“Doctor?” she prompted.
Dr. Abate looked up from the papers in front of her and smiled. “Well, we’ll need to run blood work, but I feel comfortable saying from your urine test you are pregnant, Kenzie.”
“Whoa, what?” she shrieked. “No, no, no. That’s impossible. I’m on the Pill.”
The doctor nodded. “There’s a small chance of this happening. Are you sure you took it every day?”
“Of course, but…” She let the words die away. How could she forget the pill that had rolled beneath Easton’s dresser? She never went back for it. She explained the situation to the doctor with an ache of nerves in the pit of her stomach. “I continued on the next day like clockwork, and there were no more misses.”
“All it takes is one to throw you off your cycle and create a chink in your protection.”#p#分页标题#e#
She ran a hand over her face and moaned. “This can’t be happening. It just can’t, not in this situation.”
Feeling defeated and just wanting to get out of there, she deflected the rest of her doctor’s questions and submitted to having her blood drawn. She escaped just after four and called Denise to meet her for dinner. They met at her friend’s favorite Moroccan place in Charlestown. Kenzie wasted no time ordering an appetizer of braised chicken, cooked into phyllo wraps, as a way to drown her sorrows.
“I’m having a glass of Pinot Grigio,” Denise announced. “Kenzie, aren’t you getting wine?”
“Water, please.”
She felt her friend’s gaze boring into her. When the waiter left, Denise went on the attack. “What’s up with you, girl? It’s not like you not to have a glass of wine or two to unwind. And you’re looking green around the gills. Wait, are you…?”
“Yeah,” Kenzie muttered.
“Shut up! You are not.”
Tears filled Kenzie’s eyes. “I am. I can’t believe it, Niecey. I’m pregnant. The test the doctor gave me came back positive, and now that I think about it, the signs are there. My period’s late, my boobs are sensitive, I could sleep for the next fifty years straight, and I’m super emotional. I screwed up royally.”
Denise reached across the table and took her hand. “Who’s the father?”
“You know who the father is!”
“Not the rich guy?”
“Easton Tremaine.”
“We’ve been through thick and thin, and it was mostly me begging for your help to get me out of jams,” Denise admitted. “On back to elementary school, when Kim Johnson was bullying me, you were there. So talk to me, girl. I’m right here for you.”
Kenzie fidgeted and took her hand from her friend’s to clasp her fingers together in her lap. She wasn’t used to this, her being the one with the problem. Of course, she had had to deal with her mother passing and her father going into a home, but those were major yet common trials that for some reason didn’t feel as exposing as this situation. Maybe again it had to do with her hormones, but she hesitated to share, especially since she realized the worst truth of all. She loved Easton.
“It was an accident,” she confessed. “One that couldn’t be worse.”
Denise leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I don’t see why, since you love him.”
Kenzie blinked. “No…I…uh…”
“Girl, don’t deny it. I see it written all over your face. You forget nobody knows you like I do, Kenz. Why don’t you tell him?”
“Hell no!”
Several people turned in their direction, and Kenzie cleared her throat. When her water arrived, she took a sip and worked to calm down.
“I’m helping him to find a wife.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me repeat it.”
Denise frowned. “How does a rich dude come to a middle-class woman to ask her to help him find a wife? I mean, I know you’ve been responsible for some life-changing stuff with your customers, but that’s a bit extreme.”
“I haven’t changed anyone’s life. You’re being dramatic.”
“And you’re being modest, Kenz. It’s not cute.”
“Whatever the case, I’m not telling him how I feel. I might not even…” She bit her lip. The waiter set down her wraps, and she toyed with them, her appetite diminished all of a sudden. Denise nabbed one and munched quietly. Kenzie sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but promise me you’re not going to say anything to anyone.”
The outrage stood plain on her friend’s face. “When have I ever betrayed a secret?”