Ellie’s heart sank. If Tessa was late, it wasn’t the time to put the story on her shoulders. “Oh, nothing. Just checking up on you.” She tried to smile as she spoke because there was no better way to hide what you were feeling than behind a smile. But her jaw got tight and her voice broke and for what might be the first time in her life, Ellie couldn’t get the mask down in time.
“That’s not true. I can hear it in your voice. What’s wrong?”
Ellie wanted to contradict the statement, to say everything was fine and just carry the burden of her worries herself, but she opened her mouth and the truth fell out. “I think I really messed up big time.”
“Oh, no. You fell in love with him, didn’t you?”
“No.” Ellie held her phone with her shoulder and flared her hands. “I mean yes. But that’s not the problem.” She hated the way her voice quaked and quavered. She was the queen of holding back tears. Why she couldn’t get them pushed back into place eluded her.
“What happened?” Tessa asked, sounding concerned.
“I think I’m pregnant.” Ellie filled her in on the whole story. The lie she told. The emergency trip to the gynecologist. Her sore breasts and late period.
“You haven’t told him?”
“No.” Ellie fought back a sob. “How could I? I mean, I know I have to, but everything’s so amazing right now. I’m living in his house. He and his family are helping me rebuild my café; they’re pouring money into it like it’s theirs. Or, rather, like I’m theirs. Like I’m one of them. And I’m not.” And she wouldn’t be, not after she came clean.
“Ellie…”
“And you know what makes it worse? I’m in love with him. Like full on, head over heels, madly, deeply in love. He’s everything I’ve ever needed. He’s strong enough to support me emotionally. Here I am, supposed to be helping him heal after the love of his life shattered his heart and he’s the one helping me. Talking to me about my foster parents. Helping me feel valuable. Needed. And what do I do to repay it? I lie to him. About something that will just fuck up his whole life.”
“Ellie…”
“And to make it all worse. I want this. I want him. I want to have his baby. I want to be part of his family. I want to feel protected and I want to make him feel cherished and right now, in this very instant, I have it all. I have what I want. But it’s an illusion. The moment I tell him, it’ll all blow away. Or, I don’t tell him and just wait until after Ian’s wedding. Either way, this moment where I have it all? It’s a house of cards.”
“Ellie! Will you shut the hell up?”
Ellie blinked and fell silent.
“First things first. You have to tell him. You can’t hide this from him and the longer you do, the harder you're gonna make things. In fact, the longer you keep this from him, the less chance you have of keeping the relationship alive.”
“But—”
“Don’t talk. Let me finish. It’s clear that James cares about you, too. He moved you into his house, for God’s sake. He’s rebuilding your business, and sweetie? I’ve been in there. He’s not sparing time or expense, is he?” Tessa waited for the smallest noise of affirmation from Ellie before continuing. “You can kid yourself all you want and say that he’s doing this to make your fake relationship seem real, but you know and I know that he’s going way beyond the call of duty here.”
Ellie swallowed hard. Tessa was right. And on some level, she’d known it all along. “What do I do?” she asked.
“You’ve got to tell him.”
“But what if I’m not actually pregnant?”
“Well, hell, Ellie! Of course you should find out first. But that’s not hard. A quick trip to the drugstore and a pee on a stick and you’ll know. This isn’t rocket science.”
Ellie laughed, a tight, self-deprecating sound. “No. It’s harder.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
Ellie heard the jingle of keys and the closing of a door through the phone. “Are you leaving? I should let you go. I’m sorry to bother you with all this silliness.”
“Nonsense. First, it’s not silliness and I keep telling you that’s what I’m here for. Friends help with the hard stuff, you know. And second, I want to talk about happier things. Keep me company on my way to work and tell me all the good stuff that’s happened to you.”
Ellie sighed. “I feel like my life is a fairy tale.”
“It is, though. You’re Cinderella! Living in your beach house with your rich prince after scraping away in that hovel of an apartment.”
“Right, but Cinderella got the prince in the end. She didn’t get pregnant and ruin everything.”
Ellie heard the slam of a car door and the roar of Tessa’s engine. “Nope. Stop right there. I don’t want to hear about the worry and the bad stuff. We’ve already covered that. You know what to do. We’ll deal with what to do next after you’ve taken your test. For now, tell me what’s good.”
Ellie shared how every day they’d shown up to work on the renovations, they’d found another resident of Bliss waiting with a donation or an offer of help. She talked about how Juliet and Ian basically gutted the place and were rebuilding it from the inside out. How Harry had donated kitchen items and his expertise and advice on how to improve her layout. How Lilah had designed the color palette to be more welcoming. How she and James had spent days side by side, rebuilding the place together.
Ellie talked about how he seemed to see inside her, to understand all that was broken, all the mistrust she had built up over the years. How he didn’t try to fix it, he just made it all seem better
