Project Runaway Bride(30)

He shrugged and it was his turn to shift his gaze elsewhere. He chose a spot over her right shoulder and focused on one of the etched glass cupboard doors.

“I’m sure you and your fiancé will work it out. Especially now that he’s about to become a proud papa.”

If the words sounded bitter, maybe it was because they were. The guy she was pregnant by was a grade-A jerk and abuser. She might have run away from her wedding—probably because she’d been shocked by the discovery of her pregnancy; the timing certainly suggested the two circumstances had overlapped. But no doubt she would run back to him soon enough rather than be an unwed expectant mother.

The fact that Juliet had been fool enough to become reengaged to him in the first place, let alone get pregnant by him, made Reid want to punch something. Hard. Paul Harris’s face came to mind.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure Paul and I won’t be working out anything.”

His brows knit at that, but he kept his lips sewn tightly shut. Not his business. Not his business. The sooner he distanced himself, the better.

“If running away from the wedding wasn’t enough to put an end to things, finding out about this baby sure as heck would be.”

He gave a snort of derision. He hadn’t meant to, it just sort of came out.

“And why is that? I’d think good ol’ Paul would be even more eager to hustle you down the aisle now that you’re pregnant with his kid. Wouldn’t an illegitimate heir tarnish his sterling reputation?”

Juliet inhaled deeply, her chest rising as her lungs filled.

“That’s just it,” she said on a whisper of air. “It’s not his baby. It’s yours.”





Eight



As bombs went, Juliet’s left a mushroom cloud of stunned silence and devastation hanging over their heads.

She still didn’t know why she’d done it. She’d had absolutely no intention of telling Reid about the baby, regardless of the fact that he’d shown up out of the blue and refused to leave.

But then he’d caught her puking her guts up—a delightful daily side effect of this whole pregnancy business. He’d been surprisingly sweet and concerned, she had to admit.

So even though she hadn’t intended to reveal her secret to anyone so soon—least of all Reid—she’d sort of owed him an explanation for the past hour and a half of her reenactment of The Exorcist. And the truth was that she would have told him eventually. He had a right to know he was going to be a father, and she didn’t have it in her to keep something like that from him forever.

Like ripping off a bandage, she’d decided to just blurt it out. As soon as she was dressed and presentable and able to stand upright for more than five seconds without the room spinning like a Tilt-A-Whirl.

Now, though, she was beginning to rethink her brilliant and noble idea. Because Reid didn’t look as though he was handling it well at all.

As soon as the words had left her mouth, he’d gone paler than a ghost. Worse, she’d be willing to bet, than she’d looked while hunched over the toilet bowl.

He’d stared at her as though wings had sprouted out of her back and she’d flown into the rafters of the cabin. And then he’d turned on his heel and stalked out.

He was still out there, pacing the length of the porch. She could hear his heavy footfalls as he marched back and forth, back and forth. Pausing occasionally with his hands on his hips.

Through the wide front window, she saw his mouth moving and the shake of his head, and wondered what he was saying to himself. She suspected it was nothing nice, at least not where she was concerned, and likely dotted with some colorful, creative curses.

After what seemed like hours of giving him his space and time to absorb the news, Juliet released a sigh and slid off of her stool, leaving the last of her can of clear soda behind. Thank God for Reid’s quick thinking and her father’s habit of keeping the lake house well stocked. The soda had really helped to settle her stomach and get the morning sickness to pass a little more quickly.

Moving to the front door, she opened it quietly and stood there for a moment while Reid continued to pace. When he reached her and saw her from the corner of his eye, he stopped, the expression he turned on her dark enough to melt glass.

A muscle in his jaw ticked, and she stiffened, almost afraid of the onslaught of whatever he was about to say. Taking a deep breath, she decided to beat him to the punch.

“Before you say anything,” she said on a rush, “you need to know that I don’t expect anything from you. I only told you because I believe you have the right to know, but you don’t have to be involved. I’ll be just fine on my own. You don’t have to worry that I’ll come after you for child support or anything like that.”