The convenient marriage

Chapter 52. Third-person's omniscient point of view

"Aileen, I'm pregnant!"

It was enough just for a few words for Aileen's perfectly constructed gentle image to crack irremediably. And quite fast too... as an evidence of this, the tea cup she had previously held in her hand was already on the floor. An objective person would have been able to tell Aileen's shock was not due to just pure bewilderment, with no other hidden reasons... it was the distress of a broken hearted person.

But Jillian, who had grown up with Aileen as close as sisters, of course wouldn't suspect a thing. The former was too busy to check the potential wound, rather than check her cousin's distorted face.

"Did you hurt yourself? Why are you so clumsy?" Jillian asked concerned, as she was already approaching Aileen and grabbing hold of her hand to examine the fair skin for any scalding.

"It doesn't look like you were scalded. Does it hurt?" She repeated the question when Aileen still seemed too surprised to answer.

"Eh.. oh no, it does not hurt. Tell me again what you said." Barely managing to regain her composure, Aileen finally opened her mouth to speak. But the words she uttered appeared more like a command to change Jillian's shocking news, rather than expressing a joyful bewilderment that one would normally show when receiving such a surprise from a married relative of theirs.

"I said I am pregnant. I could not believe it when I did the test in the morning." Jillian repeated once more for her cousin the somewhat happy news.

Was it a happy news? Jillian pondered over her own thoughts, not noticing Aileen's firm tone.

"But you used to say before you got married that you did not want any children." Aileen remembered and urgently relayed the words Jillian had once told her. She did not even sense whether her own skin hurt or not, so of course she wouldn't pay attention to Jillian's concerned words for this reason also. The shock had numbed all her senses.

"Well I did say so... honestly I don't know what to make of this situation. From when I did the pregnancy test this morning until now it felt surreal... it still does." Jillian admitted as she took her hands away from Aileen's and sat once more on her chair. There was no redness on the smooth hand, so even if her cousin hadn't verbally assured her of being alright she could see with her own eyes that indeed she was.

"Are you sure? The pregnancy test could be wrong." Aileen questioned evidently displeased.

"After five of those tests, I'm pretty sure it is safe to say I really am pregnant. What's the matter? Aren't you happy for me?" Jillian asked playfully but a bit of a frown did appear on her previous expressionless face.

"How could I not be happy? Of course I am, it is just I know how you feel about Zane. So I thought you would never want to have children with him, in case it might affect your divorce." Quite a flustered tone predominated Aileen's voice, as she realized that Jillian might have sensed something from her part. So she had tried as best she could to cover up her blunder, not realizing that her words were getting more incriminating by the second.

"Divorce? I never said I wanted to divorce Zane." Jillian stated confused.

Although she did not have the best opinion regarding Zane in the past, especially in the beginning when they had barely met each other before the wedding, since she somewhat interacted with him for such a long time already, she found him not so bad these days. At least he had never controlled her in any way and had also kept his private life quite clean.

In the world of the rich where most men barely kept their married lives free from affairs' with other women, Zane's fidelity was a rare sight to see. She knew for sure that he wasn't acting in this way because of love, but out of his own principles, still it did not diminish the points she was adding in her mind in favor of continuing her marriage with him.