I sat there with my stomach in knots. My head hurt. I was exhausted. But it was finally happening. After finally convincing my mother that surgery was the way to go, she was being prepped for her time in the operating room. And to make things all the more sweet, I got to bide my time watching Roman Edwards get arrested on national television.

“Authorities say that Mr. Edwards could have harassed as many as twenty women during his time at Instatech. And if a jury finds him guilty on all seven counts of sexual harassment and bribery he’s currently facing, Mr. Edwards could face as much as thirty years in prison.”

I sat there, my hand slid into the palm of Kenneth’s hand. I sank into the chair in the waiting room and watched my father’s picture pop up on television. In big, bold, red letters, the word ‘innocent’ splashed over his face.

I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I broke down in the middle of the waiting room.

Joy filled my heart. After all this time of knowing, it had finally been proven. My father was posthumously declared innocent of everything he had been accused of and Roman Edwards was going away for a long time. Because I knew a jury would convict him. They had to. The police found him holed up in some private estate in the mountains of Colorado. Biding his time until he figured the coast was clear. But the coast would never be clear. Not for men like Roman.

And watching the news replay footage of his arrest was the sweetest gift I could’ve been given.

I brought Kenneth’s hand to my lips and kissed it. I looked over at him with watery eyes and he slipped his arm around me. I leaned into him over the arms of our chairs, trying to feel as much of him as possible. My stomach was turning over on itself. My headache was worsening. All of the emotions I’d kept cooped up for so long were bubbling to the surface and my body was finally processing them.

“Thank you so much,” I said breathlessly.

“Maria Graves?”

I stood up at the call of my mother’s name and went striding over to the doctor. Kenneth placed his hand on the small of my back, massaging his fingertips into my skin. The room was tilting. My emotions were raging out of control.

“Is she all right? How’s the surgery going?” I asked.

“Your mother’s fine. The surgery went well. But she’ll be in a medically-induced coma for the next forty eight hours,” the doctor said.

Dread filled my stomach.

“Why?” I asked. “Did something happen? That isn’t standard procedure.”

“It’s precautionary on our part. Your mother has suffered through a lot of pain the past few days, and we’re not sure if the medication we have will keep her out of it. With the tolerance she obviously had built up to her morphine drip, we feel better about keeping her under until she’s past the worst of it. Which is usually the first two days,” the doctor said.

“Oh. Okay. So, what all did you have-?”

I teetered on my feet and I felt Kenneth slip his arm around my waist. Something wasn’t right. I felt the coffee I drank a little while earlier creep up the back of my throat. My vision blurred. My stomach felt as if it was jumping up and down. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through my nose, but none of my tactics worked.

“Tiffany. Talk to me. What’s wrong?” Kenneth asked.

“I need a hospital bed!” the doctor exclaimed.

And as I opened my mouth to tell him ‘no’, I vomited on his shoes.

I doubled over, my body ejecting all of its contents. I shook. I began to sweat. I felt my legs grow weak. Kenneth wrapped his arms around me to keep me from falling and suddenly I was on my back. Lights rhythmically passed in my vision as my fingers laced through someone’s.

“Everything’s going to be all right, Tiffany. Just hang on.”

But the second I tried to say Kenneth’s name, I threw up on myself.

I was rolled into a room before they began cleaning me up. Everything became a blur. The people. The sounds. The voices. And my body was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. This wasn’t what relief felt like. Relief was supposed to feel good. Relaxing. I felt like death. I felt a prick in my arm and I whimpered, my head fell over to look at what was happening. The doctor was drawing some blood while someone else rattled off questions.

I didn’t have the energy to answer them.

All I wanted to do was sleep.

When I opened my eyes, Kenneth was sitting on the edge of my bed. His hand smoothed over my forehead and I found the energy to smile at him. He bent over and kissed my forehead before his thumb traced my cheek, and I moved closer to him to try and steal some of his warmth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked with a whisper.

I furrowed my brow as a shadow hung over my body.

“Miss Graves. You gave us quite a scare,” the doctor said.

“Huh?” I asked. “Why didn’t I tell you what, Kenneth?”

“You mean you don’t know?” the doctor asked.

“Know what?”

Kenneth looked over at the doctor before I felt him take my hand. My eyes filled with tears as I looked back over at him. He brought my hand to his lips to kiss and that miniscule gesture brought tears to my eyes.

Wait, why was I crying over something like that.

“Miss Graves, you’re pregnant.”

The blood drained from my face. My body went limp against the hospital bed. My eyes grew wide as I started running through everything I’d been experiencing. The exhaustion. The random episodes of nausea. The aversion to foods. All things I attributed to stress. All things I’d shoved off to the side because I figured I was simply worried about my mother.

I calculated the days since my last period before my eyes focused back onto Kenneth’s face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said with a whisper. “Oh my gosh, Kenneth. I-I-I… I didn’t-.”

His lips crashed against mine as his hand slid up my arm. He cupped my cheek, his tongue dancing along the horizon of my lips. Tears slipped down my cheeks. Tears I no longer had control over. I felt my entire body shaking as his strong body pressed deeper into mine.

Pregnant?

I was pregnant?

“I’m sorry,” I said into his lips. “I’m so sorr-.”

But Kenneth pressed his lips further into mine. Found my tongue with his. Silenced my apologies with the desperation behind his kiss. My hands slid into his hair, my sorrow giving way to want for him.

Our foreheads fell together and our lips disconnected before the doctor continued talking.

“By the looks of your blood tests and your hormonal levels, you’re somewhere between four and five weeks along. We’ll need to get you started on prenatal vitamins as soon as possible, and I’ll have someone get in here to walk you through your altered diet during your pregnancy.”

“My what?” I asked breathlessly.

“There are certain foods that are unsafe for growing fetuses. Someone will be in here to talk with you about it soon enough. In the meantime, do you want an ultrasound?”

My eyes fluttered open and I caught Kenneth’s stare. His eyes danced between mine as his hand slid around to cup the back of my neck. I knew exactly how far along I was. Four weeks and two days. Because there could have only been one encounter with one man that put me in this position.

“What do you say?” Kenneth asked. “Would you like to see our child?”

“Our… child?” I asked with a whisper.

“Don’t tell me you think it’s someone else’s child. I might get a little jealous,” he said coyly.

“I don’t know. Paige and I have been pretty hot and heavy lately.”

“My kind of party.”

I smiled and shook my head before my eyes whipped over to the doctor.

“Sure,” I said. “I think we’d both like an ultrasound.”

Kenneth held my hand the entire way through it. He stood there while they spread around the gel, manipulated the screen, and turned up the volume. A rhythmic pulsing sensation filled the room before a small sac popped up onto the screen. A small little bean, no bigger than my thumbprint, was rolling around on it. I felt him squeeze my hand. My body filled with shock. There it was. My little child.

Our little child.

I looked up at Kenneth and saw so many things rushing behind his eyes. Determination. Elation. Shock. Fear. I watched all of those silent thoughts of his scream over his face, reducing the powerful man into nothing but a worried pile of unanswered questions. I knew how he felt. I had no idea what we were going to do. All of the plans I had for my life started falling like dominos into a pattern I never would’ve dreamed for my life.

So, in an effort to comfort him, I did the only thing I could think to do in the moment.

I brought the back of his hand to my lips to kiss.