Forty Day Fiancé (Sassy in the City 3)

“Excuse me?” Brent’s wife, Kathryn, appeared behind him.

He choked on his drink. “Nothing.”

“You’re an asshole, Brent,” was her response. She rubbed her temples. “Michael, any chance you have something for a headache? It’s been brewing all day and now it’s really gotten bad. I don’t have any aspirin in this damn clutch.” She displayed her tiny purse.

“Sure. Let me go grab you some.” I handed Brent my empty glass. “I’d have a headache every night if I was married to this prick.”

“Ha-ha, you’re fucking hilarious.” Brent made a face.

“For the record,” Kathryn said as I shifted away from them. “You had years before we met to have lots of sex with random women and you didn’t, so what does that tell you?”

Ouch. That was an unpleasant truth bomb for Brent.

It was slow progress across the apartment, people greeting and commenting to me as I went. Despite the fact that we had the visa process looming over us, I was really damn happy. I wanted to marry Felicia and none of what I was saying about her was fake. I was telling all my friends and family she was witty, intelligent, and giving. What I wasn’t telling them was that she was intriguing, sexy as fuck, and going to keep me on my toes for the rest of my life.

This was not a trial run or a wait-and-see for me.

After everyone left I was going to tell her I’d fallen in love with her.

I wanted her to stay in New York and wait out the application process.

In our new home if we got the townhouse. I was still waiting to hear from Krisha.

Felicia was standing in the kitchen talking to my mother. I was glad they seemed to get along. The day had been crazy intense but Felicia did seem to be feeling better than the day before.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, so I pulled it out from habit. I wasn’t on call but it was habit to be accessible.

It was a text from Krisha.

Your offer was accepted. Congratulations.

Holy shit, we’d bought a house.

If you had asked me six weeks ago if I’d be buying an enormous townhouse on the Upper West Side, I would have said you were crazy. But apparently, I was the crazy one because now I was about to own a four-million-dollar piece of Manhattan.

I guess I’d done crazier things than buy only the second property I looked at. Like, for example, getting engaged to a woman I barely knew. Who had catfished me.

There was a bizarre beginning to a love story.

The thought made me grin as I went into the bathroom and rooted around. I didn’t know where anything was anymore. Felicia had moved her stuff in and rearranged all of mine under the guise of making room for her. I thought it had more to do with her stubbornly preferring her system of what went where but I didn’t really care that much. I found a bottle of acetaminophen and twisted the cap. The whole thing tilted sideways and the bottle shot out of my hand, across the countertop, and down onto the floor, spilling pills everywhere.

“Shit.” I bent down and fished the half-spilled bottle off the floor. Picking up pills on the floor I tossed them in the wastebasket.

I had already pulled my hand away when I processed the fact that I had seen something odd in the trash. Taking a second look, I confirmed it. A pregnancy test. I pulled it out and studied the results.

A positive pregnancy test.

Holy shit.

Felicia was pregnant. She did not have an ulcer.

She was having our baby.

I grinned. Merry Christmas to me.

I was getting everything I’d ever wanted all in one perfect package.

When I went back to the party, searching out Kathryn to give her the pills, I felt almost drunk with happiness, even though I’d only had one drink. Having a fiancée, soon a new home, with a baby on the way was the best buzz I’d ever had. I guess the term was punch drunk. That was me. Fucking on top of the world.