Chapter 24
Alyssia
“What are you doing here?” I blurt out as I exit my office building.
Travis’ grin makes my heart race and I nearly stumble coming down the stairs. He takes me by the waist, steadying me.
“You have a special way of greeting a guy.”
I duck my head, smirking. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Obviously. Were you waiting for someone else?” His eyes narrow and voice turns a shade darker.
Is he jealous?
That can’t be right. There’s no way he would think I’m waiting for someone else, some other guy. The thought makes my stomach churn.
There’s also the fact that no guy, in his right mind, would see this obvious baby bump and try to engage with me on any sort of romantic level.
“No one,” I answer.
“I thought since you get off work early today, we could spend the afternoon together. Unless you had other plans.”
“My only plan is to visit this local market in my neighborhood that I’ve been wanting to get to.”
“Want some company?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. With my best friend having lived across the country, and now an entire continent away, and few other friends, I’m used to doing things on my own.
Lately, the longing to spend my afternoon less alone has been niggling at me. As I feel my waist bracketed Travis’ hold, I begin to recognize that I wasn’t longing for just anyone.
It was him.
“We can drive,” he says, but then his eyes widen. “If you don’t mind taking my car. I know you like taking the metro.” There’s something in his voice that I can’t pick out.
“Driving is fine.”
“The ride by car is pretty beautiful,” he says as if needing to talk up the drive.
He’s not wrong, though. I enjoy my train rides in the mornings and afternoons, but the beautiful winding roads we take are paved with beautiful, historical stone buildings, palm trees, and in some spots, views of the Riviera that are absolutely breathtaking.
“What made you move to Monaco?” I ask as we cross into France.
“Work,” he answers, glancing over at me. “Not only is it a great location for a lot of the races throughout the year, but my team is headquartered in Italy.”
“Amato?”
He nods. “Oldest team on the grid,” he says proudly. “And there are a ton of other business opportunities that are easily accessible here.”
“Do you ever miss home?”
He glances over at me, his mirrored sunglasses give him such a sexy look that I have to turn away.
“I did when I first moved, but my parents eventually bought a place here and now that Annalise works with me, it’s less lonely.
“Tristan and Chloe are busy with school and Chloe has her own competitions, so they don’t make it out as frequently, but they still travel to see me and I race in the States a ton, so I see them then.”
“Competitions?”
He grins wider. “Chloe’s one of the best in our state in fencing.” The pride in his voice is palpable. Soon, though, his smile drops. “I can’t always make it to her meets.”
“I’m sure she knows you’re cheering for her,” I reply, the instinct to comfort him overcoming me.
He peers over at me, not saying anything, his gaze tucked away behind those sunglasses, but I sense the intensity of his stare behind the frames.
I clear my throat. “Your brother’s getting his Ph.D. right?” I ask to change the subject.
He nods.
“Tristan is getting his doctorate in astrophysics. Chloe’s still in undergrad, but eventually wants to get her Ph.D. in economics.”
“That’s amazing. Two doctors in the family.”
“Three, technically. Annalise has her JD.”
“She’s a lawyer? I didn’t know that.”
“She passed the bar, but now she’s my assistant.” He shrugs, a small frown forming on his lips.
I wonder why she isn’t working in the legal field but don’t feel comfortable asking. Annalise and I haven’t spent much time together since I chose not to move into Travis’ apartment. A part of me wonders if she resents me a little or feels I rebuffed her.
I shift in my seat at the discomfort of that thought. Soon, my mind goes to Travis’ two other siblings. His talk about their educational pursuits remind me of the dreams I had, just a few short months ago.
“I thought about getting my Ph.D.” The words tumble from my mouth.
“Those brochures you had in your bedroom in New York,” he says casually.
I blink. “You saw those?”
He nods. “You don’t like your job?” he asks, briefly separating his attention from the road to look over at me with a twist of his mouth.
Peeling my eyes away from said mouth, I shrug. “I enjoy market research. Especially when working for worthy causes. However, it was never my intention to do it long-term.”
“What would you study?”
“Psychology.” It’s something I spent years thinking about. “But that’s not going to happen anymore,” I quickly add.
“Why?” The wrinkle in his eyebrows suggests he’s seriously asking.
I gesture to my belly. “Uh.”
His frown deepens. “You can still go to school as a mom.”
My mom almost did it.
The comment is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite the words back.
