To the Max Read Free Page B

charming. One of the escorts she’d met that night was a dark-haired, handsome man by the name of Luigi. One thing led to another, and she most definitely had not ended up hiding in the bathroom.
    Holly cursed. “What about the whole stash of condoms I put in your purse? Didn’t you think of using them?”
    “I used condoms; I swear I did.”
    “How exactly did you use them, sweetheart?”
    “What do you mean, how did I use them? How does anyone use condoms? Are there so many different ways of using them?” Annie asked, out of breath, her tone of voice rising. She was freaking out. Big-time. But all in all, she thought she was entitled to. “I certainly didn’t put them on my head as new-age hats.”
    “Did it break?”
    She shook her head. If it had, she would have gotten the morning-after pill, and she wouldn’t currently be about to pass out.
    “Are you sure it’s not a false alarm?” Sophie asked, trying to calm her down.
    “No false alarm. Five peed-on sticks and two blood tests confirm it. I’m pregnant up to my eyeballs,” Annie said as she, very ineffectively, fanned herself with a napkin. Damn hot flashes. Before she found out about the pregnancy, she’d been having so many of them, she’d even considered going to the doctor to make sure she hadn’t entered some sort of freaky early menopause. Wouldn’t that have been a laugh.
    “How did this happen?” Holly asked.
    Sophie waved at her. “The usual way?”
    “Not helping, sweetie.” Holly chastised Sophie with a look and then turned to Annie. “If you used condoms, how did you get pregnant?”
    And here was where it got embarrassing. “It seems there’s an infinitesimal chance of getting knocked up if you start rolling the condom on, realize it’s inside out, and then turn it the right way. Drops of precum get onto the outside of the condom, and voilà, if the semen is of quality and has great mobility, you’re in deep shit.” Annie looked at them, fidgeting. “I was a bit nervous, and there wasn’t too much light…”
    She should have left the logistical details to the pro.
    All the head shaking she’d done when women in her office got pregnant out of carelessness, and look at her: knocked up on a technicality.
    Sophie whistled. “Wow, some super-duper-power sperm those studs have, huh?”
    “Tell me about it,” Annie muttered.
    “Could it be someone else’s?” Christy asked.
    “It’s either Luigi’s or an immaculate conception.”
    The good thing about getting laid so seldom was that she could pinpoint the conception date with 100 percent accuracy, which meant that if her baby was as anal as she was, he or she should be born in the early hours of March thirty-first.
    Holly looked at her, worried. “I hate to say this, honey, and I know these guys are the best of the best, but did you get checked for diseases?”
    “Yeah, no STDs.” That was what she’d done first once she’d found out about her pregnancy. And hadn’t that been fun, explaining to Alden’s only doctor, the same one who had treated her all her life, why she needed testing for STDs right after he told her she was pregnant. “All I got from the superstud is a baby.”
    “At least you had a valid excuse for throwing up on Max the other night,” Christy said.
    Annie cringed at the memory. Talk about making an ass out of herself. The most sought-after bachelor in the whole state was being sweet and offering her a way out so she wouldn’t have to dance with Steven, and what had she done in exchange? She’d puked her brains out all over his shoes, messing his pants too. Well, on the flip side, the second she’d started throwing up, her oh-so-attentive date had all but run in the opposite direction.
    Max, on the other hand, had been very nice and understanding. He’d even joked that if he’d been saddled with a date like Steven, he would’ve been puking too.
    “Does Luigi know about any of this?”
    “Nope. And I never got a last name, so I don’t