Steeling herself, she answered. “Hi, Mike.”
“Jenny, are you all right?” She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. At the concern ringing in his tone. “Casey says you went home sick.”
Sick. Well, technically, her stomach was still feeling a little iffy, but it was so much more.
“I’m okay, but, Mike,” she said, mentally preparing herself for what was to come, “we have to talk.”
An hour later, Mike stood in her living room staring down at the five test sticks she’d laid out on the coffee table. Brain burning, heart pounding, Mike stared at the evidence in front of him and still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it. He took a few deep breaths, willing himself to calm down, to beat back the sense of betrayal and suspicion that slapped at him.
“Pregnant?” He shifted his gaze to the woman across the room from him. Her blond hair curled around her head. Her blue eyes were wide and shone with an innocence he couldn’t trust. She wore those silly flannel pants and a yellow tank top that bared her shoulders and hugged her generous breasts. His gaze dropped to her belly briefly as he tried to imagine a child—his child—nestled inside.
He couldn’t do it.
“How the hell did that happen?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Really?”
He pushed both hands through his hair and scrambled for patience. “I know how, so don’t get cute. But we used a condom. Every time.”
“I know,” Jenny said, wrapping her arms around her middle almost defensively, “but nothing’s a hundred percent.”
“Well, they damn well should be,” he argued. What the hell as the point of using a damn condom if they didn’t do their job? “Unless...” Mind clicking along, racing down dark, twisted, tangled roads, he said, “You had those condoms in your drawer.”
“So?”
He didn’t answer that question. Instead, he turned and stalked into her bedroom, tore open the drawer and grabbed one of the condoms still there. Had they been damaged somehow? Had she found a way to sabotage them so... He saw the date stamped on the bottom of the foil.
“What’re you doing?” Jenny asked as she came into the room behind him.
“I thought maybe you’d done something to these,” he muttered, turning to look at her, still holding the damn condom. “I don’t know, poked holes in them with a needle or something.”
She gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
He ignored that, just as he paid no attention to the look of astonishment on her face. She wasn’t an innocent and he should have remembered that before allowing himself to slide into an affair that could only end badly. “Turns out you didn’t have to. How the hell long have you had these things?”
She blinked in confusion, then said, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer the question.”
Frowning at him, she said, “They were party favors at a bachelorette party I went to five years ago.”
“Five years.” Nodding, he curled his fingers around the condom package and squeezed.
“Does that matter?”
A short, sharp laugh shot from his throat. “Yeah. It matters. Especially since they expired five years ago.” He couldn’t believe this.
“What do you mean?” She practically pried his fingers apart to snatch the packet from him. “Condoms can expire?”
“You thought they lasted forever?”
“No,” she said, “I never thought about it. Why would I? It’s not like they have to be refrigerated or anything. Who would expect they could go bad? They’re in their own little foil packs for heaven’s sake.”
“That’s just perfect,” he muttered and thought back to the first night with her here, at her house, and how damned grateful he’d been that she had condoms on hand. He’d never checked them out. Never thought to make sure they were good.
He scrubbed both hands across his face and told himself this was what he got for going against his own instincts. He’d wanted her. Had to have her. Even knowing that she was a liar. Now he was paying the price for following his own needs.
“It’s probably why your friend gave them away as party favors,” he muttered darkly. “Because they were no good, she got ’em cheap.
“But why would you hold on to them?”
“I didn’t think about it,” she said with a shake of her head. “I just tossed them into the drawer and never gave it another thought.”
“Perfect,” he muttered, scraping one hand across his face.
“You knew they were no good,” he said, voice deep, dark. Anger bubbled in his gut until it was a thick, hot brew that spilled through his veins. “You knew what would happen if we used them and you were good with that, weren’t you?”