Butterflies, big-winged and equipped with more anxiety than I’ve ever felt, flap through my stomach as I walk into the cute-as-a-button cafe.

After another text session and two phone calls, in which I explained and cried about mine and Theo’s divorce, I was meeting Nicole for lunch. We’d agreed on a halfway point, since I don’t think either of us wanted to inconvenience the other with driving all the way to our respective towns … that and we were trying to be politely accommodating. It was going to be a slow repair, but I was cautiously optimistic.

“Immy!”

Nicole stands, her chubby baby girl resting on her hip with those adorable baby hands shoved into her mouth. My best friend is the same as always, vibrant and quirky without being ironic or obnoxious. There was a magnetic draw around Nicole, almost like a force field that made you want to get closer to her.

“I had no idea you were bringing Odie. Oh, I’m so glad.” I walk right into their hug and smile widely as little baby arms curl around my neck.

Pulling back, I rub my nose on my goddaughter’s and smile when she coos at me. With her dark features and impossibly long eyelashes that only babies seem to have, she is addicting to look at. The noise she makes sends a flutter through my own womb, the one carrying a baby that I’ve told no one about. My ovaries practically sing just looking at her … in a few more months, I could be holding a little girl who coos and smiles.

“You look freaking great. Remind me never to go through pregnancy and childbirth again. It totally steals your glow.” Nicole rolls her eyes but rubs my arm, and I’m glad that she’s being her normal self instead of walking on eggshells.

“Let’s sit, I’m starving.” How do I tell her that I probably am glowing because of the fact that I am pregnant?

She gets the baby situated while I look at the menu, and I smirk when I look up to see Odette sitting in her stroller, sucking on a teething ring as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the world. The waiter comes to take our drink orders, and then Nicole slaps her menu down.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I can’t do this polite shit at all. Please fill me in on what the hell happened between you and the bearded golden man? I am so upset.” She laments, and my heart both thumps with sadness and sings with relief.

I breathe a grateful sigh. “Thank you for asking … I’ve really needed someone to talk to.”

She interrupts me. “Can we please agree never to not speak for months again? We were both idiots, let’s move on from it, okay?”

“Yes, please … and I was the bigger idiot. But yes, I’ve missed you a lot.” Thank goodness we can both just push past the hurt and passive aggressiveness, because I could really use a friend.

“Seriously, Im, what the hell happened?” She places a hand over mine.

I have to look down and blink away the tears I had no idea we’re going to spring up on me. I bat my lashes furiously, knowing that it was inappropriate to show this much emotion in public.

As if reading my mind, Nic tsks me. “Please stop trying to abide by your family’s ridiculous code. If you need to cry over your divorce to your best friend who just forgave you for being an ass, please cry. In public, in private, wherever. Life is too short to mask your emotions on account of being polite.”

A few tears manage to straggle out and splash onto the table until I pick my head up and look her straight in the eye.

“I’m pregnant.”

Uttering the words both makes this baby real, finally, and removes the boulder that’s been crushing my heart since I found out.

Nicole is stunned to silence, which is something that I don’t think I’ve ever seen from her … well, ever. In the stroller, Odie giggles as drool drips down her hands.

It’s a full minute and a half, and a check-in by our waiter to see what we’d like to eat, before Nicole can even respond with words to my confession.

“Holy shit.” And of course it’s with a curse.

“Nic, the baby …”

“Oh hush, we say worse in front of her all the time. And get ready to be a cursing machine … having a baby will strip that polished veneer right off of you, Im. But seriously, holy shit. I mean … when? How?”

I shake my head. “It must have been this last time with Theo … it was out of sympathy on his part I think. Which makes me even more upset. But I’m almost three months, almost out of the first trimester. And my doctor said this sometimes just happens with couples who have been trying so long with IVF. Sometimes the hormones can just help you naturally get pregnant, who knows? It’s … actually a little insane if you think about it.”

Nicole’s jaw looks like it might unhinge. “I’m sorry … it’s just so shocking. I mean, how many nights did we sit up together on the phone crying about it all? And now, your marriage. Oh jeez, your marriage! Well, what did Theo say? I’d think this puts a spin on that divorce.”

I tear off a piece of my napkin and bite my lip guiltily. “I uh … well, I haven’t told him.”

“Imogen Walsh!” Nicole cries, and I don’t miss her slight jab using my married name. She was always a Theo fan.

“I can’t, Nic. I can’t tell him. We fell apart, and it wasn’t just the infertility. It was all of it. We’re too different. And he … he just doesn’t understand the agony that those miscarriages left in my soul. Telling him now would be like getting a sympathy reconciliation. He would only be trying to make it work with me for the baby. And you know him, he’s too wonderful of a man not to try to make it work for the sake of his child. So I can’t tell him.”

