“I’m just going to assume it was awesome,” Lori said.
Sophie knew what was expected of her here, so she managed another nod.
“Super awesome?”
Sophie sighed, finally responding verbally with, “Yes.” But those thrilling details of their few stolen hours together, while still important, had faded into the background as soon as she’d found out—
“I’m pregnant.”
There. She’d said it. And, oh, if Lori could see her own face right now.
“Hold on.” Lori looked as shocked as Sophie had ever seen her in twenty-five years. “I thought you just said you were p—” She shook her head. “I can’t even say the word, Soph.”
“I haven’t gotten my period since before the wedding.”
“Have you been seeing him in secret all this time?”
Sophie snorted. “Are you kidding me? We did it once—” One spectacular time. “—and then he snuck away in the middle of the night.” Leaving her alone in that big bed in that big house in the Napa Valley hills with nothing to hold but a pillow.
“I’m going to kill him.” Lori leapt off the couch and grabbed her cell phone off the kitchen counter. “I’m going to rip his heart out through his throat. Better yet, I’m going to make sure he can never get anyone else pregnant ever again.”
Sophie grabbed her sister a millisecond before Lori was able to find Jake’s number on her phone’s contact list. “Stop! You can’t call him! He doesn’t know yet.”
Lori’s finger stilled over her phone. “You haven’t told him?”
“No. We haven’t even spoken since that night. I only took the tests this morning.” Sophie forcefully pried the phone out of her sister’s hand. “I love you for having my back. But I’ve got to deal with this myself.”
She didn’t feel great by any means, but after the long cry—and confessing the news to her sister—she felt better. Stronger.
Like she might actually be able to face Jake without crumbling.
“I can’t believe this,” Lori said. “Here you’ve been all over me for a year to break this thing off with you-know-who because he’s ‘bad for me’ and one night is all it takes for you to get in big trouble.”
It could have sounded like gloating in another context, but Sophie knew it wasn’t. It was simply Lori stating the crazy irony of their situation.
“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” Sophie said.
And still a voice in the back of her head was saying, Even if you knew how this was going to end up, you would have done it anyway. You would have given up everything, anything at all, for the chance to be with him.
“It could work, you know,” Lori said, halfheartedly. “Maybe he’ll step up to the plate. Maybe the two of you can actually make this work.” She looked down at Sophie’s stomach. “Well, the three of you, I guess.”
Sophie knew better than that. “I don’t want him to be with me only out of duty.” She took a deep breath, letting oxygen fill her lungs and help rebuild her strength. “I want love.”
She could see in Lori’s eyes confirmation of what all her siblings had known: Jake didn’t believe in love. Sophie could try the rest of her life to convince him, but it would just be a waste.
“Oh, Soph.” She scowled. “I’m still going to kill him. Just as soon as you give him the news.”
It would have been so much easier if Sophie could blame Jake for everything. But even now, she had to be fair. “It wasn’t all his fault. I tricked him into sleeping with me. I made it impossible for him to walk away.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lori let go of her hands and stomped on the wooden floor in her fury. “How could you possibly have trapped a guy like Jake into sleeping with you? Did you cement his feet to the ground and hop up on him while he begged you to stop?”
Sophie was beyond glad for the way her sister always made her laugh. Even in the worst of times. “You said you didn’t want details,” she reminded her twin.
“Right. Okay. No details. But you don’t have the kind of experience he does with the opposite sex. Seducing you would have been like taking candy from a baby.”
The word baby brought them both back to the most important issue at hand.
“You’re going to have a baby, Soph.” Lori’s eyes were wide with wonder.
Sophie put her hands over her stomach, even though she knew there had to be something barely the size of a pea inside her. That was when it finally hit her.
A baby.
Even though she was terrified, she suddenly couldn’t help but be thrilled. She was going to have a little boy or girl with Jake’s eyes, a child that would run her ragged, if Jake’s energy was anything to go by.
“I’m going to love it so much.”
Lori actually looked like she was going to cry. “All of us will.”
Oh God. Her family. Her mother. Her brothers. She didn’t want to think about how badly they’d lose it over this.
“Don’t you dare tell a soul.”
“But—”
“No one, Lori. Swear to God, you’d better let me deal with this—with Jake—the way I need to.”
Lori frowned. “Okay,” she said, very reluctantly. “But don’t forget, you’ve got at least seven people backing you up on this. Six with really big fists.”