Her Song

12 - A Positive Disaster

**Kim**

Lady Gaga had it right. Bradley and I had been a bad romance, in ways I was only beginning to discover.

And although like Lady Gaga I had a freakin' fantastic poker face I was glad that Minty couldn't see it as I shared the latest update when it came to the biggest mistake in my life AKA Bradley. Minty and I may not have been super close but she was my sister and had thrown herself on the Cordelia grenade to assist in my brunchtime escape. Of course I'd spilled the tea. She'd earned it.

Of course, of course, with my family's tendency to behave like a cheap soap opera Minty had gasped and ooh'd and ahh'd but even she'd found herself speechless when it came to my latest news. The positive pregnancy test currently sitting on the sink in my bathroom. Had I been religious I'd have thought I was being punished for adultery, fornication, blasphemy, name a biblical transgression and I was probably being punished for it – whether I'd actually committed the sin or not. Although I'd cop to fornication – the jury was still out on adultery. Did it count if I didn't know he was married?

Regardless of actual guilt, the duo pack of pregnancy tests had pointed their guilty blue lines at me. Had they not been filled with tears I'd have rolled my eyes at just how cliché my situation was; I was the other woman impregnated with Bradley's bastard child. It felt as though my life had come full circle, my father left Cordelia for my mother when he knocked her up and then left my mother for Minty's when he repeated his mistake. Not that Minty and I necessarily considered ourselves mistakes but we were the breakers of marriages. Something told me that Helena wouldn't maintain a stiff upper lip Cordelia style or immediately start stalking billionaires like a big game hunter as my mother had. Francesca looked quite at home in a safari suit and pith helmet, not to mention her predilection for leopard print.

Well, I may have been a warning to women everywhere but what I was not going to do was turn into a carbon copy of my mother. No fucking way. If I was going to sponge off a man and take his money, it would be my father and the trust fund that he'd set up for me. Bradley, as much as it pained me to let him off the hook, was not going to receive the validation to his masculinity that knocking up his much younger mistress would give him. Screw that.

Especially as I'd not planned for a baby and wasn't entirely sure that there'd be one in my life at the end of the day. It may have made me a bitch but considering the way Bradley had neglected to consult me regarding his decision to make me 'the other woman' I had no intention of consulting him when it came to decisions regarding my body, my life and any potential child I may or may not have and may or may not keep.

Minty's voice in my ear drew my attention back to the conversation, "So what are you going to do other than quit your job?"

That was the million pound question wasn't it, what was I going to do? Clearly I couldn't continue working for Aesthete, whatever I decided to do, baby or no baby, Bradley and every connection with him needed to be gone from my life. If only I could erase him from Ainsley and Tish's lives as well.

But for now? I responded to Minty's question, "I have no idea. I guess I need to fully investigate my options, so a trip to Marie Stopes is in order."

"Do you need money?" Minty asked.

I stifled a snort. "No Minty, I don't need money. You of all people should know how much money I have access to."

There was a long pause and I pulled my phone away from my ear to check she was still on the line before she spoke again, "But will you? Access your money I mean."

"I'd rather not to be honest but when I quit my job I'm going to need to pay my rent and expenses somehow and unless I find a new position straight away I'm going to need it. Plus any new job I get is going to depend on what decision I end up making. So consider this the moment I throw all my principles in the bin. Revel in it, you get a front row seat." I blew out a long exhalation as I crumpled in to myself feeling utterly deflated. I'd prided myself on my independence from my family but when the chips were down it was all too easy to fall back on the safety net that their money provided me.