Read Online Indecent Proposal by Molly O'Keefe - Free Book Online

bathroom floor. It looked like you’d vomited blood, so I called an ambulance,” he said.
    Blood she remembered, but that was all.
    Oh God . She put a hand to her stomach.
    “Did I—?”
    “You’re fine. Both of you.” She could hear it in his voice, the lecture he was dying to give her.
    She blew out a long breath, trying to get the sudden spike of her heartbeat under control.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have been scary.”
    “Well, it’s not a moment I want to relive anytime soon, seeing my sister passed out in a pool of blood. You hit your head on the corner of the sink. Split the skin over your ear and knocked yourself out.”
    “I knocked myself out? On the sink?”
    “At least it wasn’t the toilet.” Wes smiled. “You’re still your own worst enemy.”
    Laughing felt good. Felt so good, like throwing open the window on a perfect day.
    Wes picked up her hand and held it between his two. His hands were callused across the palm, worse on his right than on his left. And he was thin, thinner than she’d seen him in a long time. Whatever the mysterious computer work he wouldn’t talk about required of him, it was taking too much.
    “It’s good to see you,” she said, squeezing his hand.
    “Talk to me, Ryan,” he breathed.
    She hadn’t said the words out loud to anyone yet. A week ago what she’d thought was the flu turned into a missed period and a drugstore pregnancy test and finally a doctor’s confirmation. So far the baby was a secret she kept to herself, and it still didn’t feel real. She was in serious survival mode between the nausea and the joblessness and the fist-shaking minuscule failure rate of condoms that had not panned out in her favor.
    Also surprising was how much she wanted this baby. It had been years since she’d thought of starting a family, and now certainly was not an optimal time, but none of that seemed to matter.
    She was sick, scared, financially strapped, and emotionally vulnerable, but she was so damn happy about this baby.
    Her new family.
    “I’m pregnant,” she said.
    He opened his mouth to let out the lecture but she stopped him. “Don’t,” she said. “Anything you say about staying out of trouble will only be hypocritical.”
    “I’ve never been pregnant and alone and sick.”
    “I’m breaking new Kaminski ground.” Even he had to smile at that.
    “You’ve been sick like this the whole time?”
    Her mouth was gummy, her lips dry and cracked. “I haven’t been feeling great for a week. But it’s only been like this for three days.”
    “The doctor said you were severely dehydrated.”
    “I haven’t been able to keep anything down.”
    His hands squeezed hers and she pulled her fingers free, bracing herself for the outburst. “Jesus Christ, Ryan, why didn’t you call me sooner? Why do things have to get this bad before you ask for help?”
    “I don’t know, Wes,” she sighed. “But yelling at me isn’t going to change anything.”
    He stood up and turned to look out the window. All she saw out that window was blue sky. Not a single cloud. Not a skyscraper or apartment building. It was as if they were floating above the city. Just a blue so dense and so deep it didn’t seem real.
    “The father—”
    “Not around.”
    “You plan on telling him?”
    “He is not around, Wes.”
    She wasn’t about to tell her big brother that she didn’t even know Harry’s last name. Oh God, he’d go ballistic .
    “Okay, so, no father. What is your plan?” The sunlight fell over his face, bringing out the red in his hair and tightly clipped beard, turning his eyes to amber. It was funny that she’d always been called the pretty one, had been able to make some kind of living for a while off of her looks—that stupid Lip Girl thing when she was seventeen—when Wes was the real beauty.
    Half intellectual whiz kid, half well-groomed Viking berserker.
    His look was popular and on Wes, extremely authentic. He’d make a killing if he