Chapter 72

CHAPTER 72

MIRA

I stared at the positive pregnancy test in my hand.

Holy. Shit.

A month ago at the cottage, I'd mostly been joking about being pregnant. But it was true.

The five positive tests lying on my bathroom counter proved it. As I stared at the two pink lines on the last test I'd taken, my heart raced and my brain struggled to catch up. I'm pregnant. There's a tiny human being inside me and he or she is going to call Logan Daddy.

With that, my gaze caught on the ring on my finger and my pulse spiked once more. All the time I'd been in this bathroom, I'd been too focused on taking the tests to really let myself think about what it meant, but now, with a wastebasket full of empty boxes and a line of positive tests in front of me, a thousand different thoughts were suddenly rushing through my head.

Four weeks ago, Logan had surprised the living daylights out of me when he'd opened his hand to show me the ring. It had been the absolute last thing I'd expected from him on that trip, and immediately, I'd been worried that I'd somehow made him think that he had to ask me to marry him if he wanted to be with me.

I'd made a few comments about it and I guessed I had just wanted him to know that I was a commitment type of gal. But then he'd proposed, and I'd instantly wondered if he'd done it out of a sense of obligation or because he'd wanted to.

Not long after, he'd completely eased my worries on that front. I'd been surprised but also elated. This past month had been all about settling into life as an engaged couple and now we were suddenly going to be parents as well.

Parents .

I leaned forward slowly, setting the test down and inhaling deeply to try to gain control of my spiraling thoughts. Parents .

I'd known it was a possibility, of course. It wasn't possible for me not to know. We'd had unprotected sex at that cottage, and while I'd considered the possibility to be remote, I'd still been counting the days. As soon as I was late, I knew that remote possibility might be getting a little less remote.

Since we'd also been busy at work, were stressed, and were moving in together, I had figured I would give it a while. I'd thought that maybe life and paranoia had affected my cycle.

Ever since though, with every passing day, I'd been bracing myself for that possibility turning into an inevitability. When one day had turned into a week and that week had turned into two, I'd known it was time to take the tests.

But even so, I was struggling to comprehend what all those lines on all those tests meant. Logan had gone to the office this morning without a clue about how I planned on spending the day and now he'd be coming home not only as an engaged man, but as a Dad .

I was reeling, my head spinning so fast that I gripped the vanity in an attempt to ground myself. For a long time, I'd defined myself as a bad ass career woman. It was my passion, and these days, ever since I'd started working with the engineers to develop that technology, I even felt a bit like a warrior.

For the industry and the environment, as mutually exclusive as those two things used to be. All my goals and dreams were wrapped up in my career, all of them built around where I'd be professionally at the point when other things started happening .

Until now, it'd felt like the stars had aligned perfectly between personal and professional. Logan. The technology. Consulting. Even getting closer to Ariane and her family's green energy business at the exact point when I'd needed a friend like her to guide us through the big changes I wanted to make to the industry I was part of.

It had felt like kismet.

Even if part of me still felt an obligation to remain in the industry because Spiers Consulting had been my father's business. That obligation as well as my passion had driven me to keep going even on the hardest days.

But now, staring at that line of tests, I wondered if I wanted more. The big career, or the little family.

Logan had asked me what I wanted to do when we started having kids. He'd said he wanted to slow down because he didn't only want to be there half the time. I'd agreed, but in my head, that decision had been years away.

One day when I would be at a point where I'd have a well-trained staff working for me that I'd be able to oversee from the city while they went out to the rigs. I hadn't realized that I'd have to start making those kinds of decisions so soon—before I had a staff contingent working underneath me at all. Let alone a well-trained group of people who knew the tech as well as I did who could handle the inspections, assessments, and instillation.

As I started hyperventilating, Anya started knocking on the bathroom door, scaring the scrap out of me. I'd forgotten she was even here. "So? What happened? Yay or nay?"

I got up slowly, my knees numb, and I reached for the bathroom door handle and pressed down. Anya burst in as soon as the door opened, squealing as she looked over my shoulder at the tests. Her hands flew up to her mouth and she spun to face with me a bright smile and wide, shining eyes.

"Mira! Yay! Congratulations." She barreled toward me, enveloping me in a bear hug and unknowingly keeping me from swaying on my feet. "This is amazing. I'm so happy for you."

"You—" I cleared my throat when my voice came out too breathy. " You are?"

"Of course, I am." She pulled back, her brow puckering into a deep frown. "Aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Of course, I am," I rushed out, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to get a damn grip on myself. "I am happy. I'm just shocked too. Shocked. Surprised. Scared. Excited. Freaking out a little bit."

"Maybe more than a little bit," she teased, wrapping her arm around my shoulders and steering me to Logan's kitchen.

Our kitchen.

Once she'd sat me down on a stool at his counter, she flitted around, opening and closing cabinets. "Where are your cups? We're going to need tea bags too. And a lot of sugar. Sweet tea is what you need right now."

Her gaze flitted to the window. "Hot tea or cold tea? I can add ice. We can make iced tea if you want. It's not that cold yet."

"Hot tea is fine," I murmured and focused on my breathing as I lifted a trembling hand. "Cups are in there. Tea bags are in the container on the counter. Sugar is in the container next to it."

She beamed at me and nodded. "Coming right up. You just sit there and keep breathing. You can't keep shaking like that if you want to hold hot tea in your hand in a few minutes. I refuse to be held responsible for you dropping scalding liquid on your baby."

I frowned, surprising myself when laughter started bubbling out of me. "What? It's going to be months before the baby gets here. If those aren't false positives. I might burn my stomach if I drop the tea, but there's no way I can burn the baby just yet."

