Baiting Him (How to Catch an Alpha 2)

Then there’s Chrissie and me. We are still falling in love, and every day I learn something new about her that makes me love her even more, which seems impossible.

“No, I’m not.” Her whispered words pull me from my thoughts, and I watch her wipe her cheeks.

I ignore her absurd lie and move LeFou out of the way to kneel down next to the tub. “Why are you crying?” I ask, touching her face with the backs of my fingers. I hate her tears.

“I’m not. The jets are going, so the water is splashing on my face, making it look like I am.”

“What happened?” I ask, skimming my fingers down the side of her face.

“Nothing.”

Knowing how stubborn she can be, I stand up to get undressed so I can get into the tub with her. I start to kick off my shoes when a bag with a small white box inside it catches my attention. I shouldn’t even notice it, not with the amount of stuff she has lying out on the counter, but I still do. Without thinking, I pick up the bag and absently hear her say my name as I pull out the opened box to read the front of it.

“Are you pregnant?” I turn around toward her, and she covers her face with her hands and sobs. Not sure what to do in this situation, I set down the box and finish getting undressed. I climb into the tub behind her and wrap my arms around her chest, then place my lips against her ear. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“My period is late.” Her hands wrap around my arm across her chest. “I took a test just to make sure, and I thought for sure it would be negative, since I’m on birth control.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No.” She lowers her head to her chest. “The first test I took told me I was pregnant, so I took another one, and it said the same thing.”

With my heart suddenly overfull, I rest the side of my head against hers and pull in a deep breath. “We’re having a baby.”

“That’s what the tests say, but I don’t know how that’s possible. I haven’t missed a pill. Birth control is supposed to be ninety-nine point nine-nine percent effective.”

“If you’re pregnant, it’s obviously meant to be,” I tell her, sliding my hand down her wet skin to rest against her stomach. I’ve never considered being baited and caught by a woman who was completely right for me, so it shouldn’t surprise me that something that should happen has happened. “This thing between us was meant to be, and tomorrow, you’ll call your doctor to see if the test you took was correct. If it is, I’ll be happy, and I know you will too.”

“We’re not even married,” she sobs, and I want to laugh. We might not be married, but two people couldn’t be more committed than us.

“We’ll get married.”

“Why? Because I’m pregnant?” she asks with her voice sounding shaky.

“No, because I love you and I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life without you,” I tell her, thinking about the engagement ring I bought that’s been sitting in my drawer for weeks as I’ve tried to come up with the perfect way to ask her to marry me.

“We just moved in together. Heck, we just started dating. This is—”

“This is us. Since the beginning, we have done things a little differently.”

“You mean fast,” she says, and I smile, then kiss her shoulder.

“Everything might be fast, but you can’t deny that this is right. From the moment we met, I’ve wanted more from you—more time, more kisses, more of you falling asleep next to me, more of your laughter, and a lot more of your love. I can’t get enough of you. So yes, what’s happened has happened fast, but what’s happened has been right, from the very beginning.”

“A baby,” she whispers, and I know she’s scared. I get it, because it is scary. Hell, I’m freaking out a little, but I know everything will be okay.

“The moment you hold our son or daughter the first time, I promise you it’s going to feel like the exact right moment.”

“Leah and Tyler aren’t even pregnant,” she inserts, and I realize what most of her tears are about. Yes, I’m sure she’s afraid, but she loves her best friend and has seen how stressed Leah has been each month when she’s gotten a negative test result.

“Sweetheart, if the shoe were on the opposite foot, would you be happy for Leah if she told you she was pregnant?”

“Of course I would be.” She gasps, sounding offended that I’d think otherwise, and I fight back laughter.

“She’ll be happy for you too. So before you start creating problems where there aren’t any, let’s just deal with you carrying our child safely for the next nine months, us getting married, and all the other things that will happen before our baby gets here.”