Flash Burned (Burned 2)

“Dr. Lindsey’s orders,” she told him, a bit exasperated, as though she’d reiterated that a thousand times before. Had I been whimpering or groaning in my sleep? “You can speak with the doctor again when she returns this afternoon.”

I wasn’t quite following the exchange. To the nurse, I pleaded, “I need a painkiller.”

“You’re being administered a low dosage of acetaminophen. It’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”

My brows knitted. “Safe?”

Kyle swore under his breath and moved away from the bed. My dad’s jaw clenched. I cataloged all the responses, but my mind wasn’t functioning well enough for me to process all of this.

Catching on to that, my dad gently rested his hand on my shoulder and tentatively said, “Ari…” He shook his head. Tried again. “Did you know…?”

I stared quizzically at him for several suspended seconds.

What the hell was going on?

“Ari,” Kyle broke the silence with a clipped, anguished tone. “You’re pregnant.”

chapter 8

“I’m what?”

I stared blankly. Gaping. Reeling. Wanting desperately to sit up again but knowing the agony that would ensue.

“Guess that answers that question,” my father grumbled.

I very carefully rolled my head on the pillow to look back at the nurse. She nodded in confirmation.

“I’m Claudia,” she introduced herself. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do. For now, I’m sorry about the pain. But you can speak with Dr. Lindsey about it.”

Claudia jotted down my vitals on a chart while I fought my way through emotions that were nearly impossible to dissect.

I was pregnant?

For God’s sake, I was on the pill. So how on earth…?

I groaned inwardly. “Of course,” I muttered.

“What?” Kyle asked.

I fought the natural compulsion to shake my head. It’d only cause more pain. But I did roll my eyes at my own irresponsibility. “I’ve been so absorbed with everything happening at the Lux that I forgot about routine appointments, skipped taking my allergy pills from time to time, and…”

“And what?” my dad demanded, a deeply concerned edge to his voice. “Skipped your birth control pills, too?”

“Not skipped,” I assured him. Then cringed. Really, this was something I had to discuss with my father? It was bad enough that Kyle glared at me as though I were the biggest fool on the planet. Now I had to admit the truth to my dad?

Ugh.

The agony of my injuries didn’t eclipse my humiliation. “Okay, yes,” I simply said.

What else was there to tell them? I hadn’t been cognizant of missing my nightly doses … but now that I seriously thought about it … I couldn’t remember taking a pill the night of the Thanksgiving dinner at the Lux or on Thanksgiving Day when Dane had proposed. The night of our wedding … nope. A few nights when I’d been so wrapped around the schematics of Christmas decoration placement at the hotel that I’d fallen asleep without having the slightest bit of energy left over for taking off my makeup—or even popping a pill.

Holy Christ.

Honestly, birth control and allergy medicine had been the last things on my mind!

But I had even bigger concerns to work through.

My gaze slid back to my dad. “Dane…?”