The Accidental Countess (The Aristocrat Diaries 3)

“That’s me never doing that again.”

“Matthew Bennett, if this test is positive, there are an awful lot of things you will never be doing again.”

“An excellent point, sweetheart.”

“Call me that again, and I will—”

“Here’s your cup.” Alexander held out a disposable plastic cup.

I took it. “Thank you. Don’t worry, I won’t give it back.”

He grimaced. “I appreciate that.”

“Now go get one for Adelaide. Please. Or I am going to pee myself right here, right now.”

He darted off, and I headed for my bathroom. It was where everything was. I was going to be most comfortable there. Before I walked in, I took my phone out of my pocket and text Adelaide.

ME: Alex is getting you a cup.

ADELAIDE: Mmph.

ADELAIDE: Make him hurry up. I’m dying.

I knew that feeling.

Luckily, he was quick, and I caught sight of him as he reached the top of the stairs and turned off in the direction of their room.

“You want me to come in with you?” Matthew asked.

“While I pee? No, thank you. I’d like to keep some things sacred while I still can.” I swallowed and glanced at the door. “It’s a good thing I really need to go, or I’d be putting this off.”

He cupped my face with his hands and tilted my head back. His gaze found mine, and the warmth that spread through me lessened my fear just the tiniest amount.

“Eva, no matter what this says, it’ll be fine. I promise. We’ll deal with this together.”

I nodded jerkily.

“I know you’re not ready for this and this wasn’t what we planned right away, but—”

“Matthew, this is lovely, and I appreciate the sentiment, but can we come back to this in about ninety seconds? I really need to go.”

He blinked, lowering his hands to release me. “Of course. Go, go.”

I did not need encouragement for that.

I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I simply had to go before I exploded, and I shucked off my dressing gown and got down to business on the toilet.

With my cup of pee ready to go, I finished, cleaned up, took the test out of the top drawer, then fished my phone out of the slush pile that was my robe.

ADELAIDE: Ready?

Christ, we couldn’t even dip a pregnancy test in a pot of piss alone.

Being a twin was fun, they said.

ME: Hang on.

I unpackaged the test and pulled off the blue cap.

ME: Ready.

ADELAIDE: And dip.

And I dipped.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

EVA

If I thought the last one took forever, I seriously underestimated just how long sixty seconds truly was.

I knew a pregnancy test took three minutes, and that was why I shoved it in the drawer and left the bathroom. It could sort itself out in there.

Were pregnancy tests like Polaroids?

Did the dark make them process faster?

If only someone made that science work.

Matthew jerked around when I shut the door behind me. “Well?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to stare at it while it figures it out.”

He flicked his gaze towards the door. “How long is left?”

“However long it takes for my phone to start singing. It’s in my pocket. I don’t want to look at that bitch, either.” I leaned against the wall and slid down it until I was sitting. “Can we talk about something else while we wait?”

He sat down next to me. “What do you want to talk about?”

The weather. How unseasonably warm it was today. Perhaps what to have for dinner. Perhaps argue over what to have for dinner.

There were a thousand and one options, yet the one my mouth went with was, “Did you really mean what you said yesterday?”

“About how I feel?”

“Yes.” I hugged my knees to my chest.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to talk about right now?”

“Might as well. The weather’s quite a boring topic, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, it looks nice out there.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I glanced at him, my lips quirking up. “Matthew.”

He reached over and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me into his side. His embrace was more welcome than I realised, and I curled into him.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I meant it, Eva.”

“Okay.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“I suppose now is as good a time as any,” I mumbled.

“I wasn’t going to ask you this. At all, actually,” Matthew said in a low voice. “You know the option is on the table for you to leave.”

My heart clenched.

“If this is negative, are you going to leave?”

I slowly blew out a breath. I knew the answer to that. Of course I knew. Had we been in any other situation, we might have resolved this whole feelings thing yesterday in the original discussion.

I opened my mouth to response, but I was cut off by the violent scream of my phone’s timer going off from inside my pocket.

Three minutes.

It was up.

My thumb shook as I pulled it out and ended the timer. “I guess we have to find out.”