My stomach twists again—sharp, insistent, wrong.
‘Now, let me just check the dip,’ she says lightly, turning her attention to the urine sample.
My heart stops.
She reaches behind the stack of files where she hid the test. Her back shields her face from me. I can’t see her expression. I hear the slightest rustle of paper. A small inhale. Several seconds stretch by, thick and suffocating.
I grip my arm so hard my fingers ache. The room feels like it tilts, just slightly. My skin prickles, too hot, too cold, everything wrong all at once.
She turns, her expression is soft.
My heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to break out.
‘Zara,’ she says gently, approaching me with the small white test in one hand.
I shake my head before I even realise I’m doing it. ‘No. No. No, please don’t?—’
She kneels in front of me. A doctor kneels for no one. A person does that. A woman who’s delivered terrible news kindly for thirty years.
‘The test… is positive,’ she says softly. ‘You’re pregnant.’
A foreign sound leaks from my lips—a single strangled inhale.
Images flash through my mind like someone’s flicking through photos.
His hands on my waist.
His head between my legs.
His tongue—deep, rough, claiming.
No names.
No numbers.
No strings.
My stomach caves inward.
‘I know this is a shock,’ she says, still kneeling, still grounding me with that steady warmth. ‘But you’re not alone. And you are going to be okay. I promise.’
My vision blurs. A tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it.
‘I can’t be pregnant,’ I whisper. ‘I… I can’t.’
She reaches for my hands, holds them gently. ‘You are. And we’ll take the next steps slowly. One thing at a time.’
A sob builds in my chest, sharp and silent.
I swallow it down. Hard.
Because I’m Zara Beckett.
And Becketts do not fall apart.
Not even when their entire world collapses, with one impossible, shocking sentence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
