Page 169 of Sins of a King

I smiled. “You have good ideas sometimes.”

“That I do. I love you.”

“I love you. Now leave, before I have half a mind into distracting you into staying.”

With one last smile, he was out the door, and I was left to contemplate how the showdown was going to play out. So many things could go wrong. Try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about Flynn lying in a pool of his own blood. The idea had me running to the bathroom, and I puked up the light supper I’d eaten only a few hours earlier.

Weak and drained, I washed my mouth out and then dabbed my face with a hand towel. I couldn’t shake the bug I’d gotten a week ago. One minute it was gone, the next it came back with a raging force. Just as I was getting ready to hit the light of the bathroom, I stopped.

I hadn’t been taking my birth-control pills.

Not since Dolinsky kidnapped me. And with all the stuff going on that I’d had to deal with on my return, I’d completely forgotten.

“No,” I whispered in denial. “No, no, no.”

It couldn’t be.

I ran for my cell phone and dialed my best friend. “I need you.”

“I’m on my way,” she said without pause.

“Good. But can you stop at the Rite Aid and get me something?”

Thirty minutes later, the elevator doors to the penthouse suite opened and Ash came inside.

“Did you get it?” I demanded.

She rummaged through her large brown shoulder Fendi and handed me the Rite Aid plastic shopping bag. Pulling out the box of pregnancy tests, I stared at it.

“Are you going to go take that test, or make us both wait?”

“I think it’s a bit of a formality at this point. I’ve been pukey and tired.”

I gripped the box and marched my way toward the bathroom, determined to at least know one answer in my life. Ash sat with me on the edge of the bathtub while we waited for the results. When Ash’s phone alarm beeped, she turned it off.

“You look for me,” I said. “I can’t.”

Ash let go of my hand and got up to go to the counter. She glanced down at the test. “Well, you’re pregnant.”

“Oh God,” I muttered, putting a hand to my head. “I think I might faint.”

“Take a deep breath. There ya go. Again.”

I did as commanded, but I wasn’t feeling any better about having confirmation. If anything, I felt worse.

“I didn’t want this,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“I never wanted to be in this position—to have to… Shit, I’ve always been so careful. Until now.”

Ash knew I didn’t want kids, so she was being pragmatic when she asked, “Are you going to—”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? You always knew what you were going to do if you—”

“I know. I know what I planned to dobefore. Before hormones got in the way. Before all rationality fled. And before—”