“I need time.” The words broke me. Maybe because they were brutally honest.
I needed time to digest everything that was happening. To make sure this was not just another grand gesture he was going to offer and forget about the next morning. We fell in love fast and slow. Hard and soft. With everything we had in us, yet we both refused to give anything away. We didn’t have time to digest what was happening. We clashed into each other’s lives with our walls still up. We needed to start over. We needed to flirt. We needed to distribute the power between us, this time more equally. We needed to learn to fight without wounding each other. Without running into other people’s arms. Without dragging and tossing each other into rooms like wild beasts.
“It should be my choice to be with you. You understand that, right?”
Wolfe nodded, standing up before he changed his mind. I could tell it took a tremendous effort for him not to demand from me what he used to think he deserved. He made his way to the door, and I wanted to take the words back and go with him. But I couldn’t. I had to be better for the person inside me.
A person I was going to be able to save, like my mother couldn’t.
Wolfe stopped at the threshold, his back still to me.
“Can I call you?”
“Yes.” I let out a breath. “Can I text you?”
“You may. Can I book you an appointment with an OB-GYN?”
“Yes.” I laughed through the tears, wiping them quickly. He still didn’t turn around to look at me. Wolfe Keaton wasn’t much of a negotiator, but for me—he broke his rules.
“May I join you?” His voice was grave.
“You better.”
His shoulders quaked in a soft chuckle, and he finally turned around to face me.
“Go on a date with me, Mrs. Keaton? Not a gala. Not a charity event. Not an official outing. A date.”
God.
Oh, yes.
“I would love that very much.”
“Good,” he said, looking down and chuckling to himself. I had to remind myself that this was the same cruel man from the masquerade. The one I swore to hate for the rest of my life. He looked up, his face still tilted down, with a shy yet devastated gaze.
“Will I get lucky on that date?”
I threw myself on my pillow, covering my face with my arm, the sound of my laughter drowning the click of the door as it closed.
Two days later, we paid our first visit to my new OB-GYN. Barbara was in her fifties with cropped blond hair, kind eyes, and thick glasses. She did an ultrasound and showed us the peanut swimming in my womb. Its little pulse pitter-pattered like tiny bare feet down the stairs on Christmas morning.
Wolfe held my hand and stared at the screen as though we had just discovered a new planet.
We went to lunch after that. Our first public unofficial outing as a couple. He invited me over to our house. I politely declined, explaining I made plans with Sher and Tricia from my study group. I tried to bite down my smile when I broke the news to him. I hadn’t had friends my age ever since I moved back from Switzerland.
“Nemesis.” He arched an eyebrow when he drove me back to my house. “Next thing I know, you’ll be attending frat parties.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Parties weren’t my scene. Besides, the ones I was used to were fancy and demanded a dress code my pregnant self wasn’t eager to follow. Even in my first trimester, I opted for loose, comfortable attire.
“I think everyone needs to go to at least one frat party to see what all the fuss is about.”
“Would it bother you?” I asked. I wanted to put across that he didn’t have this kind of power over me anymore.
“Not at all. Unless Angelo is your date.”
That was a fair request, which I could no longer deny it. I took out my phone from my bag and tossed it into his hands.
“Check this.”
“What am I checking, exactly?”
“I deleted his number.”
He stopped the car in front of my house and killed the engine. He handed me back my phone. “I’ll take your word for it. What changed your mind?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m in love with this guy, and he has this idea in his head that I will run away with my childhood sweetheart.”
Wolfe shot me a dirty look. “He is tragically in love with you, too, and I don’t blame him for being adamant about keeping you.”
There were many more dates between Wolfe and me after that day.
We went to the movies and to restaurants and even to hotel bars, in which we both didn’t drink—me because of my age and pregnancy, him out of solidarity.
We shared a bowl of french fries and played pool and argued about books. I found out that my husband was a Stephen King fanatic. I was more of a Nora Roberts fan myself. We stopped at a bookstore and purchased each other books to read. We laughed when Wolfe told me he nearly kicked the Hatch’s out of our house that time they visited us because Bryan had an erection as impressive as a baseball bat while I played the piano.