Hard Checked (Ice Kings #4) - Stacey Lynn Page 0,74
my cheek. He steps back and frowns. “Talk? I don’t think anything good starts with that sentence.”
I cringe before I can hide it.
“I see,” he says, and another foot of space gets placed between us as he steps away from me. His face goes as blank as it used to be, almost as hard as he was on New Year’s. “This have anything to do with why you were so distant this week?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Right.” He swipes his hand over his beard and mouth, and I hate what I see in his face. “Listen, Gigi. Just say what you have to say—”
The words I need to say lodge in my throat. “I wasn’t lying. I had a really long week. My dad and I… well, we talked. And I decided not to buy the bar from him.” At that, his brows shoot up. I’m certain he assumed I was going to. He practically encouraged me to do so, but instead, now I have something else more important. “I started looking for a job. A real one. Like in an office and everything.”
I can’t help the way my lip curls at the thought and now Sebastian’s brows are more twisted than ever. “That doesn’t explain why—”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
I blurt it out so quick it takes me by surprise. Sebastian’s face pales.
Then hardens further. “Excuse me?”
I step toward him, but he throws up his hands, immediately stopping me. “I’m pregnant.”
I reach back into my pocket and just as my fingers brush against the slick photo, my body freezes when he asks.
“Whose is it?”
“What?”
“You heard me.” He leans in a fraction. It feels like he’s right in my face, his rage is so sudden. “Who else have you been fucking while having your fun with me?”
“No one. I swear.” I can’t even summon the strength to be upset by his accusation. “I swear it, Sebastian.” I grab the photo and whip it out between us.
He doesn’t move his steely, angry gaze from me.
My chin wobbles at what must be going through his mind. “I swear it, Sebastian. There’s been no one but you since well, since I got home from Europe. I’m pregnant and it’s yours. Ours. I swear.”
“That can’t be.” He shakes his head and that fury rolling through him cedes enough for me to walk closer. “I can’t. This…”
He trails off. I step closer. The photo in my hand shakes and trembles, I’m so nervous. “I thought I had to get my birth control shot done on April third, but instead it was supposed to be March fourth. So I missed it. And I swear, it wasn’t on purpose and I didn’t try. I just wrote it down wrong on my calendar but I got a call last week, right before your game that I was late…”
I can no longer speak. Something like hope bubbles in Sebastian’s green eyes that makes me want to hug him and reassure him. Now that I’ve told him, the crushing weight of fear I’ve felt all week vanishes and relief slams into me like the harshest ocean waves.
He glances at the paper still trembling in my hand and as he reaches for it, so slowly it might take him a year to touch it, he looks at me. “You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah.” I laugh. It’s stupid. Not the time. “Apparently, my womb is ultra-fertile or something and it did something to those slow movers the doctors say you have.”
He takes the photo from me and holds it like he already cherishes it.
“It’s just a blob. That tiny gray thing.” I point to it in case he doesn’t know what he’s looking at it and then the corner. “But my doctor said the heartbeat was strong.”
The paper in his hand now trembles and I swear I hear him sniff but I’m too scared to look at him.
“How far along?”
“Six weeks. It’s early. Super early. But since I didn’t get that shot and then well… that day in the shower, I think…” I trail off. I’ve done the math and added the days and that first time without a condom had to be it. Or the next day. Regardless, it was one of those first times after I didn’t get my shot. Which shouldn’t even happen. At least not that soon.
He continues staring at the paper. Holding it like his dreams are pinched between his fingertips and any movement will shatter them forever.
Then, he lifts his head, and wet, blurry green eyes blink. Tears fall and then