Page 67 of The Pakhan's Arranged Bride

The doctor’s eyes shoot to me with a knowing look. I shake my head. Belle is staring at me wide-eyed as well.

“We’ll start with a pregnancy test then, and we can take it from there. I’ll take a small blood sample, and we’ll have the results in a matter of moments.”

The doctor goes about the task of taking my blood, and I sit dumbfounded. Silent. Terrified. My thoughts are racing.

I can barely even look at Belle, who is just as quiet, although she looks more excited than worried.

The doctor walks back into the room with a piece of paper in his hand. “Well, we have our answer, and it explains exactly why you’re feeling as you are. You are pregnant.”

My mouth drops open.

Belle grins, but when she sees my expression of horror, she hides it.

I hardly hear anything else that the doctor says, because the ringing in my ears is too loud. I walk out of his office with a list of recommendations for vitamins, and I still can’t believe what just happened.

In the car, Belle reaches over and touches my leg. “Are you ok?” She asks.

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “Not really. We didn’t plan for this at all.”

“Sometimes the most amazing things aren’t planned for,” she tries to reassure me.

I turn to look at her. “Please, don’t say anything to your brother,” I say nervously. It’s a big secret I’m asking her to keep.

“I won’t. You need time to process the news first, that’s understandable. Like I told you earlier, the things we talk about are private.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I whisper, looking down at my hands, knotted in my lap.

I have no idea what I’m going to do.

This couldn’t have come at a worse time.

I have a plan—and this wasn’t part of it.

“Benedikt isn’t home yet,” I say, realizing I don’t want to be alone right now.

“I know, he’s still at the office. Why?” Belle asks.

“Do you mind—I just, I don’t want to go home to an empty house.”

“Come hang out with me. We can watch something on Netflix. I’ll tell Ben that he can fetch you from Mom’s place later.”

I nod and Belle takes the next corner to turn around and take us both back to her mom’s place.

Chapter 19 - Benedikt

She couldn’t get out of the house fast enough this morning.

After our fight last night, and that crazily intense lovemaking, she didn’t say anything, and then this morning, she left pretty much as soon as she was up. I thought we could talk a bit this morning, but she made sure that wasn’t going to happen.

It’s obvious she is avoiding me, and it’s frustrating. I have no idea how to handle her. How can I force her to talk to me?

How can I make her stop stonewalling me?

I’m at my wits’ end, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take.

In my line of work I’m more accustomed to people doing what I tell them to do. But she’s not like that.

Now I’m distracted and can’t focus again. She keeps doing this to me. It’s affecting my life, this up and down, push and pull relationship that we have.