well be a false positive.

Yet my heart whispered that it wasn’t. My head screamed in excitement, and my entire body trembled with the adrenaline that coursed through my system, wiping away the memory that I’d done a horrible thing tonight and taken a man’s life.

I should have cared more about that, but I couldn’t. Not when I was standing here, holding a test that told me I was going to be a mom.

I’d never had the full tour of Whip’s house. It was nothing fancy. A master where he obviously slept. A second room had nothing in it except the unpleasant smell of bleach.

Whip had closed that door, saying no one was to go in there. He’d exchanged a look with X as he’d said it, and my gut instinct knew that room had seen things I probably didn’t want to know about.

The last bedroom had a set of bunk beds, a closet full of kids’ clothes, and a chest full of toys.

I’d gasped when Whip opened the door. Ari and Will ran in like someone had just opened the gates of Disney for them.

Whip and I stood in the doorway, his arms wrapped around me from behind, the exact same way I’d imagined him doing in the bathroom. The pregnancy test burned a hole in the pocket of the sweats I’d borrowed from him.

Despite it being the middle of the night, and the fact they’d both had a warm shower which I’d thought might settle them down, Ari and Will tore through the toy chest, pulling out everything and exclaiming over each toy with excitement.

“Is this okay?” I asked Whip quietly.

All I could think was this room hadn’t seen children since the day he’d lost them. Someone had clearly come in here afterward and tidied up, but Whip had never gotten rid of their things. Not their toys or their clothes or their beds.

I couldn’t blame him. My hand hovered over my belly. I’d known about my child for literally less than an hour and I already couldn’t imagine the pain of losing him or her. HowWhip had gone on after having his babies in his life for years, and then just not…I couldn’t even imagine.

I twisted back to look at him.

He let out a deep breath and then nodded. “Yeah. It really is. I never really knew why I couldn’t get rid of their things when I moved my wife’s clothes.” He rested his chin on my shoulder. “But maybe this is why.”