“Sweet baby Jesus… You’ve got to give me more than that!”
I shook my head. “I am not telling my boss every gritty detail of the best sex of my life.” Only because if I remembered it with that much clarity right now, I’d soak my panties while at work. No bueno.
“Damn, girl. I’ve got to give it to you.” Mandy reached her fist out to bump mine. “I’m all proud and shit.” She faked a choked-up voice and had me laughing again. “Now I see why you’ve been in such a good mood.”
It was crazy what good sex and a couple of orgasms could do for the soul. It was two weeks later, and I was still positively glowing.
Mandy and I worked in silence for a few minutes, her happily clicking away on the keyboard as she replied to a couple of emails, and me completing the log to note the time I’d done the interior pen cleanup earlier.
That nauseous pit was back, lurking in the center of my belly.
“That’s weird,” I muttered to myself.
“What?”
I shook my head. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but…” I paused, my eyes fixating on the calendar in front of me as a cold panic crept down my spine. “No, it’s nothing. Couldn’t be.”
“What’s nothing?” Mandy pressed again.
“I just, I’ve been having these waves of nausea for the past couple of days.”
“Are you sick?”
“No. I feel fine during the day—for the most part. It’s usually just first thing in the morning when I get out of bed and then a couple of random times throughout the day. It’s probably a low blood sugar thing.”
Mandy looked skeptical. “Bren. I don’t mean to scare you, but those were my exact symptoms during my first pregnancy. You and this mystery man used protection, right?”
“Of course. We used a condom.”
“But your cycle’s late, isn’t it?”
I guess my wide-eyed glance at the little desk calendar had been sort of obvious. I nodded. “By a couple of days. No big deal.” But it felt like a huge fucking deal. I could not be pregnant—not by some one-night stand suave player who picked random girls up at the bar. No, no, no. That only happens in bad rom coms. My hands went clammy and I started to sweat. As the world spun around me, I considered the implications of having my perfect life imploded by an unplanned pregnancy.
Mandy licked her lips. “Listen. I don’t mean to freak you out, but maybe you should go in to the doctor—get checked out. Condoms break all the time. It’s possible you could be pregnant.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. I can pick up one of those over-the-counter tests on my way home tonight if it makes you feel any better.”
Mandy shook her head. “Those tests aren’t reliable so early in pregnancy. Let me call my guy. Seriously, I have the best gynecologist in the entire city. I freaking love the guy. He normally has a six-month wait list for taking new clients, but a friend got me in, and maybe I can do the same for you.”
“What’s so great about the guy?” Call me crazy, but I had a hard time believing one could actually have an enjoyable experience at the gyno’s office. I barely tolerated my annual visits. That cold metallic feeling of the speculum, and that awful K-Y Jelly. Ugh. No thank you.
Mandy’s gaze softened and she got this faraway look in her eye. “He’s smart, sweet, and professional, and he just has this way about him that makes you feel comfortable. Everyone loves him. And his office feels more like a spa than a clinic. Low lightning, soft music, plush cotton robes instead of those horrible paper napkins they used to make me wear at my old doctor’s office. They have a freaking cappuccino bar in the waiting room. You’ll love it, I promise.”
“It does sound nice.” I chewed on my thumbnail. “And it would be nice to know, I guess, what’s causing this nausea.”
Mandy nodded and grabbed her cell phone from her back pocket. “Let me see if I can get you in next week. No promises.”
I waited anxiously while she dialed and spoke to the receptionist. She spelled my name and then waited on hold for a few seconds. Mandy’s eyes widened as she checked the clock. “Yup! She sure can. Thank you so much!”
“What’d they say?”
“They had a cancelation this afternoon. You’re in! You have an appointment with Dr. Bentley at two.”
“Wow. Okay, and you’re all right with me leaving early, then?”
She waved a dismissive hand at me. “Of course I am. Call me the second you know something.”
The nauseous feeling was back, but this time it didn’t have a thing to do with the possibility of being pregnant.
Chapter Three
Mason
“Nine pregnancies,” I told Trent as I leaned against the counter.
“Nine?”
“Yep, nine. And two sets of twins. I’m telling you, if I get one more pregnancy this month, I’ll win the nurse’s baby bingo league. Mrs. Ramirez cried for half an hour when I told her about the twins. She already has a pair at home.”
“That poor woman.” Trent gave a sympathetic wince and shook his head. “I’m going to grab a coffee. You want one?”
The lure of caffeine called to me, but I shook my head. “Nah, I’m so behind on my paperwork. Gonna catch up before lunch.”
We parted ways, and I trailed down the fluorescent-lit hall until I reached the office at the end. “Dr. Bentley” was emblazoned on the door in shiny gold.
The name placard had been there since I was a kid, when I’d played in the waiting room and waited for my father to come out and join my mother and me. Then, when I was older, I’d spent even more time in that same waiting room, insisting that I go along for every little screening and test while my mother battled through ovarian cancer with one of the other doctors in my father’s practice.
And now? As an adult, I’d taken control of the office that had once belonged to my father and replaced his certificates and diplomas with my own—though I’d left the old baseball pennant that hung from the window, a memory of my good old little league days.
On my desk sat the pile of papers I’d been avoiding for a solid week, and as I collapsed into my worn leather chair, I let out a muffled groan. Almost on instinct, I checked my work email and pushed aside the little stab of disappointment when nothing even remotely personal was there.
Not that I’d expected anything at this point anyway. If I hadn’t heard from Bren by now, I wasn’t likely to. In fact, I wasn’t even sure she knew my name. I’d introduced myself once at the beginning, but some people were bad with names. I often was, forgetting them almost the second a stranger told me. Plus I had no way of knowing how tipsy she was that night. Of course, she hadn’t seemed drunk at the time.
My cock pulsed at the memory.
Scrubbing my hands down my face, I tried to forget what it’d been like with her. Not that it did any good. I hadn’t slept a full night since we’d been together when she hadn’t found a way to infiltrate my dreams.