Page 80 of Crashing the Altar
Clutching Tripp so tightly I feared my fingernails would pierce the skin of his forearm, I shook my head. “No, we always used a condom.”
My ex-fiancé frowned. “That doesn’t mean anything. It could still be mine.”
“We’re done here.” Tucking me into his side, Tripp turned us, leading me toward where his pickup sat a few feet away.
“When are you due?” Jake shouted at our backs.
I froze, a ball of dread settling in my gut, threatening to make me sick all over again.
“Penny. I deserve to know if there’s even the slightest possibility you’re carrying my baby.”
“You don’t owe him anything.” Tripp’s hold around my waist tightened.
The answer to Jake’s question was damning, but I knew he wasn’t going to let this drop.
Weakly, I replied, “February 14th.” That was one week shy of nine months from when I ran out on our wedding, with an estimation that conception had occurred sometime during the week when I swapped grooms.
Jake sucked in a sharp breath like his whole world had changed in an instant. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“It’s. Not. Yours,” Tripp spat the words over his shoulder.
“You can’t know that for sure,” Jake argued.
Paralyzing terror pierced my heart, and my body began to shake uncontrollably. Until this moment, the thought that Tripp wasn’t the father had never crossed my mind. Especially since his cum leaking down my thighs had been a daily occurrence since we’d gotten married.
Jake and I had always used protection. But there was no telling if one of them had malfunctioned.
This was a fucking mess. And I had no one else to blame but myself.
I was the one who’d rushed into marriage with my best friend, over the moon at the idea of him finally being mine.
I was the one who’d decided it was fine to let him come inside me when I discovered we didn’t have a condom on our wedding night.
If we’d just waited, there would be no question. But instead, doubt had the walls closing in on me, and I couldn’t breathe.
Trembling, I gasped for air, and my feet were lifted from the ground as Tripp bit out, “We’re leaving.”
I was practically catatonic by the time he settled me into the passenger seat and buckled me in.
During our drive home, my mind went to the worst-case scenario—one where I was married to one man while pregnant by another.
Please, God, don’t let that be true.
“Penny, come on, honey. Time to get up.”
Rolling over with a groan, I didn’t remember how I got into bed but knew I never wanted to leave it.
“Tired,” I mumbled into the sheets when Tripp tried a second time to rouse me.
He brushed the hair away from my face. “You can sleep in the car.”
The car?
Reluctantly, I forced my heavy eyelids open. “Where are we going?” The words came out as a croak, my voice roughened by sleep.
“Manhattan, to meet up with the team.”
That news was enough to wake me up, and I sat up suddenly. “I thought we weren’t leaving for two more weeks.”
