He turned around before she even had her flannel ducky pajama bottoms pulled all the way back up.
“How long do we have to wait?” he asked, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. He swept her up and carried her into the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed and settling her in his lap.
“Look.”
They watched as the darker mark crept up the test toward the window. Rodrigo held his breath. Minnow was too. Complete silence descended.
Pregnant
3+
They stared at the test and neither of them said anything.
A strange elation bubbled in his chest, and when he parted his lips to breathe, a laugh came with it.
“Oh my God.” She slid off his lap and turned to look at him. “What did you do?”
“Me? What about you? What about Severin?” He couldn’t stop laughing.
“This isn’t funny! What are we going to do?” She glared at him, more in shock than anger, but her small hand slid down to where Severin’s seed had been planted. Or maybe his. What did it matter, either way?
“Come here.” He caught her hand and tugged her to stand reluctantly between his knees. “What do you want to do, preciosa? We have time. You can think for a while before you make a decision.” His amusement stopped abruptly.
Her hand jerked out of his grasp to join the one already on her stomach. “What do I want to do? This baby is mine. I don’t care if you or Severin don’t want it. I’ll leave and get an apartment. I have money, you said, right? I could single parent.”
“Whoa, whoa, little girl. You’re not going anywhere.” He peeled her hands away from their defensive position and kissed her belly. She was so small. If it was Severin’s baby, where would she put it all? A glow suffused him, from the inside, warming him all the way to his toes. Tears pricked his eyes, and he tried hard to blink them back. “You won’t be alone.”
He fell back on the bed, and pulled her gently down on top of him so he could stare up at her perfect pixie face. She melted against him and tucked her head into the crook of his neck.
“When he makes me leave, will you visit me?” she whispered.
“Hey.” He slid his hands up under her shirt and stroked the silken skin of her back. “If he sends you away, I’m going with you.”
“No, he needs you!”
“You and the baby come first.” He grimaced into her hair at the way his voice wobbled on the word ‘baby.’
A baby. Not the theoretical kind, or the kind that belonged to Mayte or other people.
Theirs.
God, what if he sucked at being a father? He loved Mayte’s kids, but being an uncle was easy. You handed them back when they got cranky or smelled bad. Skinned knees, parent teacher meetings – what the hell did he know about that stuff? What about when they grew up and started needing advice? Would other kids make fun of them because they had three parents?
Although maybe there would be only the two of them raising this kid.
So much to figure out.
She slid off him onto her side, and he rolled to face her. Gazes met. Held. God, he loved this woman.
After years of longing for Severin, he’d finally gotten what he wanted – and yet here he was, willing to walk away from him because of the woman they’d fallen in love with, and the life they’d sparked inside her.
There was no way their child was growing up fatherless. There was no way his sweet preciosa was ending up alone in this scenario.
“You’re not raising a baby alone. For fuck’s sake, I love you. I get wanting to protect him, but there’s a point where you have to let people take care of you too. Maybe he isn’t capable of that, but I sure as hell am.”
She was quiet for a long time, but then so was he. There was so much to process. Of course, with all the wedding prep, his mother had been teasing him about giving her more grandchildren, but that had been a dream for the future. Minnow was young yet. There had been no reason to rush – not with Severin still unsettled and Loïc complicating things.
“So we’re doing this together?” she finally asked.