“Improbable, not impossible,” Doctor Dias says, shaking her head. “And if you were at a fertile time of your cycle, then highly likely, as well.” There must be something on my face, because she smiles and pats my knees. “Let’s rule out other things, shall we? I’ll schedule a blood test for you and you can…”

  “Buy a pregnancy test,” I say numbly.

  “I was going to say ‘you can find out the results in a few days’, but that works, too,” the doctor says with a sympathetic smile.

  She prints out a form and signs it.

  “Take this to the front desk, and our nurse will see you,” she says.

  “I… Thanks,” I say.

  I still can’t believe it. There’s no possible way. I haven’t been with anyone for months, and the first time I forget protection with Lyle, I fall pregnant? No way. There has to be something else wrong with me. Some kind of stomach bug that will go away with time.

  I’m barely aware of handing the form in to the reception desk and being told to wait for the nurse. In my pocket, my phone vibrates with a message, but I don’t look at it. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now. My head is spinning and I can’t think straight.

  Is it possible?

  “Amanda Simmons?”

  My head jerks up. The nurse, an older woman with a kind smile, is calling for me. I force my body to my feet and follow her into a side room.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “I might be pregnant,” I blurt.

  “Oh?” The nurse smiles. “Congratulations!”

  Congratulations? Is this a good thing? I’ve only known Lyle for two weeks and now I might be carrying his baby. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  “Yeah,” I say with a sickly smile.

  The nurse seems to sense that I’m not very happy with the idea because she ushers me into a chair. She chatters on about something to do with her dog, obviously hoping to raise my spirits, but I barely notice. When she pats my arm and tells me I’m done, I blink; I didn’t even feel her put the needle in.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  There’s a pharmacy next to the clinic, so I pop in and buy the pregnancy test. The man at the desk grins at me and says he’ll keep my fingers crossed for me. I tell him I’m keeping my fingers crossed too, but I don’t think we’re hoping for the same thing.

  Then I drive home. I really, really hope this test comes back negative.

  The test is sitting on the bathroom basin, where I left it, too much of a coward to be in the room when it might change color. I pace the length of my living room, feeling sick and anxious. I need to go in there and see, but I can’t bring myself to.

  “It’s fine,” I tell myself. “It’s just a test. It’s probably negative.”

  I draw in a deep breath and step into the bathroom. The small white test is sitting innocuously on the sink, facing up. It’s okay. It’s fine.

  I glance at the screen and my stomach drops.

  It’s positive.

  I’m not sure where to go. I don’t know where Lyle lives (he told me he would show me his home last weekend, but I ruined that by throwing up at the movie theater), or where he works. I don’t want to talk to either of my parents. My father would be furious and my mother would be worried. Going to work is out, because my father would swoop down on me the moment I entered, demanding to know why I’d come into work when I’m apparently sick. I don’t have any particularly close friends that I’d want to talk to about this.

  As such, I’m only a little surprised when I look up to see that I have found myself at Energy Plus Co. It’s one of the only other places that I’m familiar with, and there’s no one there that will either judge me or care enough to wonder too much about my sudden pregnancy. Maybe I can find Brandon and work some more on the contract if that’s what he wants to do.

  I head toward the large building. Working is the perfect way to get my mind off this, I decide as I watch a sleek black car pull up to the curb. All I need to do is…

  I stop.

  “Lyle?” I ask.

  There’s no answer; he’s too far away to hear my voice. He doesn’t even notice me as he exits the expensive-looking black car, sliding out of the seat and straightening his suit jacket. This is the first time I’ve seen Lyle in a suit. He looks neat and expensive. He leans in to speak to someone in the car. There’s a serious expression on his face that I’ve never seen before.

  Why is Lyle getting out of a car in front of Energy Plus Co.? He never said anything about being connected with them before, which is odd considering I’ve spoken, at length, about my current job with them.

  My feet carry me closer. I can hear the rumble of his voice now, and I step into a nearby alley, suddenly not wanting him to know I’m there. He’s been so secretive about his life. I haven’t pried at all. If he knows that I’m watching him, he might be mad.

  More than that, though…I want to know what’s going on. Why is Lyle keeping it a secret that we’re working with the same company?

  “Okay, thanks,” Lyle says, straightening. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  He shuts the door of the car and turns around. A young man has left Energy Plus Co. and he approaches Lyle once he sees that he’s finished talking to the driver. He’s clutching a large folder.

  “Welcome back, sir,” he says, and I stare. The man is calling Lyle sir? Is Lyle management? “Brandon’s report about the alliance with Tech Square Inc. has been delivered to your desk.”

  I feel like my world is falling away.

  “Thank you,” Lyle says with a sharp nod. “Do we have any word from the new suppliers?”

  “They said they’ll call this afternoon,” the young man says as the two of them begin to walk to the building.

  There’s an odd roaring in my ears. Lyle is talking about the alliance between my company and this one. Lyle is overseeing supplies. Lyle is being deferred to as though he’s someone very powerful.

  I suddenly remember something my father once said about the son of the previous owners of Energy Plus Co.

  “Barely out of his thirties! He just grins charmingly at everyone and gets his own way. He has no clue how to handle a business, none. He’s barely older than you!”

