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“You can do this, come on,” I whispered to myself.
Finally, after a moment I started to pee. I had never been more relieved in my life which was pathetic in a sense. After getting enough on the stick, and on my hand, I finished up before I placed the stupid stick down on the wrapping that was on the counter before I scrubbed my hands and waited. I hated that it could take up to five minutes to get a result. Five minutes might be nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it felt like five hours right now.
The whole day I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the possibility that I was pregnant. I never put much thought in it before. I figured with everything going on in my life having a baby would just be stupid. I always made sure the guy wore a condom. I wasn’t on the pill because it was too hard to make sure I had a pill every day, every month. I didn’t have health insurance, and I wasn’t always in a town where I could pick it up at a free clinic. It was just easier to make sure there was always a condom. I never thought I could get pregnant from safe sex. I knew condoms weren’t one hundred percent effective, but they were pretty damn close, and none had ever broken, or I would have made sure I got a Plan B pill to ensure I didn't get pregnant. Now all of that might go up in smoke because the universe had a sick sense of humor.
I couldn’t be pregnant. I hadn’t even figured out how to live with Charlie, much less have a baby with the man. I knew I was acting weird with him, and I knew he was picking up on it. At first I didn’t want to risk pissing him off, and he decided this agreement wasn’t worth it to him. I was used to having a boss at work, but I wasn’t used to being in a house with someone that could technically destroy everything I was working towards. If he decided he made a mistake and didn’t want to do this anymore, there was nothing stopping him from ending things. Nowhere in the contract did it say he couldn’t renege on his end of the deal. Just that I had to be here for a year before I could be free to move on. I didn't even think about putting something in there about what would happen if he decided he couldn’t do a year. I needed this year to get enough money saved up to have a fresh start somewhere else.
It put him in a power position, and I hated every second of it. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. That I didn't do anything wrong by looking at his family’s photo albums. That it wasn’t easy for me to talk about the fact that my own parents never wanted me, but I had told him and the least he could have done was tell me about his parents, whom I had to assume were dead because he was raised by his grandfather for the majority of his life. There was nothing wrong with wanting to have basic information on someone, especially considering I was supposed to be married to the man. What wife didn’t know about her husband’s childhood? But again, he held all the power, and if I pissed him off too much, I was at risk of being kicked out, and I didn’t even have a car to live in. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle this. I had never been in this position, and I never expected to be.
Speaking of unexpected positions, I moved back over to the counter to check to see if the test was finally completed. Sure enough there were two plus signs on it. Two plus signs and not two negative signs like I had been expecting. I was pregnant. I was pregnant by a man that I was fake married to that I didn’t even really like. Sure, the sex was good, but that was all we had going for us, and that was nowhere near enough to raise a baby together.
Fuck a baby. I couldn’t have a baby. How the hell could I? I didn’t have health insurance. I didn't have a set place to live by the end of the year. I was constantly having to move around and always being prepared to run at a single moment’s notice. I couldn’t do that with a baby. The baby would need to be looked at by doctors and get vaccines. It needed to have a stable home, a bed, and proper food. There was no way I would be able to sustain any of that with having to constantly be on edge waiting for the worst to happen.
This was a nightmare. Something that could have brought me joy and excitement only was bringing me dread and debilitating fear. How I was feeling for the past couple of weeks all made sense and at least now I knew why, but that didn’t change that I couldn’t make it better. My morning sickness would only get worse and not all women only have it for the first trimester. I could be sick the whole time. It could get worse if my blood pressure dropped too low. I could faint, get dehydrated, and develop any number of pregnancy complications. I couldn’t be living out of a car and being pregnant. There was just no way.
I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what Charlie would even want. There was a very real possibility that he denied that he was the baby’s father. He could want a DNA test. He could tell me this was a deal breaker, because clearly people were eventually going to notice that I was pregnant. It wouldn't look good if at the end of the year we get fake divorced, and people wonder where me and the baby went. He might not want to have another child. I knew he didn't want to be married for real; there was nothing that told me he would be open to the prospect of being a father all over again. Not to mention Zoey. She might not want there to be a baby in the house. I had no idea how she would feel about being a big sister. Or potentially worse, she was thrilled and again at the end of the year I left, and she was left heartbroken that her younger sibling was gone.
My life would have been so much simpler if I had told Charlie that night in the bar to go find some other woman to sleep with. But I had been stressed, tired, and the beer was cold. All of which clouded my judgment and allowed for a sexy stranger to take me back to his motel room for a roll in the hay for an hour. Now that hour was permanently changing my life, and I had no idea if it was for the better or not.
I couldn’t deal with this right now. There was too much going through my brain, and I just needed some time to calm down and think through all this rationally. I grabbed the test, and I tucked it back into the box before I slipped it back into my purse. I made my way down the hallway to my room, and I quickly stashed the pregnancy test into the top dresser drawer where my underwear was. I would figure it out tomorrow or in a couple of days once I’ve had the chance to process everything. For tonight, I had to go down and help with dinner and chat with Zoey, because regardless of what Charlie wanted, I liked Zoey, and I loved hearing all about how school went and her new friends. I loved seeing that true smile slashed across her face, and that was exactly what I needed right now.
Charlie
IjustgotZoeydown for the night, and I knew I should be heading off to bed myself. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. My mind couldn’t stop thinking about Maya and how she was different today. I knew some of it might have been connected to our argument last night, or my yelling at her would be more accurate. Still, I didn’t like how submissive she had been at the office. It was unexpected, and it left me feeling disturbed. That wasn’t the Maya that I had come to know. That wasn’t the stubborn and strong woman that I had met in the bar that night. I didn't know what was going on with her, but I suspected something was. I needed to talk to her, but I wanted to check something out first.
