Provocative (Tempting Book 3)

T
o Jamie
, a third time, for my many regrets.

“
M
other fuck
.”

The connotation was not lost on me. But as I stared at the stick, I chewed on my thumb nail and studiously avoided looking at the three other tests I’d taken and had thrown away for ‘inconclusiveness’.

Because there
were
two pink lines, but one of them was more faint than the other—which meant no, right? The first one, I’d dropped into the bowl mid-stream. Because, you know, the idea that I was peeing on a stick—a ten-dollar stick that was meant to tell my future—was more than a little fucking terrifying.

So, I’d thrown that one away. Didn’t even wait to see the result. But then my bladder was empty, which meant I couldn’t take a second test until I’d built up another supply.

DO NOT DILUTE THE URINE!
one girl cautioned on some baby mama website. Others had chimed in that it wouldn’t matter. Two different posters who claimed to be doctors—and probably received their degrees from Google, let’s be honest—had two different opinions. But I wasn’t playing around with these ten-dollar pee sticks, because I was still a poor college kid, even though I was shacked up with my professor boyfriend.

Oh, God. Nathan would probably lose his shit if he knew about the first pee stick I’d stuffed under his old sock in the garbage can. I’d eagle-eyed him each time he walked into the bathroom, dancing around the trash can and trying to distract him the best way I knew how without blurting out, “So, I haven’t had a period in, um … two months. Holyfuckingshitballs.” Because if there was one thing my boyfriend of ten months—or eleven months, depending on who you asked—didn’t need right now, it was a pregnant girlfriend.

I looked at my phone, which was currently counting down the minutes until the test was supposed to give me a result. Two minutes left. Shit. It was just after five, which meant Nathan would be coming home soon. I hadn’t meant to wait this long, but after consulting the other tests I’d taken and determining that plus signs and lines were probably subjective to the viewer, I splurged on the test that was more clear cut—pregnant or not pregnant—and kept my bladder nice and full as long as I could.

There was a timer that blinked on this test, but fuck that. I could stare at the blinking timer, as the chunky pee stick determined my fate, or I could set a timer on my phone and turn my back to the offending thing.

I watched plenty of documentaries on women who didn’t know they were pregnant until oops, a baby plopped out of their business, and I always rolled my eyes. How did they not keep track of their cycles? Amateurs. Except there I was, two months after I was supposed to have a period, waiting to find out if my body was about to spend the next seven months slowly exploding.

After the stress of finals and bullshit from my sister, Celeste, about pretty much anything, I didn’t think about things like periods. I’d spent the summer trying to play house in my boyfriend’s house—a house he’d once shared with his deceased wife, and trying not to overstep my boundaries. And, of course, I’d spent much of that time having hot sex with said boyfriend—which landed me here, on his pretty white marble bathroom floor, two sticks pointing up out of the trash can beside the toilet.

And when school had started up—around the time of my first missed period—I was too busy trying to deal with the full load of classes I’d taken on, and the fact that Nathan and I were now spending much less time playing house to even worry about my period. But after spending the last three days feeling very much unlike myself, with a stomach that was in a perpetual state of near-eruption, I knew something was up.

“You must be getting your period,” Nathan casually said one night in bed, as he wore his too-sexy-to-be-legal reading glasses and poured over the newspaper.

“Why do you say that?” I asked him as I ran his back massager over my neck and shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension that my French class had brought on.

“Because you’re moody, and,” he looked at me over the glasses and shifted his gaze to the pile of three empty Ben and Jerry’s containers on the nightstand, “those.”

Nathan was kind of neat freak, and it was true that I liked to try his patience every once in a while by leaving things like empty containers of yogurt around the house, but as I cocked my head at the Ben and Jerry’s pints, I knew that wasn’t like me.

I mean, I knew I’d eaten them—definitely. But I didn’t typically inhale entire pints of ice cream every night. The first time had been to soothe my throat after what I suspected to be a bout of food poisoning that had left me hugging the toilet for a solid hour. The second time had been my comfort as I sobbed through that Pixar movie,
Up
. The movie wasn’t even that sad! But after the first five minutes, my heart was a tornado of ache, and what better consolation was there than some ice cream?

The third time had been the night before, when I’d laid alone in bed for the second night in a row, wishing Nathan was home to keep me company. But after school started back up again, he was always working late. One of our many recent arguments had been after I’d spent four nights in a row eating whatever frostbitten frozen meal I’d found in the bottom of his freezer.

“Did you cook?” he’d asked, shrugging out of his tie and giving me an absentminded kiss on the forehead.

“Uh, no.”

He’d raised an eyebrow and I had raised one back. I wasn’t a domesticated goddess. I gave good head. He knew these things, but lately he’d seemed to expect a little more from me.

I’d followed him into the kitchen as he had taken in the frozen meal I’d forgotten to put in the garbage. “Honestly, Adele. Don’t you get sick of this garbage?” He’d dropped it into the trash and then opened the refrigerator.

“Nope, sure don’t.” I’d leaned back against the island as he’d surveyed the mostly-empty fridge. “I don’t stop studying to eat until I’m desperate, and even then I’d eat out of a trough if it was provided for me.”

He had shaken his head and grabbed a bottle of orange juice from the fridge. “You should be eating better. Making something a little healthier.”

“I don’t feel like cooking a large meal when it’s just me most of the time.”

He’d sighed, undoing the top button of his shirt. “You know I have a lot more responsibilities now. I’m sorry.”

