Yours Truly(52)

“I would have liked that,” Kat told him as the car slowed to a stop in front of her building. The streets were deserted and the tinted windows dark enough that she felt she could risk leaning over and giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

She wished she could give him a real kiss, but again, there was probably someone watching. For the millionth time that morning, she thought about telling him about the pregnancy. She knew she would have to eventually. Granted, she probably had a couple of months, but she didn’t want to keep this a secret. Not from him. She didn’t want there to be secrets between the two of them.

“I should get going,” he said gently. “I’m going to be late.”

“AJ?” Kat bit her lip, trying to summon up the courage to say the words.

“Yes?” He smiled at her, but she could see the tension in his jaw starting to increase. Today wasn’t a good day. She needed to do this right.

“Good luck with the meetings.” She bailed on telling him. She couldn’t do it. Not like this.

“Thank you,” he replied with a smile. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

She nodded and quickly opened her car door before she could change her mind and try again. She didn’t look back until she reached the stairs up to her apartment, but by then all she caught was the flash of his tail-lights as he drove away.

It was a good thing that he was gone, because her stomach was revolting again. The bright sunlight and walking had made her body realize it was awake, and thus it needed to throw up.

She barely made it to the bathroom before losing her breakfast.

“Stupid morning sickness,” she gasped after a moment. Last night had been a fluke. A single night where her stomach had let her relax. She had even hoped that the lack of nausea might continue, that she was over it.

As another wave of unpleasantness washed over her, she decided that her body had simply saved up the nausea from last night for now. For now, morning sickness was truly living up to its name. She hoped she could make it until her doctor’s appointment at the end of the week, but at this moment, she wasn’t sure she could.

She groaned as her stomach made an unsettling noise. Her doctor didn’t even want to see her until she was eight weeks, but if she didn’t get something to help combat this nausea, she wasn’t sure if she’d make it that long.

If she told AJ, she’d have an OBGYN at her house in five minutes. Probably the best in the entire state. It was tempting to tell him just for that reason alone, but she still felt reluctant to do so.

He was so stressed. She could see it written all over his body. His beautiful broad shoulders would creep up around his ears whenever he spoke about work and he’d get a slight gray pallor to his skin. Just mentioning the word work to him created a tightness in his eyes that broke her heart. It was easy to see how much of himself he had invested in his company and how much it was killing him to watch it fall apart.

She wanted to tell him about the pregnancy, yet at the same time knew it would only add to his level of stress. Impregnating an employee while his partner was going to court for sexual improprieties toward employees was exactly the kind of thing he didn’t need in his life.

Besides, Kat was still having trouble accepting the fact that she was pregnant herself. She’d picked up two more tests, each more expensive than the last just to make sure, and both had come back positive. It still felt strange to think of herself as a pregnant, let alone a mother.

Kat wiped her hand across her mouth and tried to think of what to do next. She’d already purchased several “What to Expect” type of books to help her with the pregnancy, but it was the people aspect that she was unsure of.

Her mother would be thrilled. She had been pestering Kat for years that she wanted grandchildren, and Kat knew that her mom didn’t care how she got them. Dad would follow Mom and would probably even slip her a little money to help out with expenses. Her younger sister would volunteer to babysit whenever she was in town, and she knew that her neighbor across the hall would always be up for babysitting.

She wasn’t worried about telling her family. She was worried about telling AJ.

They’d only known each other for a few weeks. He hadn’t even met her parents yet, and she still couldn’t keep straight which of his two younger brothers was which. She didn’t even know what his parents did for a living or even what state they lived in.

His wealth just complicated things further. She wasn’t a gold-digger and the last thing she wanted was to be thought of as one. She also wanted her kid to have a father, not an ATM. She could see AJ being a great dad, but she could also see how it might be easier just to pay her and the kid off with money.