Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
MIRABETH
If there was ever a moment in my life when I needed my mom, it’s now. This past week in particular has been one of the most stressful of my life as I’ve double-checked what is possibly every calendar in existence, and I’ve never felt more alone.
“Please, Mom, pick up.” I sniffle into the phone while sitting on the closed toilet lid with the positive pregnancy test in my hand.
I’m no longer angry at her for what she’s done.
I simply need her now that I can no longer hope or wish that I’d hallucinated everything, and I’m facing a reality in which my dreams are coming true, but in the worst possible way.
I’ve never shoplifted before, and I thought I was going to pass out from the anxiety of being caught—either by an employee or Conrad—when I slipped the pregnancy test box into my purse.
I hadn’t wanted to, but I couldn’t let Conrad see it before I was sure what the test would say, since I hadn’t been quick enough to check out without him hovering over my shoulder.
Neither did I want him to know that I stopped taking my birth control as soon as I missed my period.
At least that was one thing I could hide from my nosy liar of a husband.
When Conrad suddenly bursts into the bathroom, having silently picked the lock, I rear back with a scream. Both the pregnancy test and my phone go flying in the air.
“You’re pregnant?!” he shouts, wearing a brilliant smile that makes me want to lift and hurl the whole toilet and sink at him. I don’t know how he already knows that, since the test has landed face down in the tub.
My tears turn into a torrential downpour when I drop my head in my hands and scream, “Yes!”
“This is the best news ever,” Conrad says, sweeping me up to stand, his arms a vise around my back. “We’re having a baby, princess. A baby!”
I want to shove him away when he peppers my face with kisses that I’m sure would rankle his ex-fiancée-turned-current-mistress.
Or am I the mistress? A pit stop for a little fun before he ultimately leaves me for Alisa?
A baby isn’t enough to stop some men from leaving their wives, so why should I expect anything different from someone who is in love with another woman?
It’s not like I want to be with someone who doesn’t want me, anyway, as hard as it will be on my own.
But truthfully, I need someone to hold me when my knees grow weak, and since Mom is still avoiding me, I have to settle for the very man who’s the cause of all my distress.
Conrad’s hands slide down to the backs of my thighs, and he lifts me onto the vanity, then cups my jaw, tears of his own beginning to stream from the corners of his eyes. “This is the best day of my life.”
“It’s the worst day of mine,” I say, the dam breaking on everything I’ve kept pent up inside, having tried desperately to work through it, and utterly failing.
“The worst?” Conrad strokes my cheek with his thumb, his expression crumbling as he studies the pain I’m sure is plain as day on my face.
He takes my hand and places it on his chest with his heart hammering beneath my palm.
“I know things haven’t been good for us recently,” he says, his voice cracking.
“And that’s my fault, for being so selfish.
” He brushes his lips against my forehead before tipping his head against mine.
“But I was hoping, once you opened up to me and we talked through everything, that you would be happy.”
With an ugly bite of sarcasm, I ask, “What is there to be happy about, huh?” I rear back, shoving against his chest, wishing I had the strength to send him stumbling over his feet.
“You think I’ll be happy raising a baby while pretending I don’t know my husband is sneaking around behind my back with the love of his life for the next three years? ”
Conrad jerks away. “Say what now?”
I jump off the counter, putting as much distance between us as I can, and clutch my stomach. “Yeah, now you know that I know, you don’t have to bother hiding it anymore. At least not from me. Does Brad know?”
“Know what? Wait—you think—me and Alisa?” he asks, following me into the living room.
I whirl on him. “No shit, Sherlock. Or is there someone else you’ve been kissing when you think I’m not looking?”
Conrad freezes and swallows hard. “You saw,” he says despondently.
“Yes! I know this whole marriage is fake, but how do you think it made me feel to know the husband I’m stuck with for the next three years was kissing another woman after everything we did, when you wouldn’t even kiss me?”
Out of everything I said, he picks the least important point. “I kiss you all the time—or, I did, before you shut me out.”
I shake my finger at him as despair dominates my heart. “No, you didn’t. Not one single time.”
His brows crease in the middle, and he reaches for me with beseeching eyes. “Yes, I did. There isn’t a part of you I haven’t kissed and desperately want to kiss again and again and again.”
