How, she’d asked herself a thousand times in the eight hours that had passed since she’d taken a half-dozen pregnancy tests—one from every manufacturer on the market—had it happened?
She already knew the answer to that, of course. Jake had used a condom, she remembered that clearly. But evidently there was a reason for those disclaimers on condom packages.
Despite the shock of seeing that blue line over and over and the word PREGNANT on that one test that clearly believed a word rather than a double blue line was a better way of presenting the life-changing news, it wasn’t lost on Sophie just how ironic it all was.
She was Nice!
The only time she’d ever let herself do something crazy, the only time she’d ever thrown caution to the winds to take what she so desperately wanted, she ended up totally paying for it.
How many lies had she told herself, all because she’d wanted that night with him so badly? The list was ridiculously long, but yet again she made herself go through each bullet point, knowing it was the perfect way to remind herself of the truth.
Lie: If she loved Jake enough, he’d eventually love her back.
Truth: She could spend every second of the rest of her life showering him with love, and he’d never love her. Oh, he’d like her, all right, just as he liked the rest of the Sullivans. But love wasn’t something Jake McCann was ever going to sign up for. He’d even told her that straight to her face.
Lie: The only reason he felt funny about falling for her was because he was such close friends with her brothers.
Truth: Could she have been any more delusional? He hadn’t fallen for her. He’d simply taken what any guy would have taken after she threw it at him: her naked, willing body.
Lie: He didn’t think he was good enough for her, but once she convinced him that he was, they’d have their happy-ever-after.
Truth: Jake was one of the most confident men she’d ever met. If anything was ridiculous, it was that she’d thought he could ever be happy with a boring, nice librarian. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he was good enough for her. He just didn’t want her. Period.
Lie: Their mind-blowing kisses, the shockingly great sex, had to mean he loved her, too.
Truth: Sex wasn’t magic. Orgasms didn’t connect to emotions. And she was a pathetic fool for ever thinking anything else.
Lie: She could have one incredible night in Jake’s arms and then go back to her normal life without anything else changing outside of those wickedly perfect hours.
Truth: Everything had changed.
And still, despite the undeniable list of truths she’d just laid out for herself, Sophie couldn’t stop remembering the way he’d looked at her that night. Had she imagined the fierce possession? The emotion he hadn’t been able to hide? She’d thought he was touching more than just her body. She’d thought he was reaching all the way into her soul.
Stop it, Sophie!
She needed to accept the truth that Jake McCann probably looked at every woman he’d ever slept with like that, and that their hours together had nothing whatsoever to do with touching souls. Just body parts.
She still couldn’t believe she’d actually told him she loved him. Always.
Forever.
God, she wanted to curl up into a ball on the bathroom floor and never come out again. Stupid Sophie Sullivan with stars in her eyes blinding her to reality. And now look what had happened.
She was pregnant.
With Jake’s baby.
A knock sounded on the door. “You okay in there?”
It was Lori. Sophie quickly splashed some water on her face and flushed the toilet to make it seem like she’d actually used the bathroom.
She opened the door and faked a smile. “Isn’t it exciting about Gabe and Megan?”
“Of course it is.” But Lori wasn’t smiling back. “I need to talk to you after everyone leaves, so stick around, okay?”
Sophie immediately worried that something was wrong with her twin. Had she been too preoccupied with her own shocking news that she hadn’t paid close enough attention to whether Lori needed her support?
* * *
The door had barely closed behind the other women when Lori turned on Sophie. “Spill it, sis.”
The wine glass Sophie had been washing in the kitchen sink slipped from her fingers and shattered on the white porcelain. In the past, Sophie had always been the voice of reason, the shoulder for her twin to cry on.
This time, everything was turned around.
She braced herself on the rim of the sink. She wasn’t going to cry.
Not. Going. To. Cry.
But when Lori moved behind her and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, tears started streaming down Sophie’s cheeks as fast and thick as the water still pouring from the faucet.
Everything she’d been trying to hold in, to deal with by herself, burst apart inside of her. She felt like she was breaking apart from the inside out, as though she were about to shatter into as many pieces as the glass in the bottom of the sink.
Her sobs wracked her body so hard that if Lori hadn’t been holding her up, she couldn’t have stayed upright. Somehow, Lori turned off the water and got them both over to the couch, where Sophie held onto her twin for dear life. Their endless fights over the past year receded to nothing.
All that mattered was knowing she wasn’t completely alone.
When Sophie had finally stopped crying, her body feeling completely wrung out, Lori said, “Hold on a sec,” and came back a few seconds later with a roll of toilet paper. “Sorry, this is the best I’ve got.”
It was more than good enough for Sophie to blow her nose on and wipe her face dry.
“Wow.” Lori looked at her. “You’re really a mess.”
Her twin pointing out the horribly obvious shouldn’t have made Sophie laugh, but she couldn’t hold back a choked giggle. “You think?”
Lori reached for her hand. “It’s just that you’ve never been like this. You’re freaking me out.”
“You’re not the only one.” Although the truth was that freaking out was a pathetic, ridiculous understatement of what she was feeling.
“What did Jake do to you?”
Of course Lori would immediately figure out what—who—was at the heart of her sorrow. Only Sophie couldn’t exactly say, Oh, you know, not much besides making the sweetest, most sinful love imaginable to me and then leaving me in the middle of the night, knocked up...and completely lost without him.