  I back away, turn and flee. It’s too much. I need to think.

  I need to work out what’s going on.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lyle

  I whistle as I enter my office. I feel like I’m on top of the world, and the only dark spot in my mood, right now, is my worry about Amanda. She should be at the doctor about now. I hope it’s all going well. The doctor I booked her in with is one that Alicia recommended.

  I glance at my phone, as I have done every ten minutes for the last hour. Still no word from Amanda. Is she still at the doctor? Or maybe they did end up taking blood tests, which means there’ll be no answer for a few days, anyway.

  I have the vague thought that I could maybe swing an answer by tomorrow, but I stamp down on that idea. I don’t want to use my power in that way, especially when I haven’t even told Amanda that I’m capable of doing something like that.

  I check my phone again. Still nothing.

  I really hope everything is going well. In the scant two weeks that I’ve been seeing Amanda, I can’t help but feel that she has become everything to me. All I want is to see her smile, and I want to be wherever she is. In the short time that I’ve known her, she has become a very large part of my world, a part that I want to hold onto for as long as I can.

  My smile drops. How much longer will that be, though? I’m lying to her, and that fact is weighing on me with every day that goes by. I haven’t told her who I am. I had begun psyching myself up to do so during our last date, but then she fell ill and I was never able to take her to my home and show her just what I own and who I am.

  “I know that look; you’re thinking about Amanda, aren’t you?”

  I look up. Alicia is standing in the doorway, some folders in her arms, her eyebrows raised.

  “Yeah,” I admit. “What do I do?”

  “Have you tried telling her the truth?” Alicia asks wryly.

  Alicia’s tongue has gotten sharper as the days have gone by, telling me with certainty that she is unimpressed by my hesitance. Once it became clear that Amanda was not a spy for Energy Plus Co. and that she hadn’t slept with me to try and make the deal better, Alicia feels that I should have told her the truth.

  But I haven’t, out of my own cowardice than anything else.

  “It’s going to get too late if you keep holding it off, you know,” Alicia comments as she walks into the office. “Eventually, she’ll be so mad that you hid the truth for all this time that she won’t even remember to be mad that you’re meant to be her enemy.”

  “Unless she doesn’t realize that I knew who she was,” I say, but it’s a dismal hope.

  “Impossible,” Alicia shoots down immediately. “You said she’s been talking your ear off about the deal with Energy Plus Co. She knows that you know she’s been here, at least.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh.

  I lean back in my chair. Too much, in the last two weeks my thoughts have been taken up by Amanda. It’s getting to the point that my work is beginning to suffer for it. If I don’t solve this situation soon, more than my relationship with Amanda could end up falling down around my ears.

  “I’ll tell her,” I say. “I just need to make sure she’s okay, first.”

  Alicia snorts.

  “There’s the excuses again,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m not making any excuses!” I protest.

  Except that I am, and we both know it. I’m so terrified of losing Amanda that I’m looking for any excuse I can to hold off on upsetting her so much that she’ll leave me. But the longer I leave it, the more certain it is that she will leave me if she ever hears about this.

  I groan. It’s a fucking catch-22, and I don’t think there’s any way, now, for me to win.

  “Fine,” I say reluctantly. “I’ll message her and ask to meet up with her. I’d rather speak to her face to face.”

  “So she doesn’t stew on it without you there to try and talk her out of being angry?” Alicia asks shrewdly.

  “Yeah,” I admit.

  It’s better for these sorts of things to be done face to face, anyway. I just want Amanda to know that I’m sincere and that I never meant to hurt her in any way. That the only reason I kept this a secret was because I wanted to get to know her better.

  Hopefully she doesn’t believe I was tricking her. That’s the last thing I want her to think.

  But…

  “What if she thinks it was all a game?” I ask.

  “She’ll be more likely to think that if you keep hiding it,” Alicia says severely. She sighs exasperatedly. “Come on, Lyle, where’s that spirit of yours? You’ve spent the last few years standing firm against everyone who tried to get in your way. You’re strong and capable. You want this woman in your life? Then make her understand how much she means to you.”

  I stare at Alicia. Slowly, it dawns on me that she’s right. It isn’t like me to behave so cowardly. Normally I will spring forth and chase anything that I want, no matter what, and I’ll usually get it, too. When my father left me this company, I took on the burden and shut down everyone who thought that I wouldn’t make it because I was so young. I’ve more than proved myself capable in every aspect of my life.

  Yet now I’m faltering because of Amanda? I should have told her from word go what she meant to me! I should have told her exactly who I am instead of skulking about like I’m ashamed of it. Amanda had the right to know what she was getting into and to make the choice for herself. Instead of allowing her that, I assumed she wouldn’t want anything to do with me if she knew I was her competitor.

  It was stupid.

  “I think I owe her a huge apology,” I sigh. “As soon as she messages to tell me she’s out of the doctor, I’ll ask to meet up.”

  As if on cue, my phone vibrates on the desk. Alicia and I both look at it for a moment, startled, and then I grab it off the top of the desk, tense with anticipation. This is it.

  “I’m fine.”

