Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
And I'm pregnant with his baby.
I press my hand flat against my stomach.
When Erin and I were younger, we played a game pretending that the pathway behind our house was made of molten lava. Our goal was to get to the tree line without touching the ground. We’d squeal and scream as we ran, careful to make sure our feet stayed safely planted on flat stone.
Only now… this isn’t a game.
The baby changes nothing. That's the part I keep coming back to, the part that hollows me out when I let myself look at it directly. Seamus arranged this marriage, and Seamus does not rearrange things because of inconvenient feelings, unexpected pregnancies, or the fact that his cousin is currently in a flat he's not supposed to be in, with a woman he's not supposed to want. Seamus will look at the numbers the same way I do. He'll see what I see. And what he'll see is that the Esposito alliance is worth more than this.
Than us.
There is no us. That's the thing I keep forgetting and then remembering again, like a bruise I keep pressing. There is this room, this morning, this man sitting in my chair. And outside this room, there is a world that has already made its calculations and doesn't need our input.
I'm good at not thinking about the shape of what comes next. I have had a lot of practice—years of it—the kind that starts when you're young and realize the person you love has already decided what he has to be, and all you can do is love him anyway and try not to let him see it.
But I can feel it pressing in at the edges. The weight of it. The sheer stupid danger of sitting here like this, like two people who are allowed to have this, when the ground beneath us is moving and has been moving for a long time. We are on the smallest possible rock in the middle of it, close enough to touch but with no idea—none—whether the leap to safety even exists.
“Here,” he says, rising to his feet. He hands me the cup of tea, made just the way I like it. I sip it, and it's strong and hot and bracing, just creamy and sweet enough. “Delicious,” I say.
“Are you hungry?”
“God above, I'm always hungry,” I say, shaking my head. He smiles, but just then a wave of nausea roils through me. It comes on so quickly that I can't tamp it back down. Oh no.
I slosh my tea on the end table as I throw the blankets off myself and run to the bathroom.
“You alright?” he asks behind me, but I can't bother to answer because I’m barely holding it together. I make it to the toilet just in the nick of time.
“Ah, there,” he says, because of course Declan is next to me, holding my hair out of the way and whispering soothing things in my ear. “Sorry, lass. You'll feel much better soon.”
I'm not even embarrassed because this is Declan, and he's my best friend—but I don't want to spend this one stolen moment I have with him by throwing up the contents of my stomach.
Finally, I'm exhausted and spent, my head resting on something that feels like tile. When I come back to myself, he's sitting in front of me, his brow furrowed in concern, one hand moving in slow circles between my shoulder blades. He holds a warm washcloth to my mouth and a glass of water.
“Water?” he asks. “I don't know if pregnant women who throw up want that.” And then he kind of grimaces and half smiles at the same time. “Most of my experience dealing with people throwing up has to do with the club, after they’ve had too much to drink. This is a bit different.”
“Water’s good.” I take the water and give him a weak smile.
“Better?” he asks.
“Grand,” I say, which is a lie, and we both know it.
He laughs, and I rinse and spit the water back into the toilet because I don't have the energy to stand. Then he's holding me, carrying me, helping me to my feet.
“Come on, love.” He puts an arm under me and walks me back to the bed. I want to protest, but I don't because I like being carried by Declan. He settles me against the pillows and takes my tea from the end table, checking the temperature of the mug with the back of his hand before handing it to me—which is the cutest thing and so Declan that I actually smile.
I take a sip. It's gone a little cold, but I drink it anyway. He sits at the edge of the mattress beside me, and it feels so damn comforting.
“Maybe I should get a dog,” I say, my eyes closed from exhaustion.