Updated Oct 23, 2025 • ~8 min read
LINA’S POV
I stared at my phone for twenty minutes before I finally found the courage to scroll through my contacts.
Jasper Bennett.
Three dates. Two months ago. Nice enough guy—software developer, liked hiking, talked too much about cryptocurrency. We’d had decent chemistry, spent one night together, and then mutually ghosted each other when it became clear we wanted different things.
I hadn’t thought about him in weeks.
Now I had to call him and tell him he was going to be a father.
“You don’t have to do this today,” Seb said from the kitchen doorway. He’d been hovering since the positive tests yesterday, bringing me food I couldn’t eat and water I barely drank. “You could wait. Process things first.”
“And say what? Surprise, remember me from two months ago? Plot twist.” I pressed Jasper’s name before I could chicken out. “Better to just rip off the band-aid.”
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Please go to voicemail,” I whispered. “Please—”
“Hello?”
Shit.
“Jasper. Hi. It’s Lina. Lina Moreno. We, um, we went out a few times back in—”
“Lina! Hey, yeah, I remember.” He sounded friendly. Casual. Completely unprepared for what I was about to say. “How’ve you been?”
“Pregnant.”
Silence.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m pregnant. And it’s yours. I mean, it could only be yours because I haven’t been with anyone else and I know this is insane and terrible timing but I took six tests and they were all positive and I thought you should know—”
“Whoa, slow down.” His voice had changed. Gone tight. “You’re serious?”
“Very serious.”
“But we used protection.”
“I know. I was also on birth control but I switched pills and apparently that’s not foolproof and—” I took a breath. “Look, I’m not asking you for anything. I just thought you had a right to know.”
More silence. I could hear him breathing.
“I need to think about this,” he said finally.
“Okay.”
“This is a lot, Lina. Like, a lot lot.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you… I mean, what are you planning to do?”
The question hung there. Heavy. Loaded with implications.
“I’m keeping it,” I said quietly. “I’ve already decided that. But I’m not expecting anything from you. No pressure. No obligations.”
“That’s not how it works.” He laughed, but it sounded brittle. “Jesus. A baby. I’m not ready for a baby.”
“Neither am I.”
“Then why—” He stopped himself. “Sorry. That’s not fair. Your body, your choice. I get it.”
“I should let you go,” I said. “Process everything. We can talk more later if you want.”
“Yeah. Later. I’ll… I’ll call you.”
He hung up.
I sat there holding my phone, feeling weirdly hollow. Seb appeared with a mug of chamomile tea—apparently the only thing my stomach could tolerate these days.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“About as well as expected.” I took the tea. “He needs time to think.”
“That’s fair.”
“Is it?” I looked up at him. “I’m pregnant with his baby and he needs time to think about whether he wants to be involved?”
“Lina—”
“You know what the worst part is? I don’t even blame him. We barely knew each other. Three dates. One night. And now I’m asking him to be a father.” I laughed bitterly. “At least you had a contract.”
Seb sat down next to me, close enough that I could feel his warmth. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re handling this incredibly well.”
“I cried for two hours yesterday.”
“And today you’re making phone calls and facing reality. That’s strength.”
“Or stupidity. I haven’t decided which.”
SEB’S POV
I needed to talk to someone before I lost my mind.
Lina was napping—the pregnancy exhaustion had hit her hard—so I called the one person who’d understand.
“Finally,” Declan answered. “I was starting to think you’d died.”
“I got married.”
Silence. Then: “I’m sorry, what?”
“Three weeks ago. Courthouse wedding. It was supposed to be simple.” I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s not simple anymore.”
“Seb, what the hell—”
“She’s pregnant.”
More silence.
“Please tell me it’s yours,” Declan said finally.
“It’s not mine. We haven’t—we’re not actually together. It was an arrangement. Green card marriage.” The words tumbled out. “She needed money, I needed papers. We were going to live together for six months, make it look real, then divorce. But she’s pregnant with someone else’s baby and I have no idea what to do.”
“Okay.” Declan’s voice had gone into problem-solving mode. “First question: are you in love with her?”
