Tainted Forever (Tainted Knights 5)

Kin

All the way to Lucy’s house in Malibu, I wanted to talk to her about what happened at the doctor’s the day before, but by the time I actually got there, I couldn’t do it.

It didn’t seem right to discuss my pregnancy with her when I hadn’t even told Jace about it. He deserved to be the first person to know about our baby.

Instead, I cuddled with Hayat and let her sweet innocence soak into me and soothe all the chaos trying to run riot in my head. I held her and made her giggle and found myself almost crying a few times, but thankfully I stopped myself before Lucy could see the tears and demand to know what was going on.

I only stayed an hour before driving back to my apartment.

I needed to tell Jace, and I needed to do it now. Before I chickened out. Before I fucked up and started going down the same road he’d gone down with keeping Eden a secret from me. This was bigger than what happened with Eden. This was bigger than anything else I’d ever had to face in my life, and I needed him.

But I was terrified. This was huge, life-changing. It wasn’t just us talking about moving in or him randomly proposing. We were going to be parents. If he fucked this up, it was going to destroy us completely this time.

As I walked through the apartment toward my bedroom where he’d texted me he still was just a half hour before, I pulled out the stuff the doctor gave me the day before. On my way to Lucy’s, I’d filled my prescription, and the vitamins were lying on top of the ultrasound pictures in my purse.

Opening my bedroom door, I pulled them out and walked in.

Jace was lying on his stomach in the middle of my bed, swiping through his phone. When he saw me, his face lit up. “I didn’t think you would be back so soon.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and put the pictures and the pills on the comforter beside him. His eyes narrowed on them as he picked up the bottle of prenatal vitamins. “Are these Kassa’s? Why do you have them?”

I twisted my hands in my lap, but I forced myself to watch his face as I told him, “They aren’t hers. They’re… The doctor prescribed them to me yesterday.”

“These are for pregnant women, though. Right?” His blue gaze met mine, and I watched as all the color began to drain from his face. “Are you telling me you’re pregnant, Kin?”

Swallowing hard, I slowly nodded.

He jumped up out of bed. “But…you have that implant thing. It’s supposed to keep you from getting pregnant.”

My chin started to tremble, but I clenched my jaw until I had myself under control. “Dr. Baric said sometimes they fail. Or stop early. She sent it off to the lab to be examined after she took it out yesterday. When she did my pap smear, she saw that my cervix was soft, and with the way I’ve been feeling lately, she did a pregnancy test and it came back positive.”

“Fuck,” he groaned, rubbing his hands over his face.

I sat there, my head bowed, waiting for him to get his freak-out over with, inwardly cringing as I anticipated the moment he would start exploding and yelling.

This wasn’t part of our plan.

Fuck, we didn’t even have a plan anymore. But this wasn’t part of the immediate future I foresaw for us. Babies were for the distant future, when I had my life straightened out perfectly, when Jace and I had figured us out. We still had so much we wanted to do. Our careers were just starting to take off; we didn’t have time for a baby.

Yet, as I waited, none of those things came out of his mouth.

Instead, he was quiet, and I chanced a glance at him, only to find him standing there with tears in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he choked out.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. My head is a jumbled mess right now.”

He dropped to his knees in front of me, clasping my hands in his as he tried to blink back his tears. “I mean, physically. Are you sick? Is the baby okay? How far along are you? Did you hear the baby’s heartbeat yesterday?”

The bombardment of questions stunned me for a moment, and I had to rush to keep up with them. “I still feel nauseous, but other than that, I’m okay. The doctor said the baby is doing great, and I’m only just now six weeks along. I heard the heartbeat, and it was really strong.” I lifted my chin toward the bed where the pictures still were. “She did an ultrasound to determine how far along I am, and I got to keep all the pictures the tech took.”

Holding both my hands in one of his, he picked up the pictures with the other. His eyes scanned the paper, trying to make sense of it. For the first time since my appointment the day before, I found myself laughing at the look of concentration on his face. Leaning forward, I pulled one hand free and pointed out what was our baby.

“Our blob is the size of a sweet pea,” I told him as I ran my nail over the tiny spot. “Or at least, that was what the tech told me yesterday. But it will double in size by next week.”

“That’s… Fuck, that’s amazing,” he whispered in complete awe.

“Jace…” I clutched his hand tightly, all my fears crashing back down on me. “What are we going to do?”