Pregnant.
I was pregnant.
With Thad’s baby.
The emotions hit me all at once—a tidal wave I couldn’t sort through. There was joy in there somewhere, buried deep. The idea of being a mother. Of creating life. Of having someone who was mine, truly mine, in a way nothing else had ever been.
But on top of that joy was fear. Thick, suffocating fear.
Because I barely knew this man.
We’d been together for what —a couple of months? I knew he was Prime’s cousin. I knew he worked at some club. I knew he was charming and attentive and said all the right things.
But did I really KNOW him?
Did I know what he was like when things got hard? Did I know his demons, his secrets, the parts of himself he kept hidden? Did I know if he even wanted kids? We’d never talked about it. Never talked about anything real, now that I thought about it.
I’d let myself fall for the fantasy. The attentive boyfriend. The safe harbor after the storm of Ahmad. I’d been so desperate to feel loved that I’d ignored all the questions I should’ve been asking.
And now I was pregnant.
“Hey.” Serenity’s hand was on my shoulder, gentle but firm. “Talk to me. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
The words came out before I could stop them. Before I could filter them into something more acceptable.
Serenity didn’t flinch. “Okay. That’s valid.”
“I barely know him, Serenity. What am I doing?”
“You’re figuring it out.” She pulled me into a hug, and I let myself collapse against her. “That’s all any of us are doing. Figuring it out as we go.”
“I can’t have a baby with a stranger.”
“Then don’t.”
I pulled back, looking at her. “What?”
“I said, then don’t.” Her eyes were steady. No judgment. No agenda. “You have options, Mehar. This isn’t the 1950s. If you’re not ready—if this isn’t right—you don’t have to go through with it.”
The words hung in the air between us.
I looked down at the test still clutched in my hand. Those two pink lines staring back at me like an accusation. Or a question.
“I don’t know what I want,” I admitted.
“That’s okay too.” Serenity squeezed my shoulders. “You don’t have to decide tonight. You don’t have to decide this week. Just… breathe. Process. And when you’re ready, you’ll know.”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I believed her.
All I knew was that twenty minutes ago, my biggest problem was my sister being in jail.
Now I was pregnant by a man I wasn’t sure I loved.
And I had no idea what I was going to do about it.
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