The Fateful Pregnancy Test

Clara

My thumb presses the red icon on my screen, ending the final call of the morning. "Yeah, I get it," I say into the dead receiver anyway. "I appreciate you hearing me out."

Tossing the phone onto the couch cushions, I drop my face into my palms. The entire morning went into dialing every contact I have, cashing in old favors, and stripping away every scrap of self-respect to ask friends and casual acquaintances for money. I never considered myself an overly proud person, yet groveling on the phone like that took a heavier toll than I ever anticipated.

More than anything, I wish I had a way to bail Tessa out along with myself. She is still sitting on pins and needles waiting for the final word on her job, and although management banned her from touching any donor vials, they cleared her to run my follow-up lab work this afternoon. Since my insemination already happened, her supervisor figured there was zero chance of another mix-up.

Even so, enthusiasm is the last thing I feel as I push through the main entrance of the fertility clinic. A week and a half ago, I walked through this lobby with a bruised heart but high hopes, wanting a child more than anything on earth. Today, the mere thought of the exam fills me with pure dread.

That heavy anxiety shifts into baffled shock the second I step into the main corridor, hit by an inexplicable certainty that Kaelen Thorne is somewhere in the building. It takes me a few minutes of walking down the hall to actually spot him behind the soundproof glass of an upscale conference room, locked in a meeting with Tessa’s superiors, yet I have no logical explanation for how I sensed him beforehand. Even more baffling is the strange pull tugging me toward the glass; the man torpedoed both my sister’s career and my own livelihood, so feeling a rush at the sight of him makes no sense at all.

Passing this specific boardroom on the route to Tessa’s office is pure coincidence, yet my shoes stall on the polished floor as I watch the discussion inside. Just looking at him knocks the wind right out of me. How has the man managed to look even sharper than he did yesterday? Giving someone with that level of wealth and sharp intellect a face like that was already rigged, and right now, witnessing it feels like an extra slap in the face. He has ice water in his veins, yet fate handed him every conceivable advantage while leaving people like Tessa and me with scraps.

Forcing my feet to move again, I break the spell and hurry down the corridor, though the heavy sensation of a dark gaze stays pinned between my shoulder blades the entire way. When I push into Tessa’s office, it is obvious she has been weeping. Raw red rims her eyes and blotches stain her cheeks, despite her quick attempt to wipe her face.

"Hey," I say softly, stepping forward to pull her into my arms. She holds on tight, burying her face against my shoulder for much longer than usual. "Did they tell you anything yet?"

"Thorne is in the boardroom wrapping it up right now. They're handing me my official firing papers before the day ends," she mutters, letting out a quiet sniffle.

"I hate this so much, sweetie," I murmur, rubbing circles across her shoulder blades.

"I'll manage," she fibs, stepping back to look at me. "How are you holding up today?"

"Pretty terribly, if we're being honest," I admit. "Walking in here today had my stomach in knots."

"Crazy how an entire life can implode in a few days, right?" Her lower lip wobbles as fresh tears threaten to spill over. "Seriously, Clare, how do we dig ourselves out of this?"

"We'll come up with a plan," I tell her firmly. "This isn't the worst corner we've ever been backed into. Think back to that summer we bolted from the state home and slept inside cardboard boxes down in the alley."

"True," she replies, offering a bleak little smile. "Except it's dead winter out there right now, and freezing temperatures won't be so forgiving. Plus, you didn't have a baby on the way back then."

"Right, well, assuming the test comes back positive..." I drop my gaze to the floor, unable to meet her eyes. "I don't think I can go through with keeping it."

"Wait, what?" Tessa gasps, her face draining of color. "Clara, this is your single shot at having a kid! We aren't totally out of options yet—you still have weeks to put together a backup plan."

Hearing her mention a backup plan instantly brings Trent to mind, making me realize I still haven't told her the worst of what happened yesterday. "Even if a new job fell into my lap tomorrow, a baby is completely out of reach. I'm going to spend the next several years digging out from under massive debt," I explain, before laying out the whole ugly story of Trent getting Sloane pregnant and maxing out fraudulent credit cards under my name.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Tessa explodes the second I finish. "How is any of this remotely fair, Clara? Haven't we been kicked around enough for one lifetime? After all the garbage we survived growing up, we earned a decent break! Nobody adores kids the way you do—you were meant to be a mother."

