Epilogue

One Month Later

I t was the night of the reunion. A month had passed since the incident with Daniel. A busy month of catching up at work and not getting a moment to breathe until finally making it out here. To good old sunny Florida for my reunion.

Except I had still been too much of a scaredy cat to tell Izzy about her dad.

Except Kazi and Mateo hadn’t revealed anything yet, but my guess was they were both in a gang or some equally nefarious lifestyle.

My stomach tossed uneasily, forcing me out of the bed I was currently sharing with Izzy in a hotel.

What the fuck?

I ran to the bathroom, upending my dinner from the night before and the small amount of wine I drank straight from the bottle.

Was the shrimp bad?

That’s all I had eaten last night.

I settled a bit, and ignoring the mirror, I attempted to wash my mouth out.

What about the man that delivered my dinner? Why did he look so familiar?

He had a hat pulled over his eyes, but everything else was screaming that I knew him .

That would have to wait. I crawled back into bed with Izzy, careful not to jostle her. We had a reunion to go to, she had a man to fuck, and I had an entire traumatic event to unpack.

***

“Yara, get up!” Why was my dream shaking? Why was my stomach stabbing me in pain?

“Don’t feel good,” I garbled out. It was time to officially take shrimp off my menu; every time I ate them now, something bad happened.

Izzy sighed dramatically. “It was only one bottle of wine and we split it, you are not abandoning me for this.”

Except it wasn’t the wine, something else entirely was wrong with me. Something I had never felt before. This wasn’t right.

I shot up as bile rose in my throat, running to the bathroom.

Barely making it to the toilet, I fell to the floor, retching loudly as I tried to empty the contents of my stomach, but there was nothing left to expel.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Pregnant?

The word jolted clarity through my mind.

Wait, when was the last time I had my period? So much had happened since my encounter with James, but it was before that. That was over a month ago.

I had gotten a birth control prescription right after I found out what Mateo had done to my implant.

And before that I had only fucked twice. James had a vasectomy. Kazi used a condom.

No, no, no !

“Shut up,” I regurgitated the words out.

“You’re not actually pregnant, are you?” Izzy began to stroke my back soothingly while holding my hair back for me.

I loved this fucking girl, but the thought made me sick. I gagged into the toilet below.

“Can I get you anything?” The concern in Izzy’s voice was causing my guilt to sky-rocket.

“No.” I needed to tell her about everything.

Daniel, Kazi, Mateo, James, and maybe one day, the trauma of my childhood. I was keeping so much of my life from her now.

Why was I even doing that? To protect her? To protect myself?

“You’re not going to make it, are you?”

Fuck the fucking reunion. My stomach churned again, and I dry-heaved.

“I’m not. I can’t be around those hellions in this condition. I woke up early this morning like this, but I was hoping it would go away.” I tried to swallow down bitterness, hacking up the disgusting taste instead. “You are still going through with it. Both things.”

She needed this and my own fuck-ups could wait.

“I have another room booked for you under an alias. There is a packet I want you to read and an NDA you need to sign. You need this.” My body shook as I was forced to puke again, nothing coming out. Izzy needed this, she deserved this, to feel good.

She was finally going to do what she needed. Escape the vanilla men that flocked to her in waves. She was going to follow through on her darkest desires. And this man I had made sure to run the background check past Emil, I had met him in person, nothing would go wrong.

Izzy needed this. I could tell this breakup was hitting her harder than the last. Understandably so when your boyfriend fucks your god damn step-sister.

All of my misery and mistakes could wait. Including the strengthening possibility that I was fucking pregnant.

“Okay,” she finally whispered out.

“Good. In my bag, the folder labeled Come to Bed,” I yakked out.

My bestie was a freak in the best way. Somnophilia? Dormaphilia? She had me wanting to try a thing or two.

Izzy stopped her comforting, and I missed it immediately. “You know, you are going to catch these hands. How did you know what my plans were?”

If I wasn’t dying, I would have laughed. “You forget, I am your best friend, and I know everything.”

Best to not tell her I read through her entire profile when I said I wouldn’t. Add it to my list of secrets.

“Now leave me to my misery. Nothing to do but wait till this passes. Throw me one of those fifty-dollar bottles of water from the mini bar first though, would you?” I would fake it till I make it.

“You’ve got jokes.” I felt Izzy put my hair up for me, keeping it safe from the toxic waste below. “Feel better. You got your phone in case you need me?”

I finally removed my face from the toilet, lifting my phone and waving it at her. “You mean if you need me? If you bail on tonight, just know I will never let you live it down.” I coughed and swallowed down another wave of bile creeping up my throat at the same time before leaning back over my unwanted home for the time being.

Izzy finally left me alone to my misery.

I could hear her talking to someone outside, but I ignored it.

I leaned back long enough to type out a text to Kazi, the more reasonable of my two men. I had banned them from coming near this floor, but I knew they were steaming on the one below.

Me: I cant stop puking. I neeeeed you to get me meds. Wait until Izzy leaves with Oliver and Maddox.

Kazi: Okay, Miss Yara.

Me: And I need you to bring me something else… PLEASE dont ask me about it.

Kazi: What is it?!

Me: A pregnancy test.

I dropped my phone to the ground below, my forehead resting on the disgusting toilet lid. I ignored the incoming call. Kazi would do as I asked.

What if I am pregnant?

Which was more likely?

The condom failing, the birth control, or the vasectomy?

Fuck. I wasn’t being serious about Izzy calling me mommy.