Their Accidental Baby. Hannah Bernard

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      CHAPTER ONE

      LAURA tilted her head back and peered upward at the path ahead, shoulders slumped in fatigue. Endlessly stretching toward the summit, the way up looked exhausting and treacherous.

      But at journey’s end, there was sanctuary.

      This wasn’t exactly Mount Everest. Just an apartment building in Chicago’s suburbs. All she had to do was climb three floors, and she would get to her cozy little apartment, close the door and forget all about there being a world outside.

      The shades of the maples lining the quiet street gave testament to it already being autumn. And here she’d hardly noticed the summer, except as a hot distraction; a need to daily give thanks for the air-conditioning in her office; and the lingering smell of barbecue in the air as she dragged herself home late at night.

      There just weren’t enough Fridays in a week.

      Weekend.

      For once she wasn’t working at all. She didn’t even have any homework to do. Two days off, to do anything she wanted. She could take a long bubble bath, put soft music on the stereo and daydream. She could pick a book from the huge pile that somehow had taken up permanent residence in her laundry basket and read—if she could keep her eyes open. She could shake the dust off that sweater she’d started to knit before Young & Warren had hired her six months ago. Or she could call some of those friends who probably assumed she was dead and buried and they’d missed the funeral.

      Of course, there was also housework. She’d run out of dishes for her morning cereal three days ago. Not that it had mattered much, since the milk had gone bad a few days before.

      She hadn’t even had clean underwear this morning and, after twenty seconds of torturous deliberations, had decided to go without.

      Bad idea.

      After a whole morning of sitting in meetings, imagining that everyone present had to know this scandalous fact, could see it on her face, if not on her bottom, she’d used her ten-minute lunch break to run to the nearest store and buy a multipack of cheap underwear that would see her through the next week. Putting them on in the tiny cubicle that served as the ladies’ room had been a feat that would have earned her the praise of her yoga instructor—if she still had the time to attend classes.

      But at least now she knew. The women’s magazines lied. Going without underwear did not make you feel sexy. Just uncomfortable and naked.

      If she could have spared more than ten minutes, she wouldn’t currently be wearing green and pink cotton underpants СКАЧАТЬ