"They're not false positives," she said confidently, grinning again when she spun to look into my eyes. "You're going to be a mama. Can you believe it?"

I shook my head slowly and drew in another deep, shuddering breath. "I think it's going to take some getting used to. I wonder how long it will be until it starts feeling real."

"When you can feel it moving." She waggled her eyebrows when I gaped at her. "What? I went to that baby shower a few weeks ago, remember? I ask questions. "

Fondness for my friend and gratefulness about the fact that she was here spread through me, so intense that it brought tears to my eyes and I cursed. "Shit. Do you think those are baby hormones?"

"Nah, you just love me that much." She turned around again, fixing the tea while I looked around the ultra-modern gray and white kitchen and tried to imagine it covered in baby things.

A highchair next to the counter. A bowl filled with mushed food and a dirty spoon next to it. Dishes piling up. Takeout all the time because Logan and I would be too busy with work and the baby to cook nutritious meals. The scent of dirty diapers in the air.

All of a sudden, it felt like the walls were going to close in on me again. My breathing started coming faster until I envisioned the baby who would be sitting in that highchair. In my mind, it had Logan's eyes and my dark hair, and it smiled at me, its little cheeks chubby and a healthy red.

As abruptly as it'd come, the panic receded. Logan and I were going to be parents, and it was going to be incredible. "Challenging, but incredible."

"Sorry, I missed that," Anya said, carrying a cup of tea over to me. "What did you say?"

"Oh. Nothing." I flushed. "I didn't mean to say it out loud. I guess I'm just still processing."

"As you should be." She went back to get her own cup, then joined me at the counter and looked me right in the eyes. "Okay. Talk to me. Freaking out is normal, I think, but something is bugging you, so tell me what it is and we'll talk it through."

"Work," I said without hesitation. "I'm just starting to make a name for myself. Not as my father's daughter or as my brother's sister, but as Mira Spiers, the green-energy consultant for the entire freaking industry."

"So you'll be a working mom." She spoke slowly, like she was trying to figure it out. "Why is that bugging you? In this day and age, I think it's safe to say that the majority of moms work, don't they?"

"Sure. Maybe. Statistically, I don't know if it's the majority, but you're right. There are a lot of working moms out there." The more I spoke, the clearer my thoughts became. "The difference is that they can drop their children off at daycare in the morning, or leave them with a family member, or a nanny, go to work, and come home to them at night. I wouldn't be able to do that."

A flicker of understanding went up behind her eyes. "Ah. You're talking about going out to the rigs."

"Yep. I can't fly out in the morning and fly back at night every day. Plus, I'm not even sure I'd be medically cleared to go out there at all once I reach a certain stage of my pregnancy. If I'm too far along, I suspect any doctor would say it will be safer to keep my feet on solid ground."

Anya didn't say anything, but she nodded every so often while I spoke.

"On the other hand, Ariane is a mom and she's as much of a badass as ever," I said. "She's still chairing all those charities, heading up her own company and foundation, and she's been working with us on our tech."

"Yeah."

I kept going, letting the excitement of the thoughts as they occurred to me come out as I voiced them. "Mickey's a mom too, and it hasn't slowed her down. In fact, she's more successful than ever. So are Penny and Payton. All of them have jobs that required travel in the past, but they've managed regardless. If they can do it, why can't I?"

"Of course, you can." She grinned at me. "Plus, the father is a billionaire who'd walk over broken glass for you. That's got to count for something, right? Anything you need, and he'll make it happen. Even if it means installing a birthing suite on a private jet if that's what you want."

I chuckled, the panic still there but more and more giving way to the excitement as I imagined Logan as a father. "Shit, he's going to be so proud. If he's anything at all with the baby like he is with me, I wouldn't be surprised if he never goes back to work. He might just retire and become a full-time dad. He's even talked about becoming a full-time fiancé. "

She laughed. "I could see him doing that. Full-time fiancé, just waiting in bed to service you."

I blushed. "Not like that!"

"Exactly like that," she said knowingly. "That's what he meant, anyway. I'm willing to put money on it, but dirty thoughts aside, he's going to be an amazing dad, Mira. You're not alone in this. The work stuff will figure itself out. Don't let that stress you out. If you're happy about this, then be happy."

I drew in another deep breath, letting her words wash over me, and then I burst into tears. Happy tears. Because this was what I'd wanted all my life. A loving partner. A baby with him. A life and a home full of love and laughter.

She was so right. Work would sort itself out—or I would sort it out over the next few months. The baby wouldn't be here overnight. I had time.

As the panic left, the joy took over. I kept crying every so often, but Anya hugged me while I sobbed about how happy I was. We talked and talked, finishing our tea and moving onto water as she dreamed with me.

"Slate is going to be a UILF," she gushed after we'd decided which guest room to turn into the nursery.

I frowned. "What the hell is a UILF?"

"An uncle I'd to?—"

"No, don't say it!" I cut her off, grimacing, and I shook my head at her. "Nope. No. We're not going there. I wasn't feeling any pregnancy nausea, but that made me want to throw up right on cue."

Anya laughed and rolled her eyes at me. "Like it would be the worst thing in the world. I didn't say I wanted to date him. Just that I wanted to fuc?—"

I gagged and she laughed again but finally shut up about wanting to do things with my brother. As the day wore on, I slowly started getting more and more excited until I was ready to burst with it.

I didn't know yet how I was going to tell Logan, but it was almost Halloween and it just so happened to be his favorite holiday. Maybe I could make this a memorable one for him.