“I should probably get used to being a mom before adding an entire advanced degree program into the mix.” That’s not even mentioning so many other factors like where exactly I’d go to school given that I now live here.
“This is it,” I say a few minutes later, pointing toward rows of vendors behind their wooden stands, selling everything from fruits and vegetables to handmade jewelry, paintings, and clothing.
Travis parks on a nearby street and we walk over to the market, his hand at the small of my back. At this point, when walking side-by-side, it feels unnatural for his hand not to be there.
At the back of my mind, I wonder when that happened.
“I couldn’t imagine having triplets,” I say to get my mind off of how much I like having him touch me.
“For me, it was great,” he says, grinning. “I had my own built-in best friends. Then Chloe came along and completed our family.”
My heart lurches inside of my chest.
“I always wondered what it would be like to have siblings,” I confess
“It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, though.” He chuckles. “Chloe was particularly fond of stealing my clothes.”
“No way.”
“Yeah,” he confirms. “She said boys’ clothes were cooler even though my parents had no problem buying whatever clothes she wanted.”
“I don’t like sharing clothes,” I confess. “Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have any sisters.” It was meant to be a joke, but my heart squeezes.
The truth is, since the accident, I wondered how my life would’ve been different if I had a brother or sister to share my pain with. Would I have felt less alone?
“Do you want our son or daughter to have siblings?”
Travis’ question stops me cold. I turn to look at him.
His intent gaze lingers on me. I can’t say the answer that immediately comes to mind.
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Either way, our child will never be alone. I have a shit ton of cousins in addition to my sisters and brother. My entire family is pretty close.”
Assurance I didn’t know I needed washes over me.
“Is there anything in particular you wanted at the market?” he asks
“I need some produce, and I wanted to look around for a bit. The market only gets this big on Mondays.”
After purchasing some tomatoes and fresh basil, I point to another stand.
“They have baby clothes.” I laugh at how cute the little knitted shoes are. “Tell me these aren’t the cutest things you’ve ever seen.” I hold up a pair of white, wool booties with bows on them.
“We’ll take them,” Travis says to the vendor.
“I didn’t …” I peter off because my heart squeezes when I look at the booties. There’s no way I could turn them down even if I’d only pointed them out just to say how cute they are.
I sigh as I look at the booties and onesies that Travis added to our purchase. “I can’t believe I’m going to be a mom in a few months.”
“Does it scare the hell out of you, too?” he asks, arm at my back again.
My hand goes to my belly. “Scares me, excites me, and … saddens me,” I admit.
He tilts his head to the side, but his hand presses into my back as he steers me around a few other patrons.
“Why sad?”
I pause, gnawing my lower lip as I ponder my answer. I haven’t shared with anyone this tugging feeling in my core that’s grown with each day right along with my bump.
“I, uh, I wish I could talk to my mom.” I stop to quell the sudden emotion that threatens to overtake me.
“Sometimes it’s simple things like asking her what her pregnancy symptoms were to compare with mine. Other times I wish I knew what her thoughts were during pregnancy, if she felt the same things I’m feeling.
“Was she staying up at night mulling over what type of mother she would be.”
“Is that what you do?” Travis asks. “Stay up at night wondering what type of mother you’ll be?”
I nod.
He trails a hand down the length of my arm, while lifting his sunglasses from his eyes with the other.
His sincere gaze plunges into mine.
“I can’t give you your mother’s answer to that question, but I can give you mine,” he says, his voice firm yet full of tenderness.
I hold my breath, wanting him to continue.
“Relentless,” he says, surprising me.
Wasn’t expecting that.
“Unstoppable,” he continues. “The type of mother who struck out on her own at eighteen and forged her own way in the world. When she found out she was pregnant on the same day she got laid off, didn’t throw the blankets over her head and gave up.”
“She got up and fought, working extra shifts at her part-time job while searching for a full-time job to support herself and her baby. I think any woman who’s shown that level of strength and wherewithal to thrive, is exactly the type of woman who’s going to make a phenomenal mother.”
He pauses, reaching up to wipe a tear from my cheek.
“I’m lucky and proud to be able to raise a child with a mother like that.”
Holy shit.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he says, making me realize I am, indeed, crying.
I laugh through my tears. “To be fair, that first day, I did freak out and curled up in my bed with the covers over my head before eating a pint of ice cream.”
It’s his turn to chuckle as he wipes another tear from my cheek.
These damn hormones.