King Maker (King Maker 3)

-K

Damn him. I hadn’t specified my rate. And if I’d been thinking correctly, I would have realized he wouldn’t know what the firm paid me for my time. He’d only know how much an audit would cost in total.

For the millionth time, I questioned how sane I was. I was one hundred percent certain I was in love with him and fairly certain he felt the same. So why had I let him go?

It was a question I’d ask myself again and again over the next few weeks.

When I finally arrived at my destination, I was still a week out before starting my new job. I’d given myself time to sign the lease for the apartment I’d found online after receiving a firm start date from my new employer and having passed the background checks.

That day had been memorable as I’d sent a resignation letter to my old firm. I was sure they were grateful to receive it.

Besides the first place I was headed to, I also had a back-up place in case the first didn’t look as it had appeared in pictures. But it did and I stood with a silly grin on my face as I looked around my apartment. Two words I’d never used in my life.

Though my heart was broken, this was what I needed.

D.C. turned out to be much like New York with the hustle and bustle, only less skyline and tall buildings, even at night.

Still, I found myself in the wee hours of the morning at a corner store where I procured a couple of pregnancy tests.

Back at my new apartment, which held only an air mattress I’d bought earlier that day until my new furniture arrived, I dumped my purchases onto the kitchen counter. Along with a couple of bars of chocolate and a pint of ice cream, the boxes spilled out.

The other two items were the comfort I would need after everything I already knew was confirmed.

Instead of waiting on the 99.9 percent sure it was positive after peeing, I was hoping on that 0.1 percent that I wasn’t.

When the results were revealed, I called Lizzy.

“Babe, do you know what time it is?”

I nodded while she rubbed her eyes. An arm slung over her shoulder as she moved.

This time she wasn’t talking to me. “I’ll be right back.”

I heard a grumble, then by her screen she was on the move. She sat on a couch.

“What’s wrong?”

I angled my phone in the direction of the test that rested atop the box on the counter.

“Can you see it?”

“Yes, I see it,” she said.

“And?”

By the tone of Lizzy’s first word, I knew. “Honey… it’s positive.”

My tears began to fall in earnest. Everything else that spilled from my eyes and nose wasn’t as gut-wrenching as the wail that left me.

She offered me platitude as I cradled my stomach and the little person inside.

“How could this happen?” I asked no one. I knew how it happened. I didn’t know how I’d gotten myself in that position. I was on the pill. “He hates me.”

Lizzy knew. I’d used this phrase before. “Trust me. He doesn’t hate you. That man is madly in love with you.”

“He left without looking back. I’ve lost him for sure now.”

Funny, I could say that about both men.

“Are you going to tell him?”

Of course I had to. “Eventually. I need to know what I’m going to do first.”

Lizzy, my rock, said, “You should tell him and decide if it changes anything.”

“It won’t.”

He’d do the right thing.

Lizzy said, “It might.”

Dismissing her response, I said, “I need to make a doctor’s appointment.”

“I’ll come and be there for you,” she offered.

Slowly, I shook my head. “I need to do this alone.”

“Bails, you don’t have to do this alone.”

“I know. But this is the life I chose, right? I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not sure when I’ll get an appointment. And women have been doing this kind of thing alone forever. I’ll be fine.”

It took a lot of convincing, but she finally agreed.

“Okay, I’m coming to see you after for girl time.”

I nodded and then let the screen go black. I made a lot of calls after an extensive Google search. I took the first appointment I could get, which happened to be someone’s cancelled appointment that day. After a shower, I headed there.

After an embarrassing exam with questions I hadn’t wanted to answer, an internal probe was used to confirm the positive urine test they’d done with a sample I’d been forced to give.

The impersonal doctor tore off printouts and handed me what had the shape of a bean, maybe a tadpole.

“You are about eight weeks pregnant.” She gave me a due date while handing me a picture. “Baby looks fine, although a little shy, not giving us a good view of size. We will do this again around twenty weeks. At that point, you should get a better picture of your baby and then you can also find out the baby’s sex.”