“What? No. I barely know her.”
“Then why do you sound like your world is ending?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
“Seb,” Declan said gently. “You could walk away. The marriage was fake anyway. No one would blame you.”
“I would blame me.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s alone. The biological father doesn’t want to be involved—or at least, he’s not sure. Her family doesn’t know about the marriage or the pregnancy. She’s terrified and trying to be brave about it and I—” I stopped. “I can’t just abandon her.”
“Even though you don’t love her.”
“Even though I don’t love her,” I confirmed.
But saying it out loud felt like a lie.
LINA’S POV
I woke up to voices in the kitchen.
“—not your responsibility,” a male voice was saying. Not Seb. Someone else.
“I’m aware.” That was definitely Seb.
“Then why are you still there? The marriage isn’t real. You don’t owe her anything.”
“It’s not about what I owe her, Declan.”
Declan. His brother. I should probably stop eavesdropping, but my feet stayed rooted to the floor.
“Then what’s it about?” Declan asked.
“I don’t know.” Seb sounded frustrated. “But I can’t just walk away. Not now.”
“Because she’s pregnant.”
“Because she’s my wife.”
“A wife you married for paperwork.”
“Maybe at first.” Seb’s voice dropped. “But it doesn’t feel like paperwork anymore.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, my heart doing something complicated in my chest.
“Jesus, Seb. You’re falling for her.”
“I’m not—”
“You absolutely are. I can hear it in your voice.” Declan sighed. “Does she know?”
“Know what? There’s nothing to know. We have an arrangement. That’s all.”
“An arrangement that just got exponentially more complicated.”
“Hence why I called you.”
“For advice or permission?”
“I don’t need permission.”
“Then what do you need?”
Long pause.
“I need to know I’m not crazy,” Seb said quietly. “For wanting to stay. For wanting to help her through this even though the baby isn’t mine and the marriage isn’t real and I have absolutely no logical reason to care this much.”
“You’re not crazy.” Declan’s voice was soft. “You’re in love. Which is arguably worse.”
“I’m not in love.”
“Keep telling yourself that, big brother.”
I backed away slowly, my mind reeling. Seb thought he was falling for me. Or his brother thought he was falling for me. Or something. I couldn’t process it.
I couldn’t process any of this.
My phone buzzed. Jasper.
We should talk. Can I call you tomorrow?
I typed back: Sure.
Then I deleted it and wrote: Actually, I need some time. I’ll reach out when I’m ready.
His response came immediately: That’s probably smart. This is a lot.
Yeah. It was a lot.
I walked into the kitchen. Seb was alone now, staring at his laptop but not really seeing it.
“Hey,” I said.
He looked up, and something in his expression shifted. Softened. “Hey. How are you feeling?”
“Confused. Nauseous. Terrified.” I sat down across from him. “The usual.”
“Jasper called back?”
“Texted. He wants to talk but I told him I needed time.” I picked at a loose thread on my sweater. “I overheard you. On the phone with Declan.”
Seb went very still. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough.” I met his eyes. “You don’t have to stay, Seb. This isn’t your problem.”
“Stop saying that.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s not.” He closed his laptop. “Lina, I know this started as a transaction. A deal. But things have changed.”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
“Because you’re you.” He reached across the table, his hand covering mine. “And I don’t want to walk away. Not from you. Not from this.”
“Even though the baby isn’t yours?”
“Even though.” His grip tightened. “If you’ll let me stay.”
I looked at our hands. His ring next to mine. Two fake bands that were starting to feel real.
“I don’t understand you,” I whispered.
“That makes two of us.” He smiled, small and sad. “I didn’t plan for this. Any of this.”
“Me neither.”
“So what do we do?”
I thought about Jasper, who needed time to decide if he wanted to be a father. About Seb, who’d decided without hesitation to stay. About the baby growing inside me that was turning my entire world upside down.
“We figure it out,” I said finally. “Together.”
“Together,” Seb agreed.
And for the first time since I’d seen those positive tests, I felt like maybe—just maybe—everything might actually be okay.
Even if nothing about this situation made any sense at all.
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