Family Bonds: Alana & Brennan (Amore Island #23)

Prologue

“Anything I can get for you, Rene?”

“This kid out of me,” she snapped.

Brennan Austin’s girlfriend of fourteen months wasn’t handling her pregnancy well.

“Not much longer,” he said patiently. “Let’s put your feet up.”

He grabbed a pillow at the end of the couch in their shared apartment, lifted her excessively swollen ankles and feet and laid them down as if they were fragile glass just ready to shatter.

“I need to pee,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor and stomping them down.

She could have said that before he tried to make her comfortable.

He stood back as she struggled to get off the couch. Her tiny frame was off balance with the large watermelon in front of her.

If he offered to help her up, she normally barked at him to leave her alone. He was learning... slowly.

He couldn’t do anything right with Rene and hadn’t been able to since she found out she was pregnant.

“Okay?” he asked.

“No, I’m not okay. I can’t get my fat ass off this couch. Are you going to help me or stand there like an idiot?”

He sighed, reached for her hands and pulled her up.

He got it. He really did.

Her body was changing. Everything hurt on her.

She was downright miserable and itching to get back to work more than she was to hold their child.

Rene waddled down the hall with her hands on her lower back.

She wasn’t the only one who wanted their child out in three weeks.

He craved to hold his daughter. Cradle her in the crook of his arms, rock her to sleep, tell her stories. Kiss her hurts and wipe her tears.

Watch her grow.

Be the father that he never had.

He waited close by when the toilet flushed in case she yelled for assistance.

The door opened, he glanced over, she rolled her eyes at him and moved to the recliner, arching her back and moaning dramatically.

“Do you want the heating pad?” he asked. “I’m going to finish dinner, but maybe that will help.”

“Sure,” she said. Brennan moved the pad from the couch to the chair Rene had just sat in. She hit the button on the recliner and her feet went up. He’d been telling her for weeks that was easier for her to get in and out of, but she refused his advice. “This is horrible.”

“What is?” he asked. He wasn’t about to assume anything.

“This pregnancy. I’m not sure how I let you talk me into keeping it.”

Another knife through his heart when she said those words. It. Not a child. Not their child. But it.

Maybe he’d thought she’d bond with their child as it grew inside her.

He thought wrong.

“I’m going to finish dinner.” There was no response to her words. Not one that wouldn’t cause another colossal blow up.

He prayed things would ease up once the baby arrived, because walking on eggshells every damn day was wearing thin. Still, the last thing he’d ever do was push her—no matter how close he was to breaking.

He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt that so much was happening in her body.

Even if not much of her tone, words, or actions had changed since they’d met.

Not being around each other much during their six months of dating allowed him to witness her personality in small doses.

Not anymore.

This was a crash course in “What the fuck did I get myself into?”

They’d moved in together three months ago when Rene’s lease was up. She’d been pulled out of work about the same time. Her job as an international flight attendant meant being on her feet all day and squeezing down narrow aisles.

“Bring me some more water,” Rene yelled.

He opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle, then brought it out. Their two-bedroom apartment wasn’t that big and he could see everything from the kitchen.

“Here,” he said, putting it down.

“I wanted the fizzy kind. And get me the remote too.”

He picked the bottle up to return, found the remote and handed it off, then went to fulfill her demand.

He’d never experienced so much bossing around in his life. Every part of his being wanted to clap back, but as his mother had told him—give it time. Wait it out. Make a plan after.

I’m doing it for my daughter. I’m doing it for my daughter.

If he said those words to himself enough, he could get through. A month or two from now, they’d figure the rest out. Life might be easier when Rene could return to her job and scratch her itchy feet.

If he had to hear one more time that she wasn’t meant to stay in one city seven days a week, he’d put his fist through a wall.

Twenty minutes later, dinner was done. “Do you want me to make you a plate or are you going to come do it?”

“I’ll do it,” Rene said, the chair returning to position, as she sat up and moved in for the food. She was walking easier, no moaning, no complaining.

It was hit or miss with her, but he brushed it off.

“Everything okay?” he asked two minutes into their dinner. She was crinkling her nose or smacking her lips at everything she bit into.

“There isn’t enough salt on any of this.”

“You need to reduce your sodium,” he said. “That’s why you’re retaining water.”

He was at the last appointment with her because he was concerned at how swollen her feet and hands had gotten. Little did he know she was home eating bags of popcorn and chips, pepperoni and cheese all day. Cravings, she called the salt overloads.

“I’m retaining water because you knocked me up,” she said. She got up easily and grabbed the salt he’d left in the kitchen. He would ignore the theatrics when she wanted things her way.

He took it out of her hands. “It will not kill you. Can’t you follow orders for your health and our daughter for just a few more weeks?”

“Whatever,” she said, plopping down. She jabbed her fork into the chicken, then scratched her plate with the knife cutting it. “It’s dry too.”

Like everything else, he wouldn’t respond. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed working sixty hours a week, then coming home and dealing with this.

There was a knock at the door. “Are you expecting anyone?”

“No,” she said sarcastically. “No one comes to visit me. All my friends are in the air right now. I’m stuck here alone or with you.”

He bit his tongue and stood up. It wasn’t the first time she’d used the word “stuck” with him.

He opened the door, saw some guy there he’d never seen before. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Rene Simons.”

He heard Rene gasp behind him, turned to see her face pale. He stood up taller, his six-foot-three height towering over the man in front of him. “What’s this about?”

“My child that she’s carrying,” the man said.