6 - SHATTERED GLASS #2
"See that?" Dr. Chen pointed to a spot on the screen. "You're having a boy. A very healthy, very active baby boy."
A boy.
Victoria's hand flew to her mouth. Tears—happy tears, the kind she hadn't shed in months—spilled down her cheeks. Beside her, Brock made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and when she turned to look at him, his gray eyes were wet.
"A son," he said. The word was a prayer. "We're having a son."
"I told you," Victoria said through her tears. "I told you Brock Jr. had a ring to it."
Brock laughed. Wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, all while Dr. Chen pretended to be very interested in the ultrasound machine's settings.
"I love you," he murmured against her mouth. "I love you, and I love this baby, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life making sure you both know it."
Victoria believed him. She believed him with every fiber of her being, with every cell of the baby boy swimming in her womb, with every heartbeat that filled the lavender room.
Dr. Chen printed the pictures—more than they needed, a whole stack of twenty-week scans—and Victoria clutched them to her chest like they were made of gold.
In the parking lot, the December cold bit at her cheeks, but she didn't feel it.
She was too warm, too full, too bursting with the knowledge that she was carrying Brock's son.
Brock Jr. BJ, for short. She was already calling him that in her head.
—
The drive home was quiet in the way that mattered—not the silence of secrets, but the silence of two people who didn't need words.
Brock drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on Victoria's thigh, his thumb tracing absent patterns through her jeans.
The hills of Raleigh County rolled past the windows, bare trees and brown grass and the occasional house with Christmas lights already strung along the eaves.
"I want to name him Brock Thomas Carter Jr.," Victoria said. "Thomas was my grandfather's name."
Brock glanced at her. His eyes were still red-rimmed from crying. "You've been thinking about this."
"I've been thinking about it since we saw his heartbeat at twelve weeks. I just didn't let myself believe it was real."
"It's real." Brock's hand tightened on her thigh. "He's real. Our son is real."
"Our son." Victoria tried the words out. They tasted like honey. Like hope. Like the future she'd been too scared to imagine until this very moment. "Brock Thomas Carter Jr. BJ."
"BJ." Brock smiled. The smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, made him look younger than fifty, made Victoria's heart flutter in a way that had nothing to do with the baby. "I like it."
"Good. Because it's already decided."
"Is that how this works?"
"This is how this works." Victoria placed her hand over his on her thigh. "I'm the pregnant one. I make the decisions."
Brock laughed. The sound filled the truck cab, warm and bright, and Victoria let herself sink into it. Let herself believe, for one perfect moment, that everything was going to be okay.
—
The house smelled like garlic and rosemary when they walked through the front door.
Victoria stopped in the entryway. Her coat was half-unbuttoned, her scarf still wound around her neck, and she stared toward the kitchen with an expression of genuine bewilderment. They'd been gone for two hours. Two hours, and Brock had been with her the whole time.
"How—"
"I prepped everything this morning," Brock said. He was already behind her, helping her out of her coat, his hands warm on her shoulders. "Slow cooker. It's been going since we left."
"You did not."
"Did too."
Victoria walked into the kitchen. The slow cooker sat on the counter, its lid fogged with condensation, and when she lifted it, the aroma of beef bourguignon flooded the room.
On the counter beside it, two candles waited in their holders.
Brock took a bottle of sparkling grape juice out of the refrigerator.
The good plates—the ones that had belonged to Brock's mother, the ones he'd packed away after his wife died and never unpacked—were stacked beside the stove.
"You did all this," Victoria said. "For me."
"For us." Brock came up behind her, his arms circling her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. "For our son. This is a celebration."
"A celebration of what?"
"Of everything. Of you. Of him. Of us getting through the worst month and a half of our lives without killing each other." He kissed her cheek. "I wanted to do something special. Something romantic. We haven't had a lot of romance lately."
Victoria turned in his arms. The kitchen was dark except for the slow cooker's red light and the pale winter glow filtering through the window.
She slid her arms around his neck. Pulled him down for a kiss that was softer than she'd intended, more tender, more full of the things she didn't have words for.
"Thank you," she said. "For this. For everything. For not giving up on me when things got hard."
"Things are always going to be hard. The world is always going to have something to say about us." His thumb traced her cheekbone. "But I'm not going anywhere. You and me and BJ—we're a family now. And I protect my family."