  For a moment, I wait, wondering if there’s another message coming in. That message is oddly abrupt.

  “What does it say?” Alicia asks, coming around the desk to peer over my shoulder. “Well, she doesn’t sound fine.”

  “It’s not just me, then?” I ask. “You think she sounds weird, too?”

  “Yeah,” Alicia says.

  I frown and type a message back.

  “Is everything okay?”

  She replies quickly.

  “Sorry, just really tired. Heading home.”

  “You did say she said she’d been tired a lot lately,” Alicia comments. “Maybe she just really needs to rest.”

  “You’re probably right,” I agree.

  “Do you want to meet up in a couple of days?” I type back.

  “Sure,” she replies.

  There’s nothing else, though. Amanda is the type who usually wants to make definite plans, so the fact that she didn’t suggest a day means that she really is tired and off. I send her one last message.

  “I hope you feel better soon.”

  She doesn’t reply. I sigh and put down my phone. Part of me thinks that I should put it off a little longer; if Amanda is feeling so ill, she probably won’t want me to spring my identity on her so soon, not while she’s trying to recover.

  I flatten the thought. No. It’s cowardly ideas like that which have gotten me into this mess in the first place.

  “I’ll organize to bring her around to my place as soon as she’s feeling well enough to meet,” I tell Alicia. “I can’t wait to introduce you to her; I think you’ll really like her.”

  “She sounds pretty amazing, especially if she’s able to keep you in line,” Alicia laughs. “I’ll look forward to meeting her.”

  I smile. The thought of Amanda meeting my current life is a terrifying one. I want her to accept my life and want to be part of it.

  But thinking of showing Amanda around my office, or meeting Alicia, or being introduced to my colleagues as my girlfriend… That thought is amazing, and I suddenly want to see it happen more than anything. I straighten my shoulders. The time for holding back is over.

  I’m going to make it happen.

  Chapter Twelve

  Amanda

  I feel like an absolute idiot.

  I turned up at my mother’s house and knocked on the door. When she opened it, I burst into tears.

  It must have been startling for her. I haven’t cried, at least in front of my parents, in years, even when my father threw his toughest ultimatums at me. But the combinations of all the revelations that have hit me in the last hour – the pregnancy, Lyle’s secrecy, my own reaction to it all – has finally pushed me over the edge.

  “Amanda!” my mother cries, shocked. “What’s wrong?”

  She ushers me inside. My shoulders are heaving with sobs, and thick tears are flowing down my cheeks. I feel disgusting and horrible and ugly, but I can’t stop crying. I find myself pushed onto the couch in the lounge and, when I next look up, I can hear my mother bustling around in the kitchen, the kettle on to boil.

  I manage a watery chuckle. Whenever someone is upset, my mother’s solution is always tea. Not that I can blame her; she makes this amazing herbal concoction that can put anyone in a good mood.

  Though I don’t think even that miracle tea will be enough for me today. My fledgling smile drops as I think about everything I’ve discovered.

  By the time my mother returns, a steaming cup held carefully in front of her, my sobbing has slowed to a stop. I’m still crying, but I’m doing so quietly now with soft sniffles, dabbing at the light tears that are spilling from my eyes.

  “Feel better?” my mother asks, setting the tea down on the low table in front of me.

  “No,” I say bluntly, my voice thick. “I feel horrible and clogged and empty.”

  She chuckles softly in reply.

  “That’s normally what crying does,” she agrees. “But you’ll feel better for it later. Now, why don’t you tell me what happened? Does this have something to do with Lyle? Do I need to talk to him?”

  I have a sudden vision of my mother going after Lyle with a rolling pin for making me cry. The image brings a reluctant smile back to my face, one that twitches at the corner of my lips.

  “No,” I say. “You don’t need to say anything. He didn’t really do anything.”

  “Really?” my mother asks with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well…it’s what he didn’t do that’s the issue,” I say, looking away. “He’s…kept a few things from me.”

  “Like?” my mother presses.

  I look at her. And, all of a sudden, I’m furious. I cross my arms.

  “Like the fact that I think he’s the fucking owner of Energy Plus Co.,” I spit.

  My mother gasps, her eyes widen.

  “What… Why do you think that?” she asks.

  “I went there, after I went to the doctor,” I say bitterly. “I wanted to do some work but I didn’t want to be questioned by Dad. He was there, getting out of a car. Some guy came up to him and started talking to him about suppliers and about the deal with Dad’s company…” I shake my head, frustrated. “Look, I don’t know for sure, alright? But I do know that it looks really suspicious.”

  I look over at my mother. She’s on her phone, a frown of concentration. I feel insulted before I realize what she must be doing. She’s likely looking for proof of what I’m saying on the internet.

  Instantly, I feel foolish. I should have done that before jumping to conclusions.

  “Well…you’re right,” my mother says finally. She looks up, her face drawn, and holds her phone so that I can see the screen. On it is a picture of Lyle smiling at the camera in a newspaper article. He looks a little younger there. “Lyle Thompson… He took over the company after his parents tragically died in a car crash two years ago. He’s been the owner of Energy Plus Co. ever since.” She glances at me. “Didn’t you know his last name?”