Lucas hadn’t been able to find anything on her just yet, and I couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or not. I kinda expected for her face to pop up in his facial recognition. That she would have had a driver’s license at some point. So far though nothing was coming back, and I knew Lucas was getting frustrated and also a bit worried that he couldn’t easily find her. While she was currently out on the back deck, I figured now was the perfect opportunity for me to do a bit of snooping. I headed into her bedroom, and I closed the door behind me. I knew this was technically wrong, just like I knew I would have lost my shit on her if I had stumbled upon her snooping through my bedroom. However, I needed to know who she was. I needed to know what she was hiding because it could affect Zoey. I never wanted to put her in danger, and if Maya was some con artist playing the long game, I had to know about it so I could protect Zoey.
I headed over to her purse and looked through it, but there was nothing really in it. Her wallet had the same ID that she had told me, so it was pointless. I then moved over to the desk and started to look through the drawers, but they were all empty. She hadn’t even put a pen in it. I moved over to the dresser next, thinking that she might have kept something hidden within her clothes. She had been pretty attached to her duffle bag and she didn't let me touch it. She could have had something hidden within it.
I started at the top drawer and figured I would work my way down. It was all her underwear, but one thing did stand out amongst the sea of lace and satin, a pink box. Curiosity got the best of me, and I grabbed it expecting for it to be maybe a jewelery box or something, but instead it was a pregnancy test.
I felt my heart going to my throat as I just stood there staring at this pink box. I knew it couldn’t have been in the dresser before she got it, because I personally emptied it. It was used to keep some of Zoey’s older clothes in, and we went through it all to get it ready for the move. It was empty when it came into this room. It was empty when Maya put her own clothes into it. Which meant she put this pregnancy test in the drawer.
I tipped the box, and the actual test stick slid into my hand. Up until this point I was able to convince myself that the test hadn’t been done. That maybe she had one as a precaution. But that wasn’t the case, because I could clearly see the two plus signs. She was pregnant. It couldn’t be an old test, because she wouldn't have kept it if she had been pregnant so long ago.
It was recent, chances are that was why she had been sick for the past week or so. She had morning sickness which meant she had to be within her first trimester. The chances that this baby was mine was astronomical. But there was a chance that it wasn’t mine. I had worn a condom with her, and I had no idea what she was doing before I met her at that bar. It was possible that she had already been pregnant and maybe didn’t even know about it. I had to imagine if she knew she was pregnant she wouldn't have agreed to this, or maybe she would. Maybe that was why she agreed so she could have a place to live while pregnant.
Fuck. Everything was so fucked up now. I couldn’t help the anger that bubbled up within me. If she had known she was pregnant and agreed to this, she knowingly put me and Zoey in the position to pretend like the baby was mine. That wasn’t fair to either of us. To put us in the position to pretend like the baby was ours and then for her to leave at the end of the year with the baby. Then I looked like an asshole for divorcing my wife and having her leave with my baby.
Plus, the kids at school would be asking Zoey about her supposed baby sibling being gone. It wasn't fair to us, and I wasn't going to tolerate it. And if this was my baby, then she trapped me. I don’t know how she did it, but she figured out a way to get pregnant even though I had used a condom. Maybe she did something afterwards. I have no idea. The condoms were in my pocket, but I tossed them in the garbage afterwards. I didn't know, but I damn well was going to find out.
I stormed out of her room with the test gripped tight in my hand. I made my way out to the backyard where I knew Maya would be. I walked out and saw her sitting in one of the few chairs on the back patio.
“What the fuck game are you playing?” I demanded as I tossed the pregnancy test down on the table in front of her.
“You went through my drawer. You have no right to go through any of my things,” she snapped as she jumped up.
“You’ve been hiding things from me. Like your name for instance. I know it’s a fake. I know Maya Hawke doesn't exist. I have every right to make sure the person living with me, living with my daughter, isn’t wanted for murder or something.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me. And if you had such a problem with having a stranger living with your daughter, then you should have sucked it up and gotten married like a normal person or walked away from the town. This was all your idea, not mine. I didn’t seek you out. I told you no, multiple times, but you didn’t want to let it go. You don’t get to try and paint me as a criminal. You are the one committing fraud.”
“Technically, we are both committing fraud. The difference is, I can afford a lawyer to get out of it. How long have you known you were pregnant? Was it before you agreed to this? Were you hoping that you could hide it, and I wouldn’t find out that you were going to have a baby?”
“I don't know what I was going to do. I just found out three hours ago. So excuse me if I needed a bit of time to figure out how to tell the asshole I am living with that I’m pregnant with his baby.” She snapped and I could see that she was trembling slightly. It should have been enough to make me calm down, but I was too pissed. This was too much. I was still trying to get used to living with a female again, now she was pregnant and apparently it was mine. It was too much all at once.
“How do I even know it’s mine? I’ve always worn a condom, and I know it didn’t break. What did you do? Did you insert it afterwards or something? It’s more likely that you got knocked up by some other guy, and now you want to try and pin this baby on me.”
She gave a dark huff of a laugh before she spoke, “Right, because you are such a great catch. Controlling, severe commitment issues, judgmental, entitled, rich bastard. That’s exactly the type of guy that I want to trap with a baby. Because your last baby mama, oh wait, she’s not here because she ran screaming from you. Can’t imagine your personality and character had anything to do with it. The last thing you are Charlie Beaumont is a catch, and I do not want to have a baby with someone like you.”
