Romantic Acquisition Page 0,65
then fighting back tears and grabbing for tissues the next. She caught several odd looks from Sarah and Matt but they didn’t approach her about her odd behavior.
On the way home from work that night, she stopped at a book store and bought a book on pregnancy. She cried as she read the first few pages that explained why she was feeling such highs and lows. It made her feel better to know that her crazy feelings were not irrational but were expected because of the hormones created by her pregnancy.
Kate fell asleep at eight o’clock that night, the pregnancy book open on top of her bed. The phone rang around ten o’clock and she answered it but wasn’t able to wake up enough, even for Carlo. She mumbled something to him but told him that she had to go back to sleep and hung up the phone.
The next morning, the nausea was bad. She barely made it to the toilet before throwing up for ten minutes. She didn’t have anything left in her stomach afterwards. She showered and got dressed, still feeling awful. At the office, the smell of any kind of food just made her want to run for the bathroom so she took the long way around to her office so she didn’t have to pass by the kitchen.
Carlo called her several times during the day but he still didn’t leave a phone number and Kate was becoming anxious. Why wouldn’t he leave a number where she could call him back? She was now desperate to talk to him about the conversations she’d overheard in the coffee shop and in the hallway and also to get the awful breakup conversation over with. There was her happy news, but even that would be a difficult conversation to have with Carlo since he didn’t want to be ‘roped into that daddy’ thing again as he’d put it a few days ago.
He would be back the next day so she forced herself to stop thinking about it. She’d just worry which wasn’t good for her or the baby, according to her new pregnancy book.
She made an appointment with her gynecologist for the following week and bought another book on pregnancy even though she hadn’t finished the first one.
Kate made a huge effort to stay awake that night, hoping that Carlo would call and she could get some clue as to why they needed to talk so urgently when he came back. But in her mind, he had already told her. She had created a scenario where he explained that he needed more variety in his women and that he wanted to start dating others.
Kate resigned herself to that the night before he came home. She cried herself to sleep, then woke up in the middle of the night and cried again, wishing he were here to comfort her even though he was the source of her anguish.
She worked all through the day on Friday and didn’t bother to answer her phone. She didn’t want to talk to Carlo. Kate had decided that she was finished with him. She wasn’t going to let him break up with her. She’d just ignore him and finish this relationship out herself without his awful discussion.
She got home that night and ignored the five messages on her answering machine and fell into bed, letting sleep take over where busyness during the day had not. She wanted to block Carlo out of her mind and her heart.
She didn’t hear the doorbell ring later that night or the knocking on her door.
She spent the weekend curled up on her couch, fighting nausea and the sadness over her assumed loss of Carlo. She ignored the phone and muted her answering machine while she read all the things she was supposed to do for her unborn child.
By Monday morning, she was a mess. There were over twenty messages on her office phone and she’d already deleted fifteen from her home answering machine without listening to them.
She felt awful and sat down carefully at her desk.
“Kate, where the hell have you been all weekend?” David demanded as soon as he walked into her office.
“Home,” she said. Even the one word answer was difficult to say as the nausea started to rise up in her throat. She couldn’t look at David since the movement of her head would throw her over the edge and have her running to the bathroom.
He made a disgusted sound. Kate missed the rolling of his eyes