Million-Dollar Consequences

He took a breath, considered his unexpected company and then murmured to Kendall, “Will you marry me?”

Again, Meghan shrieked.

“Of course I will, silly,” Kendall answered, kissing Max’s bearded frown.

He stood and scooped Kendall into his arms, and then hauled her to the staircase. “Bye, kids!”

“Wait, wait.” Kendall laughed as she tapped his shoulders. “They can’t leave.”

“Yes, they can.”

“No.” Kendall squirmed until Max gave up and set her on her feet. She straightened her sweater and then her hair before sending him a playful eye roll. “We have to strategize. After we strategize, they’ll leave. And then you and I can spend the evening doing anything you want.”

“Anything?” Max asked.

“Anything,” Kendall promised.

Max let out a gusty sigh and then said to Isaac, “Make it fast.”

Kendall was the organized Squire sister. The planner. The strategizer.

Meghan had managed to pull off living on her own, and somewhat building her career on her own, but she’d managed to overlook a tiny detail that had landed her in hotter water than ever before. A baby.

There was no hotter water than pregnancy.

She didn’t have a lot of experience with babies—any, actually, unless she counted the one time she’d held her cousin’s infant son about three years ago. Meghan knew that babies had a way of eclipsing your whole life. They needed constant care. Stability. A mother and a father.

Whenever she thought of the words mother and father, she called up images of her parents. Parents were older, more responsible people. Parents did not hearken an image of a podcaster and a former child star. How would she and Isaac manage to do any of this, separate but present, for their child?

“I’ve got it,” Kendall blurted.

Meghan had never been so happy to hear her sister’s confident tone. She’d been searching the internet on her laptop at the kitchen table for the last fifteen minutes, the half-eaten plates from her and Max’s fancy steak dinner pushed to the side.

“What do you got?” Isaac asked from his position at the kitchen island. Max was standing next to him, knife vertical over a pan of homemade marble brownies.

“She can say they were for me.” Kendall grinned at Meghan. “You can say you were buying the pregnancy tests for me. I’m the perfect alibi.”

“And when she starts showing, then what?” Isaac asked. “Want us to say she’s carrying your baby, too?”

“No, smart-ass. This will buy you time while you figure out what you’re doing.”

“It’s more lying,” Max said. “What did we agree on, California? No more lying. You and Isaac tried that already and look where we’ve ended up.”

Meghan felt her cheeks grow hot.

“Not talking about you, Meg,” Max soothed when he noticed her embarrassment.

“It’s a good idea.” Kendall placed her hand on Meghan’s. “You were photographed buying pregnancy tests, by the way.”

She flipped around her laptop to show a photo of Meghan, wearing the same outfit she wore now, with a Clearblue Easy pregnancy test in hand. Kendall scrolled down to another photo at the checkout counter, and another of Meghan, shopping bag in hand, walking into the deli beneath Isaac’s apartment.

“There is a lot of speculation.” Kendall shut the laptop. “Everyone has concluded you’re pregnant.”

“They’re not wrong,” Meghan murmured.

“Are you ready to tell the public?” Kendall asked. “Are you ready to tell Mom and Dad?”

“What will you tell Mom and Dad?” Meghan shot back.

“I’ll tell Mom and Dad what I’ll tell everyone else. It was negative and the press blew it out of proportion like they do everything else. By the time you’re showing, we’ll be more prepared to announce it. If you’re in the public eye by then.”

Kendall’s gaze went over Meghan’s head to Isaac. When Meghan turned to look at him, his mouth pulled into a frown. No one asked the obvious question, but it had to be on everyone’s mind. Were Isaac and Meghan going to go through with the breakup? Had the pregnancy changed anything? She was in love with him, but she hadn’t told him. Why bother if he was halfway out the door?

God, what a mess.

“She’s right,” Meghan told Isaac. “No one will care who I am by then. Living in Dunn doesn’t make any sense. I could be living closer to Mom and Dad, who will be super excited to help.”

“I can help,” Kendall argued. “You can still move to Dunn. I want you here.”

“Ken—”

“She’s right,” Max added. “We can help with the baby. We want you here.”

“It’s my baby,” Isaac interrupted. “I’ll be the one helping.”

“You’ll be in LA,” Meghan reminded him.

“She’s not moving to LA now that she’s pregnant,” Kendall snapped.

“My life—my career—is in LA,” Isaac said.

“And what about my career?” Meghan snapped.

“Your career could be there, too.”

“We discussed this already.” Meghan shut her eyes. “I’m not moving to the other side of the country, especially now.”

“You don’t have to decide today,” Kendall said. “I’ll fall on the grenade initially, which will give you two time to work out a plan. And that plan will involve Meghan living here. With us, if she needs to.”

“Don’t worry, Max,” Meghan assured him when his mouth dropped open, presumably to argue. “I’m not moving in with you guys. I’m going to find my own place.” To her sister, she continued, “I’m done lying. The timing is not ideal, but this baby is on its own timeline. If the world knows I’m pregnant with Isaac’s child, then they just do. Mom and Dad are going to find out eventually.”

Meghan planned on sharing the truth with them. About the fake engagement and the relationship with Isaac, which, to be fair, was real for a while. She’d leave out how she’d fallen in love with him. She wasn’t ready to admit that to anyone. What was the point? He was leaving.

He’d made it clear that his career came first. She wouldn’t stand in the way of his success. She could handle a child—she had to. “I can do this, Ken. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t need you to cover for me. I know I haven’t always been the most responsible person, and I know you think I make a mess of things...”

“Oh, honey, I don’t think that,” her sister interrupted. “I’m trying to help in my own loving, bossy way. You are going to be the best mom ever. And I am going to be the best aunt ever.”

“You are,” Meghan said with a smile. “Will you promise to color-code the nursery?”

Kendall drew an X over her chest. “Cross my heart.”

“Okay, then. It’s settled.” Meghan stood from the table and pointed at the brownies Max was carving into perfect squares. “Can I have one of those to go?”

“Sure thing, Meg.” He bagged up her dessert.

Isaac watched, saying nothing, his expression revealing as much.