Even now, as the cold bathroom tile started to numb my ass, his apology felt like an echo. I’d heard it a hundred times the last few months, so often that I was becoming conditioned to it.

The timer on my phone buzzed, pulling my attention away.

Holy shit. I couldn’t do this. I’d flipped the test over so that I didn’t have to look at it—but now I’d have to.

The timer was still buzzing, and my phone slowly moved across the tile toward me, like it was dancing—taunting me.
Are you pregnant or not, Adele?

“Fuck me,” I whispered, scooting across the tile floor as pinpricks of sensation stabbed my ass.

After turning off the alarm, I gave the stick the evil eye. It was unfair that something so little meant so much.

I reached a hand out tentatively, but then pulled it back quickly. Nope. Not fucking ready to know if the nausea was from some itty bitty cluster of cells in my belly.

The sudden buzz from my phone caused me to jump and then press a hand to my chest. Nathan’s handsome face filled my screen.

I slid my finger across to answer. “Hey!” I said, far too enthusiastically. I turned my back to the test, because I could
not
have a conversation with my boyfriend while staring at
that.

“Hey, I’m on my way home. Did you eat dinner yet?”

I thought of the frozen meal I’d pulled out before my bladder had alerted me to impending doom. “Nope.”

“Okay. I’m going to stop at that Thai place you go to with Leo, want anything from there?”

My cheeks puffed out—the mere thought of it made nausea slither, unwelcome, up my esophagus. “That doesn’t sound appealing,” I said. I pinched my eyes shut. “What about a smoothie?”

“You can’t eat just a smoothie, Adele,” Nathan gently chastised.

“Okay, Dad. What would you like me to eat?” Immediately after I snapped it, I wanted to take it back. Daddy issues were among several things Nathan and I had in common, and I’d never used it against him like that. “Sorry. Long day.”

“I’m telling you—it’s PMS.”

I wanted to laugh. “I’m sure it is,” I said, as a bubble of nervous laughter escaped my lips.

“How about some salads from that Italian place? Chicken Caesar sound okay?”

My stomach didn’t revolt at that. “Sounds delish.”

“I’ll call ahead and be home in about ten.”

“See you then,” I said, needing to get the fuck off of the phone before I spilled the beans about what I was currently doing, which was facing away from a stick I’d peed on.

“Love you,” he said before hanging up.

It was still new with us, the
I love you
business. I’d been in love with him for a good long while before telling him, mostly because Nathan was my first serious adult relationship and, like I said earlier, daddy issues. But each time he said it now, it felt damn good. Nathaniel Easton loved me. Holy shit, did that feel good.

I set my phone down and gave myself a mental slap across my face, to stop being a little bitch and pick up the stupid stick already.

I turned around slowly, waiting a few heartbeats before I reached out and closed my hand around one end of the stick. I dragged it across the tile to me, hearing it scrape the floor as it made its journey.

And before I could talk myself out of it, I flipped it over.

Instantly, cold swept over me. It must have been sheer shock, because I couldn’t move as I stared at the digital letters.

P
REGNANT

“
H
ooooooooly shit
,” I breathed, when I could finally suck in some air.

It was bewildering to me how I could go from not knowing jack shit to now knowing that there was a tiny human growing inside of me. I blinked away the tears that coated my eyes and fanned my face, frantic. Feeling was slowing pouring back into me, and I couldn’t fucking process the fact that I was now responsible for more than just myself.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, staring at the stick with my arms wrapped around my knees. But I knew it must have been around ten minutes, because the slam of the front door downstairs alerted me to Nathan’s presence.

With shaky legs, I slowly stood and clutched the sink counter. I stared at my reflection, taking in the redness around my nose and eyes and splashed cold water over my face.

I had to tell him. I couldn’t hide all these sticks, or hide the truth from him. The thought of telling him I was carrying his spawn was probably more terrifying than the fact that I
was
carrying a child.

After pushing the loose tendrils away from my face, I walked slowly down the stairs, in search of him.

The rustling of plastic bags alerted me to his presence in the kitchen.

“Oh, hey.” He gave me an easy smile—the kind that made my legs go all gooey. Which I definitely did not need when I was already having a hard time walking. “You okay?”

I wanted to crawl inside of myself. I took a deep breath, but before I could say the words he interrupted me.

“I assume you’re not going to eat this?” He held up the neglected frozen meal.

I shook my head and opened my mouth, but no words came out.

“I got you garlic bread. You always like to carboload when you’re PMSing.”

The urge to laugh-cry was so strong that I nearly gave in. The fact that he indulged my cravings and was attuned to my body was endearing, but he was so, so wrong about the cause of my mood swings. I opened my mouth to say something again, but he spoke before I could.

“What do you think, a chardonnay?” He stooped to the built-in wine refrigerator under the island.

“No,” I shook my head frantically.

“Why, do you have to be up studying late?” He rose, empty-handed, from his crouch.

Once again, I tried to speak. But once again, he interrupted me.

“I hope not, because I came home early to spend time with you and—”

“Stop!” I blurted out, coming around the island. He opened his mouth to say something but I shook my head quickly and placed my hand over his lips. “Stop, just…” I couldn’t work up the courage. But I had to, because it was eating me up. “Shit. Fuck. Fuck me.” I was rambling. “Not literally. That’s what got me into this mess.” His eyes were squinted, no doubt wondering what the hell had gotten into me. I sighed, long and loud. And then, all my words ran in a nonsensical stream. “Okay, shit-balls-cock-sucker-mother-fucking-hell, Nathan, I’m pregnant.”