You Were Meant For Me (Wishful 10)

“Anyway, it all worked out all right in the end.”

“Lucky them,” she murmured. “Pass the mushrooms.”

“How are things going with you and Mitch?”

Tess froze, the cutting board of mushrooms hovering over the skillet. “Why would you think anything’s going on between me and Mitch?”

Norah’s mouth flexed as if she were trying to hold back a smile. “Well, I might have meant how are things going with you and Mitch and the project, but answering a question with a question to avoid answering makes me think there’s a you and Mitch and something else you might want to talk about.”

Tess set the cutting board down before she dropped it, trying to fight back the panic. Everything was about to blow up in their faces. “Who

else knows?”

“No one. I didn’t know. Not for sure until just now. You look like you’re about to keel over. Come sit down.” Norah nudged her onto a bar stool on the other side of the counter and brought over a glass of water. “I didn’t intend to upset you. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to. It’s not my business or anyone else’s. But I’m here if you need an ear.”

Would it be so bad to take Norah into her confidence? All the subterfuge was wearing thin. Tess knew Mitch wanted to tell people about them and was only staying silent in deference to her. The truth was going to come out sooner rather than later anyway, and her gut said she could trust her. Locking her fingers around the glass, she lifted her gaze to Norah’s. “We met before I ever came here.”

Tess told her about Scotland. Between final instructions for the pasta, the whole story just spilled out, as if a dam had burst. The shock and elation at seeing him again. Worries about the complicated relationship between their families. She stopped shy of talking about the baby, but the rest was enough. By the end of it, she felt somehow lighter, as if she’d purged some of the stress she’d been carrying around.

“Getting a second chance at things has been wonderful, but I haven’t had anybody to talk to about this.”

Norah propped her chin in her hands. “So why not come clean about being involved?”

“Seriously? You really think that’s going to go over well with the rest of the family?”

“I get it. I really do. I was worried about what everyone would think about my being involved with Cam, so we kept it a secret for weeks, and when it came out, it was all this big non-issue.”

Tess resisted an urge to press a hand to her belly. “Our situation isn’t the same.”

“So what are y’all going to do? Keep living together as if you’re really just roommates until…what?” Norah asked.

That wasn’t an option. Her pants were already starting to get a little tight in the waist. If she ever stopped throwing up and seriously put on weight, the baby bump would be a dead giveaway that things were not simply platonic between them.

“I don’t know. We haven’t exactly settled on the best means of breaking the news.”

“I vote for, ‘Hey family, FYI, we’re in love with each other. Isn’t it great?’” Norah declared.

Tess dropped her gaze. “He hasn’t said he’s in love with me.” Neither had she, but she wasn’t going to do anything to prompt him. Over the past couple of weeks, he’d been all about doing anything she needed right now, totally the caretaker. Which was wonderful. But she didn’t know if that would extend to saying something he wasn’t a hundred percent sure he meant, in the name of her emotional well-being and that of the baby.

Norah made an impatient noise. “Well, I don’t know why he’s sitting on it because he absolutely is. I’ve got eyes in my head, and that man is besotted with you.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know Mitch. He’s one of my nearest, dearest friends, and I’ve watched him skirt the edges with woman after woman, always holding something back. But I’ve never seen him look at another woman the way he looks at you.”

Given how long her list of worries was, Tess wished she really could let go of the biggest. “Well, let’s hope you’re right.” Because if she wasn’t, Tess didn’t know how she was going to cope.

Chapter 13

Tears streamed down Tess’s cheeks, and her throat ached from crying.

Beside her, Mitch clicked stop on the rolling credits. “You actually like this movie? Why?”

She sniffed and sat up, reaching for the box of tissues on the coffee table. “It’s a classic, and sometimes you just need a good cry.”

“Maybe this is the girl version of needing a good fight to blow off some steam. I feel like I need to marathon all the Die Hards to make up for that.”

“There are worse ways to spend a Saturday night. I’m game. But I want to go call my mom first.” She rose to head upstairs, but Mitch grabbed her hips and pulled her close to press a kiss to her belly.