“You haven’t here!” I point to my lips, dodging his reach. “Oh, but the woman who left you for your own damn brother—you didn’t mind kissing her lips. Make it make sense!” I turn and shove my fingers through my hair, then spin back around. “Not that it matters. I don’t—”
Conrad is suddenly there, cupping my face, his chest pressed against mine.
“I’m so sorry, princess. I didn’t realize I skipped kissing the sweetest part of you.
” He snakes an arm around me, tight enough that I can’t wriggle away, and crushes my lips with his own.
His earlier tears mix with my own as the kiss lingers before he says with a rush, “I didn’t kiss Alisa—I never would.
Never. She kissed me, and we were both horrified.
I thought I was going to throw up all over her.
I wish I had, so you never would have thought for even one second that I wanted her. ”
“Bullshit,” I say against his lips, pulling at his wrists, my tender breasts aching all the worse. “If that were true, you would have told me.”
“I didn’t want to upset you, but I see now that was wrong. Please, please believe me when I tell you that never have I ever snuck around with Alisa or anyone else for that matter, and I never will. Never.”
“Stop lying to me,” I say a little lower, losing some of my steam, exhaustion pulling at me as my arms drop limply to my sides. “I saw the way you two were with each other after that.”
He pecks my lips again and again, his big body vibrating. “Saw us how?”
“You—ok, I didn’t see you, but I knew what you were doing. You’re always texting each other. I’ve seen your phone. There are hundreds of messages.”
“About my nephew.” He kisses one cheek, then the other. “Nothing else. Please, please, you gotta believe me when I say I hate it as much as you do.”
“But…you snuck off together at your parents’ house…”
He kisses my lips, swiping his tongue along the seam, backing me against the front door. “She cornered me in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, to make out,” I say, breathing hard, meeting the tip of his tongue with mine. My hands twitch with the urge to clutch his sides.
Conrad groans. “To talk about the huge surprise party she’s planning for Brad’s fortieth birthday, and the kitchen island was between us the whole time.”
“No,” I say, not as sure now, dropping my head back when he dips to kiss the corner of my jaw.
“Yes. Alisa means nothing to me other than that she’s Drew’s mother and Brad’s wife. If it weren’t for that, I’d never speak to her or look at her again. I have no reason to.”
“Even if that’s true—”
Conrad stoops, making sure he has my full attention when he says, “It is, princess. It’s all true. You’re the only one I ever want to kiss for the rest of my life.”
I suck in a breath, wanting to believe with all my heart that he’s not lying, but repeat, “Even if that’s true, that doesn’t mean I want to have a baby with you.
Not…not yet. I’m too young, and we’re so new.
We’re still getting to know each other, and obviously we have trust issues to work through. ”
Conrad kisses his way down my body until he’s kneeling, and he pushes my shirt up above the waistband of my long, ugly maxi skirt. I intentionally picked it simply because he’s never picked it.
“I’ll work every hour of every day to prove to you that you can trust me,” he says.
“I know it didn’t happen the way you planned, but, please, this is a good thing, Mirabeth.
You and me—this baby—our family—it was meant to be and more than I ever could have hoped for with you as my wife and the mother of our child.
” He kisses my stomach tenderly. “You say you’re too young, but I found your secret stash of baby clothes and books in the tote beneath our bed,” he says with a look of awe, lightly caressing my stomach with his fingertips.
“And you’ve been secretly adding more while I’m at work, even after you went quiet on me. You want this baby as much as I do.”
I gasp and hold my breath. He was never meant to find my stash, every article of clothing and children’s books lovingly picked out since I graduated college and stored for my future first child.
Conrad winds his arms around me, squeezing me tight. His eyes flash possessively when he says, “I particularly liked the green onesie with O’Byrne embroidered on the front.”
“That one just showed up in the mail,” I say with a strangled voice, my fingers fluttering when I lay my hands on his broad shoulders. “My mom must have sent it.”
Conrad smiles when he lifts me in the air, his watery eyes sparkling with joy. “I saw the packing slip, princess. It had the last four digits of your debit card. You ordered it the day after we met. So who’s the liar now?” he asks with a soft chuckle.
“Okay, fine,” I admit, biting my bottom lip. “But that was before I found out—”