Page 84 of Ruthless Claim

Something that surfaces when I think about Cillian in the hospital waiting room with sandwiches, and Cillian holding my hair back on a bathroom floor without being asked, and Cillian saying you’d be a good mother in the dark with his arm around me and meaning it. Something that, if I’m being honest, feels a lot like: maybe.

Maybe this is the best thing.

Maybe this is the worst thing.

I have no idea.

I hide the tests at the bottom of the bathroom bin under a layer of cotton pads, and I go about my day. I say nothing.

I don’t tell Cillian for four days. I know, I know. I can feel Emma’s voice in my head already—Valentina, you have to tell him.

I’m just walking around the apartment being pregnant and hoping my face isn’t doing anything readable.

But for once, my poker face is failing me.

Cillian knows something is up.

He’s looked at me with narrowed eyes too many times over these last four days and asks what’s wrong.

I’ve deflected every time because at least that I’m good at.

I’m less good at eating.

The nausea has settled into a pattern—bad in the mornings, manageable by noon, unpredictable in the evenings—and Cillian has noticed that I’m moving food around my plate more than I’m eating it.

Last night he asked if something was wrong with the salmon. I said the salmon was fine.

He clearly didn’t believe me but mercifully didn’t push.

I’m going to tell him.

I have to tell someone and it should be my husband first since he’s the father of this baby.

I’ll tell him once I have lunch with Emma.

She’s at the corner table when I get there, Seraphina asleep in the carrier against her chest so all I can see is the top of her wild black hair.

Emma’s lifting a cappuccino to her mouth and she’s reading something on her phone, but she looks up when I arrive, smiling. I sit down and open my mouth to say hello and what comes out instead is:

“I’m pregnant.”

Emma’s cappuccino stops halfway to her mouth.

I press my lips together, heat rushing through me.

That was not the plan. Emma was not supposed to know first.

I was supposed to act calm and collected and enjoy my lunch with Emma and Seraphina.

Jesus Christ, Valentina. You suck.

Emma sets her cup down very slowly and looks at me with those green eyes that are suddenly very wide and very bright. “Sorry,” she says faintly. “Can you say that again?”

My face must be beat red. “You heard me,” I tell her, because I’m not saying it again.

She blinks very owlishly at me. “I just want to make sure I⁠—”

“Emma.”