Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Epilogue
- Author’s note
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
Anna hadn’t thought of that conversation for years. She wasn’t on the pill – she had been all the time that she’d been with Geoff because he’d insisted on it, even though Anna had always been told that the likelihood of her falling pregnant by accident with a cycle so uneven was so low. Not that Geoff had believed that, or ever had any intention of considering the fact that the contraceptive’s hormones had made her skin break out and her moods uneven. Condoms aren’t 100 per cent. Accidents happen. I don’t want that worry. All you have to do is take a pill. What’s the problem?
Taking the pill was one of the first things she’d ditched after their break-up, because apart from anything else she hadn’t expected to find herself in another relationship so soon.
But Liam and I did use condoms, she thought. Every time. Always. Didn’t we? Except… Was there one time early on, when we’d both drunk a little too much, and maybe… maybe…?
Anna’s heart did an uneven jig in her chest. Oh, God. She couldn’t be, could she? She couldn’t be pregnant. I was on the pill for so long. Everyone says it takes forever to leave your system. And my cycle is so irregular anyway, and then there’s my age. And it was only once, only that one time…
She sat down on the sofa, things suddenly falling into place. The inexplicable and abject exhaustion, the nausea, the sickness in the mornings…
Oh God. Oh, God.
Anna tried to breathe evenly. Either way, she had to know for sure, and the sooner the better. There wasn’t any sense in putting it off. There could only be one of two outcomes: either it would be negative and she could laugh at the whole thing, or it would be positive and she’d have to work out how to deal with it. Steeling herself, Anna got up, picked up her coat and keys, and headed out.
Within an hour Anna was back, leaning against the tiny sink in the bathroom of the Fishergirl’s Luck. The nausea of early that morning had transformed into a knot of anxiety edged with something else – a form of anticipation that kept kicking at her heart and shivering in her gut.
A career of gauging time had made her good at estimating the passage of minutes. Anna forced herself to leave four before she looked down at the small white tube. She didn’t even have to pick it up to know the truth.
Two strong blue lines. Two.