Two Pink Lines

The second pink line appeared just as someone knocked on the bathroom door.

"Emma? If you're dying in there, I need to know before I make breakfast."

I stared at the test. Six weeks ago, I had spent one reckless night with Alessandro Vitali. I had given him a name that wasn't the one I was born with, a phone number that didn't work, and absolutely no reason to find me.

Apparently, I had taken something of his home.

"I'm fine, Liam."

"You've thrown up three mornings in a row."

"Your coffee is terrible."

"That's a serious accusation, and I think we should discuss it face-to-face."

The handle turned. I snatched the test behind my back, which would have worked better if I had remembered the mirror.

Liam stopped in the doorway. His gray sweatpants were inside out. He had been my closest friend since we were eight, and somehow I had never considered that he might be present for the worst morning of my adult life.

His eyes moved from my face to the mirror.

"Oh, Em."

That nearly undid me. Not the test. Not the nausea. His voice.

I sat on the edge of the tub. Liam shut the door, lowered himself onto the closed toilet, and waited until I put the test between us.

"Is it his?" he asked.

"He's the only possibility."

"Does he know?"

"I've known for about forty seconds."

He rubbed his mouth. "You can't just call a man like that and tell him he's going to be a father."

"I don't have his number."

"For once, your commitment to disappearing might be useful."

I looked up sharply. "You don't get to decide that for me."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm scared."

So was I. My hand settled over my stomach, although there was nothing to feel beneath the waistband of my diner uniform. I was twenty-five. I had forty-eight dollars until payday, a leaking bedroom window, and a life built around staying unremarkable.

A Vitali baby would be many things. Unremarkable wasn't one of them.

"I'm not asking him for anything," I said.

"Then what are you going to tell him? That you're pregnant, but he can't know where you live, what happened to your parents, or why you were at that gala?"

"I haven't worked out the wording."

Liam's expression softened, but he didn't look reassured.

Neither was I.

Downstairs, someone knocked three times.

We both went still.

"Did you order something?" I asked.

"At ten thirty on a Sunday? Unless anxiety delivers now, no."

I tucked the test into my apron pocket and followed him out. We rented the upper half of a narrow two-flat, with our own front door at the bottom of the stairs. Liam went ahead to the peephole.

He took one look, then turned around.

"Tell me you have a much less alarming Italian friend."

My skin went cold.

From the other side of the door came a voice I had remembered in circumstances considerably less terrifying.

"Emma. It's Alessandro."

Liam mouthed something obscene.

I passed him on the stairs.

"You don't have to open it," he whispered.

I knew that. I also knew that if Alessandro Vitali had intended to break in, asking permission would have been an unnecessary preliminary.

I turned the lock.

He stood on the porch in a dark overcoat, his black hair damp from the mist. Behind him, two men waited beside a sedan. His face had the same unfair effect on me it had in the hotel: a moment of blank, inconvenient attention before sense returned.

His amber eyes moved over me.

"You disappeared."

"I went home."

"Without saying goodbye."

"I didn't realize there was a checkout procedure."

For a second, his mouth almost curved. Then he saw Liam behind me.

"Who's this?"

"The person paying half the rent," Liam said.

"My friend," I added. "Why are you here?"

Alessandro looked back at me. "I need to speak to you somewhere private."

"That's going to be difficult. I'm leaving for work."

"You're pale."

"It's Chicago in November. Most of us are."

He didn't smile this time. "Are you ill?"

"I'm tired."

He stepped closer. I moved back before I could stop myself.

He stopped immediately.

That small restraint was worse than a demand. It made me remember his hand at my waist in the hotel corridor, the way he had waited for me to close the distance.

"Emma," he said more quietly. "What's happened?"

"Nothing you need to fix."

My apron caught on the door latch as I turned. I tugged it free. The test slid out of the shallow pocket and landed against his shoe.

For one absurd second, I considered claiming it belonged to Liam.

Alessandro looked down.

Nobody spoke.

He crouched, picked it up by the cap, and stood. When he met my eyes again, the confidence was gone from his face. He looked almost young.

"Is this yours?"

"Yes."

His fingers tightened around the plastic. "And the baby?"

I couldn't make this easier. I could only make it clear.

"The baby is yours. I took the test this morning. I haven't seen a doctor yet."

He drew a slow breath. His gaze dropped briefly to my stomach, then returned to my face as though he had caught himself doing something private.

"Were you going to tell me?"

"I was trying to decide how."

"You could have called."

"I don't have your number."

He looked at the test again. The little crease between his brows deepened.

"Pack a bag."

The warmth that had begun gathering in my chest vanished.

"Excuse me?"

"You shouldn't stay here."

Liam stepped down beside me. "You don't get to arrive uninvited and take her home."

Alessandro didn't look at him. "I'm not taking her anywhere she doesn't choose to go."

"You have a strange way of expressing that," I said.

His jaw shifted. "Yes. I do."

He returned the test to me. Carefully. As if it mattered.

Then he reached inside his coat. I stiffened, and he slowed before withdrawing a plain envelope.

"I came because of this. Not because I knew."

The photograph inside showed me leaving the diner through the side entrance. My hair was pinned up with a pencil. I was laughing at something outside the frame.

It was an ordinary moment. Someone had stood across the street and stolen it.

"When was this taken?" I asked.

"The timestamp says Thursday."

Three days ago.

My fingers curled around the edge. There was writing on the back, four words in black ink.

Ask her real name.

I looked up at him.

Alessandro's expression had gone very still.

"Someone knew where you were," he said, "before I did."