They ate by candlelight.
The beef bourguignon was rich and tender, the mashed potatoes creamy, the roasted vegetables caramelized.
Victoria ate two servings, her appetite finally matching her pregnancy for the first time in months, and Brock watched her with an expression of such naked satisfaction that she had to look away.
"You're staring," she said.
"You're beautiful."
"I'm five months pregnant. I'm the size of a house."
"You're the size of a very small house. A charming cottage. A bungalow." He grinned. "And you're beautiful."
Victoria threw a dinner roll at him. He caught it. Bit into it. Kept grinning.
This was what she'd wanted, she realized.
Not just the baby, not just the future, but this—the easy companionship, the laughter, the warmth of a man who looked at her like she was the most important thing in his world.
She'd never had this with Joey. With Joey, everything had been careful.
Measured. The accountant's precision applied to every aspect of their life together.
With Brock, nothing was careful. Everything was real.
"I have something special planned for dessert," he said when their plates were empty. He stood, collecting the dishes, and set them in the sink. When he turned back, his gray eyes had darkened in a way Victoria recognized.
"Oh?" Her pulse quickened. "What kind of dessert?"
"Wait here."
He disappeared into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened. Closed. When he returned, he was carrying a plate of strawberries—the good ones, the ones that cost twice as much and tasted like summer—and a bowl of whipped cream.
"Dessert," he said. "And it's not for eating at the table."
Victoria's mouth went dry. "Where is it for eating?"
"The bedroom."
He took her hand. Led her down the hallway, past the guest room where she'd slept beside Joey for months, past the bathroom where she'd scrubbed herself clean of guilt and semen and secrets, past everything that had been and toward everything that would be.
—
The master bedroom was dark except for the lamp on Brock's nightstand. He'd made the bed—something Victoria had never seen him do in the entire time she'd lived in this house—and there were more candles, unlit, arranged on the dresser. He'd planned this. All of it. The thought made her chest ache.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to the bed. Victoria sat.
Brock set the plate and the bowl on the nightstand. He dipped a strawberry in whipped cream—a perfect swirl of white atop the red—and held it to her lips. Victoria opened her mouth. The strawberry was cold and sweet, the cream melting on her tongue, and she watched Brock watch her eat it.
"Good?" he asked.
"Better than good."
He fed her another strawberry. Then another. The cream dripped over his fingers, and he licked it off, his gray eyes never leaving hers. Victoria's breath came faster. The baby moved inside her, a flutter of awareness, as if he knew something was happening.
Brock set the plate down. Dipped his fingers in the whipped cream.
"Stand up," he said. His voice was rougher now. Deeper.
Victoria stood.
He unbuttoned her blouse. Slowly. Deliberately.
One button, then the next, then the next, until the fabric fell open and her breasts spilled forward, fuller than they'd ever been, the nipples dark against the white of her bra.
His fingers traced the curve of her cleavage, leaving a trail of whipped cream, and Victoria shivered at the cold.
Then his mouth was on her.
His tongue traced the cream from her skin—the swell of her right breast, the valley between them, the underside where the flesh was most tender. Victoria's head fell back. Her hands found his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt, as his lips closed around her nipple and sucked.
"Brock—"
He switched to her left breast. Gave it the same attention—cream, tongue, teeth, suction. By the time he pulled back, her nipples were slick and dark and aching, and she was trembling.
"Lie down," he said.
She lay back on the bed. The comforter was cool beneath her bare skin. Brock stood over her, still fully dressed, and the sight of him—this powerful man, this man who had been her secret and was now her everything—sent a spike of heat through her belly.
He unbuttoned her jeans—maternity jeans, with the elastic panel that stretched over her bump—and peeled them down her legs. Her underwear followed. She was bare before him, her belly round and full, the blonde curls between her thighs already glistening.
He picked up a strawberry.
And then he knelt between her legs.
Victoria's breath caught.
Brock dipped the strawberry. Not into the bowl.
Into her.
The berry traced the length of her slit. The cold was shocking, electric. Victoria's hips jerked. Her hands fisted in the comforter. The strawberry gathered her wetness—she was already so wet, always so wet around him—and then Brock lifted it to her mouth.