Nicole wipes Odie’s chin and then looks at me, her big brown eyes holding tenderness but annoyance.

“Im, you and Theo found each other because you were meant to. And you know how disillusioned I am when it comes to love, but I truly believe that. You both make the other a better person. Some shitty things happened to you, it’s true … but this baby could be exactly what needed to happen to fix your marriage. And I know that a lot of people say that a baby doesn’t fix a relationship, but in this case, I think it actually would. You also need to stop letting your family whisper in your ear about what is right in this life and what is wrong. You have a man who loves you, exactly the way you are. This is the man you had sex with in a coat closet less than an hour after meeting him. And we both know that you are never that girl. But you did it because, deep down, you knew. You knew Theo was it. We both know that. Please, I beg you, open your eyes.”

Imagine if I told her what I’d proposed to Theo to gain my position back at the company. The guilt from that deal singes my insides, as if it’s poisoning me from the inside out. But I can’t divulge that secret, it’s too embarrassing to tell. And not that Nicole would ever tell anyone or jeopardize my standing in the company, but the arrangement between Theo and I works best if no one else knows about it. Well, besides my parents, who proposed the darn thing.

I squeeze her hand, silently trying to let her know that I hear her plea and am thinking about a lot right now. Odie gurgles, kicking her feet in the stroller, and I take a cleansing breath.

“Enough about me though … tell me about this cutie.”

Sensing that I need a break from my drama, Nicole gives me a knowing smile. “Well, she’s sleeping through the night, thank God. I didn’t think I was ever going to regain my sanity. Honestly, no one tells you that you lose your sanity after having a baby. Remember that I’m telling you this now.”

I laugh. “And how is Ozzie?”

She rolls her eyes. “Hornier than a dog in heat. Says he wants another one, meanwhile my vagina is still healing.”

I can’t help but choke on my water. “Nic, do you always have to go straight for the sex of it?”

“You don’t ever go for the sex of it, so I’m just making up the inappropriateness for both of us.” Shrugging, she pops a fry in her mouth as the waiter sets down our plates. “I will say, I’ve missed your buttoned-up collar ways.”

Sighing, I munch into my burger. It tastes like heaven, the juice spilling down my chin a little but I’m too hungry to care. “And I’ve missed your innuendos and outrageousness.”

“Who woulda thought, the priss and the prostitute being friends?” A goofy smile splits her face.

“Real nice, calling yourself an escort in front of your daughter.” I laugh and absentmindedly rub my tummy.

She catches my motion. “You’re going to be an awesome mom, Immy. You’re hoping it’s a girl, aren’t you?”

I won’t justify the question with an answer, not when she’s so spot on. I can’t help but want to want neither, just a healthy baby. But secretly, in the dark place deep down where I’d never let the admission see the light of day, Nicole is right. I want a girl so bad I can feel it in my bones. A little girl to raise, who will never know what doubting herself or feeling less than is.

We finish lunch with some quality Odie time, and my goddaughter sits in my lap as I sing to her softly. It’s the best day I’ve had in a while.

The forty-five-minute-drive home has me mulling over what Nicole said. That I should tell Theo, that we should work this out, that I should walk away from the gauntlet my father has thrown down.

Of course she said those things, Nicole has never been a fan of the Weston dynasty rules. But she, nor anyone outside the family, understand what it’s like to be in. Tradition, nobility, loyalty, generations of prestige and class and bloodlines. It’s a heady thing, the Weston family. It’s almost a machine, and once you’re born into it, we take care of our own. Doors that those on the outside never even have a chance to glimpse are just automatically opened because of the family you were brought up in. To give that all up is … it would be a big pill to swallow.

I decide to table it for tonight because my feet feel like sausages in casings way too tight. And even though I had an entire burger and fries at the restaurant only an hour and a half ago, I’m ravenous.

When I push the gearshift into park in the driveway of Theo and I’s shared home, my stomach begins to churn. Not from hunger or the pregnancy, but from the anxiety that I’ll have to face him when I go inside.

Being around Theo these days is like waiting for the other shoe to drop, we’re either screaming or ignoring each other and I’m so afraid I’ll let the baby secret slip that I’m going to give myself an ulcer.

And then there was the other night in the kitchen where my hormones and our past had taken over me as if my body was on passion autopilot. How far would I have let him go had the cat not broken the spell?

The love that still coursed through my veins doesn’t allow me to lie to myself because it knows I might have just broken down and told him in that moment if we’d kept on.

So I stay in my car a little longer, wiggling from the pressure on my bladder and craving a full plate of food. It isn’t until I see Theo’s light flicker on in our once-shared bedroom that I let myself sneak in, grab what I need, and retreat to the guest room.