“With all due respect, Mrs. Taylor. You’re wrong. Your son loves me. And I love him. We’re both adults, as we were when we met. If you make a big deal out of this now, you’ll only ruin this party and possibly the already unstable relationship you have with your son. He’s twenty-six, almost twenty-seven years old. He has a career and a fiancée, and you’re not going to win any battles by treating him like he’s a kid again. He’s an adult,” I reiterated, though that was another word that had been said and thought so many times it was beginning to lose its meaning. “We both are. How we met doesn’t matter.”
Her red lips flattened into a line, and her gaze felt sharp enough to slice bread. She made this sound in her throat, not quite a laugh, more like a noise of surprise. “You have a head on your shoulders after all.”
Hey there, backhanded compliment. We’ve been seeing a lot of each other.
She was the one missing vital organs . . . like a heart. She stared at me for a few moments longer, and then smoothly turned her back to where Garrick was standing.
“Two questions, Bliss.”
Did I really just talk her down? Holy crap.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She clicked her nails together and looked away from me as she asked, “Would you like to have lunch on Thursday?”
I was so shocked, I nearly choked on my saliva, which would have totally ruined the whole head-on-your-shoulders moment from a few seconds ago.
I forced myself not to say, “Um,” and continued, “Yes. Lunch. I would like that.”
“Fantastic. And the last thing. You want to get married soon?”
“Yes, ma’am, we do.”
“Are you pregnant?”
I blanched and said firmly, “No. Absolutely not. I’m not . . . we’re not . . .”
I stopped. Full stop. Screeching-tires-stopped. I resisted the urge to reach for my day planner. I didn’t have it anyway. I’d left it back in Philly. But I have a vague recollection of jotting down a note to get my birth control prescription refilled.
How long ago had that been? I’d been finishing up that run of Peter Pan and we were doing the maximum number of shows a week because it was selling so well. Things had been so busy, and . . . damn it.
“I—”
I closed my gaping mouth and gave her a tight smile. I shook my head and said, “No. Nothing like that.”
Shit. Why was my memory such a blur? This is what happened when you worked multiple jobs with no consistency, and you did the same shows day in and day out. It became really f**king hard to distinguish one day from another.
Mrs. Taylor said, “Okay then. I’ll let you get back to my son.”
I nodded, already a thousand miles away.
“And Bliss?”
I lifted my head and met her cool gaze again.
“No more breaking things, okay?”
“Right.” I gave a pained laugh. “Of course.”
She walked away, her heels clicking against the marble floor, and I should have felt relieved to see her go. I should have been glad when Graham and Rowland came over to check on me, but I wasn’t either of those things.
Because if I was remembering correctly, I was late.
And I was going to be sick.
“DIDN’T REALIZE YOU were that pissed. You must be a real lightweight.”
Rowland and Graham were waiting when I got out of the bathroom, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to find Garrick or avoid him, whether I wanted to scream or cry or throw up some more.
“I just . . . I need to sit down for a bit.”
“We’ll go in the sitting room,” Graham said.
Damn it. This place would have a f**king sitting room. My parents were proud of their newly remodeled bathroom, and this place was practically a palace.
And the room was even nicer in real life than in my imagination. It was much more chic than the Pride and Prejudice–era room I had pictured. And there were people milling around, standing near the floor-to-ceiling windows and luxurious curtains. I found an empty cream-colored chaise lounge and collapsed onto it, too distressed to even worry about getting it dirty.
I could be remembering wrong. I hoped I was remembering wrong. But the last time I could recall being on my period had been that final week in Peter Pan. It’s why I forgot about the pill pack because we weren’t exactly in danger of getting pregnant then. And that was . . . what? Six weeks ago? Maybe five? Either way, it was more than a month. But sometimes people were late without being pregnant. That happened . . . right?
I could totally be jumping to conclusions.
Or there could be something growing inside of me.
God, that sounded so sci-fi movie.
What did I know about being a mom? What did I know about anything? I was a total mess. I couldn’t even do my own taxes, or survive an engagement party, or turn on a f**king light without breaking something. And I was supposed to grow and raise another human being?
My child would be so socially inept that it wouldn’t even be able to walk upright or speak in complete sentences or be around other people.
I would give birth to a hermit child.
Breathe. Breathe.
Damn it. That reminded me too much of Lamaze, and I felt sick again.
What if it turned out like Hamlet the devil cat and it hated me?
Shit. Shit.
I really just wanted to shout that word at the top of my lungs, but probably not the time and place.
“Is she okay?”
I opened my eyes to see a tall blonde, whose legs put mine to shame. She wore a short, black sheath dress with kick-ass turquoise heels, and there was basically a model standing over me as I panted and tried not to lose the remaining contents of my stomach.