"Just like you were meant to practice medicine," I counter quietly. "You gave everything you had for this career."

"Even so, you can't throw in the towel right now," she insists, her brow creasing. "Legally, you have until the twelfth week to end a pregnancy. Imagine how devastating it would be if you went through with an abortion now, only for us to pull off a sudden miracle next month that would've let you keep it. Don't jump the gun. Hold onto the pregnancy until the absolute deadline."

"Miracles don't exactly line up for people in my tax bracket," I say in a low voice. "And dragging it out sounds like pure masochism. Every extra week I carry this child is another week I fall deeper in love with it. Why make the heartbreak any more brutal than it already is?"

"Your heart is going to break either way," Tessa points out gently. "At least buy yourself a little window of time. Leave the door cracked open instead of slamming it shut today."

"Let's see if there's even a decision to argue over first," I say, pivoting away from the heavy topic. "For all we know, the procedure didn't take." Deep down, though, an unshakable instinct tells me otherwise.

"Fair enough," Tessa says, reaching into a supply cupboard to grab a sealed plastic specimen cup. "Bathroom's right down the hall."

Taking the container, I slip out to the restroom to handle the sample and hand the cup back to her less than two minutes later. While Tessa loads the analyzer, I wear a track into the office floor, pacing from wall to wall until the data finally populates her monitor. "And?" I ask, stopping behind her chair.

She turns around with a tender, heartbroken curve to her lips. "You're pregnant, little sis. You're having a baby."

All morning I swore to myself I would keep my composure regardless of the outcome, yet the instant she speaks, hot tears spill down my cheeks. For years I ached to hear someone say that to me, half-convinced the day would never actually arrive. Fierce elation and crushing grief collide inside my chest all at once, stretching my heart between two impossible extremes. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Tessa whispers, standing up to wrap me in a tight embrace. "Come hop on the table. Let's run a quick scan so you can listen to the heartbeat."

"Can you even pick one up this early?" I ask, my voice cracking.

"Perks of working inside the premier fertility lab in the country," Tessa replies with a wry, bittersweet edge. "The imaging gear in this room is a decade ahead of standard hospital machines."

Hoisting myself onto the padded exam table, I lean back against the incline and tug my shirt up to my ribs, skipping the paper gown entirely to leave my flat stomach bare while Tessa rolls the ultrasound cart over. Seconds later, a rhythmic static hum fills the quiet room as she squeezes a cold ribbon of clear gel onto my skin. She settles the transducer against my lower belly, and almost immediately, a rapid, fluttering thump echoes through the speakers—sending a fresh wave of tears down my face.

Beside the table, however, Tessa’s smile vanishes into a tight scowl. "Hold on, that makes no sense. The fetal pole is measuring huge, yet your pre-procedure bloodwork ten days ago was completely negative."

"Why is it measuring big?" I ask, a spike of nerves cutting through my tears. "Could the donor just be a really tall guy?"

"It isn't just physical measurement—it's the stage of cellular growth." Tessa bites the inside of her lip, leaning closer to the high-resolution monitor as genuine alarm washes over her face. Her voice drops to a shaken murmur, barely above a breath. "The structure doesn't read as human... no, that's insane... it can't be."

"Tessa, you're scaring me," I say, propping myself up on my elbows. "How could a screen tell you that? Shouldn't it just look like a little speck right now?"

"Like I told you, this machine is next-generation," she says, her fingers flying across the console keys. "It doesn't stop at basic sonography—it runs a live molecular composition mapping."

Before she can explain another syllable, the heavy exam room door flies open and slams against the wall, making us both jump. My stomach drops straight to the floor as Kaelen Thorne fills the doorway, his chest heaving and his dark eyes blazing down at us like we just committed a capital crime.

"What the hell is going on in here?" he barks, his voice rumbling through the small room.

"What the hell is going on in here?" I fire right back, scrambling to tug my shirt down over my bare stomach in sheer disbelief. "What gives you the right to kick down the door during a private medical exam?!"

"Because," he snarls, stepping into the room with a fury so intense his eyes practically glow gold in the fluorescent light, "I can smell my pup."