Page 94 of In This Together

With his words came the stark reality that she’d been paying lip-service to him as far as she could. Warm tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. ‘Yes.’

Tommy exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Mike found this when he was cleaning up the car. I’ve had it for a week. And I’ve played out every scenario in my mind. You found out you weren’t pregnant. You found out you were. It’s my baby. It’s not my baby. I’m going crazy, here, Andi.

‘But today, I asked myself what I just asked you – do I want to be with you, regardless of anyone and anything else? The answer is yes. So I need you to level with me. Tell me what I need to know, Andi.’

She wasn’t sobbing, yet her tears kept rolling down her cheeks. ‘I don’t know whose baby it is, Tommy. I’m so sorry. I’m so ashamed, for me, for you, for the baby. It could be Hunter’s. It could be yours. I can’t find out for another couple of weeks. And I’m sorry that I ran but I was afraid. I’ve never thought about having children. I’m pretty sure I’d be a disaster as a mom. Then I thought it must be Hunter’s and I told him…’

Then she was sobbing. ‘He threw his credit card at me and told me to fix it.’

Tommy moved his stool so he was sitting next to her and tugged her into his chest. It was uncomfortable and… terrifying. She’d never sobbed on anyone’s shoulder since she was a girl being comforted by her mom. But she was broken, and in Tommy’s arms she fell apart. She wasn’t the CEO who had her shit together, she wasn’t the quasi sister-mom-wife she had been forced to be for years, she wasn’t the friend who kept things together for others. She was just a woman, scared and in need of someone else to prop her up.

When she calmed in his arms, she realised Tommy was pressing his lips to her head, over and over, as he sang to her barely above a whisper.

Sitting up, she wiped her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, I think you just got thirty years of repressed tears.’ A short sombre laugh escaped her.

‘I’ll take all of your tears, Andi, as your partner or your friend. Do you hear me?’

She exhaled an unsteady breath. ‘Quit being so nice to me, Tommy. I’ve made a mess of everything.’

‘Do I need to give you a biology lesson, here? Academia isn’t my strong point but I do know about the birds and the bees.’ She laughed. ‘It takes two people to make a baby, Andi. Talk to me.’

‘Well, it turns out the dates mean that the baby could be Hunter’s or yours.’ She shook her head and looked down to her lap. ‘At first, I was adamant I didn’t want it but the obstetrician told me I needed to decide for myself whether I want a baby, no matter who the father is and, Tommy, I do want him or her. I’m frightened but I can’t get rid of my baby.’

He held her chin and encouraged her to look at him. ‘And I want you. So how about you stop being your usual self and let me take care of you?’

‘I…’ Her tears fell again, as if she had an endless supply. ‘What if it isn’t yours?’

‘Then I’ll love it because I love you and I want you to be my family. We’ll all be a family.’

Her stool screeched against the floor as she stood and took his face in her hands, pressing her lips to his. ‘I so want it to be yours.’

He kissed her again, more fiercely. ‘It will be.’

* * *

Andrea woke on Monday morning wrapped in Tommy’s arms. She had no idea what the future held, how she would deal with it or how to prepare for it. But she also knew that Tommy was going to be by her side. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t alone. She was going to have a family of her own, to love and be loved by. She would have a partner she admired and respected and who would test her and push every one of her buttons – she would expect no less of a man like Tommy.

There was every chance she could end up hurt one day but the risk would be worth it.

As she lay peacefully, trailing her fingers up and down the strong arm across her chest, she wondered what Sofia was doing. For the first time, she understood that she didn’t have all the answers, nor did Sofia, and she couldn’t plan Sofia’s life for her.

Not everything had to be perfect. That was a revelation to Andrea. And she knew, in that moment, how wrong she was to have meddled in her sister’s life. She had to tell her, before Jay got out of rehab and told Sofia himself, that she had offered to buy out Jay’s share of Sanfia Records if he agreed to file for a divorce.

In doing so, she would find out whether news of her affair with Hunter had made its way to her sister yet.

Then she needed to speak to Rosalie. Who would probably refuse to ever speak to her again.

‘Stop. Over. Thinking,’ Tommy mumbled, pulling Andrea tighter against him and nuzzling her neck.

She desperately hoped her baby was Tommy’s.

* * *

Andrea’s heart was pounding and her legs felt unsteady as she neared Sanfia Records. She played over and over in her head how she was going to tell Sofia what she had done. The deal she had offered Jay to walk away from Sofia and Sanfia Records.

She came to an abrupt stop as she rounded a corner and turned on the sidewalk outside of the terrace house that her own father had once transformed into a recording studio. Outside, Billy, Frankie and Seth looked deep in conversation, pausing to look up when they saw her.

‘Andi, it’s been a while,’ Frankie said.

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