Page 118 of The October Arrangement

“To the gift shop. I’m sure they have pregnancy tests in there.”

“Then they’ll know,” I said.

“Who cares.” He chuckled.

I put my cover-up over my bathing suit and took Simon’s hand as we walked the long path from the beach to the gift shop.

“Over here,” Simon said.

I walked over to where he stood and saw two boxes of pregnancy tests sitting on the shelf.

“It says early detection,” Simon said, grabbing one.

He took it over to the cashier. She scanned the box and looked at me.

“For you?” She smiled.

“Yeah.”

“Congratulations.”

Why was she congratulating me? She didn’t know if I was pregnant or not. We walked out of the shop and headed back. The second we walked into our villa, Simon handed me the box. I took it from him, and suddenly it felt like it held the answer to what the rest of our lives might look like. We’d never talked about kids. My plan was to at least be married for a couple of years before I brought it up.

I headed toward the bathroom, and Simon followed. I stopped and looked over my shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

“You’re coming into the bathroom while I take it?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t need to watch me pee on a stick, Simon.” I laughed.

“I need to make sure you do it right.”

“Do it right? I stick it under my stream of pee. How hard can it be?”

“Bella.”

“Simon.” I stared at him.

“I’m your husband.”

I smiled, set the box on the bathroom counter, and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“I love when you say that.”

“So do I. Now get peeing.”

I removed the test from the box, tore off the wrapper, sat on the toilet, and stuck it under the stream of pee that desperately wanted to escape. Thank God I had to go and didn’t have to wait to take the test later, because Simon would have driven me nuts. I set the test stick on top of the box while Simon set the alarm on his phone.

“Three minutes.” He smiled.

Three minutes was all it would take to change the course of our lives forever.

“What if it’s positive?” I looked at Simon.