Jenna

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, tugging on the waist of my jeans and pulling hard. No matter how much I yanked, the darn things wouldn’t meet close enough in the middle for me to be able to force the button into the hole. To add insult to injury, they were my fat pants, too! My period was supposed to start yesterday, and my bloating had been out of control for the last couple of days.

Glancing in the mirror, I turned to the side and sucked my belly in. It didn’t do a lot of good, though. I still looked like I was...

“Pregnant,” I gasped.

My period was normally like clockwork, always starting on the twenty-eighth day. I’d assumed it was late because of the stress of planning my wedding to Quinn. After all these years, we were finally less than three months away from our big day. The school year would be ending in a couple of weeks, and I had about a million details to finalize so everything would be exactly how I wanted it.

“Except for one little thing,” I whispered, my hand hovering over my belly as I stared at myself in the mirror. I hadn’t planned to get pregnant before we were married. If I had, I would never have picked a mermaid, off-the-shoulder, sweep train lace wedding dress. It was a custom design and fit me like a glove—or at least it had before all the bloating had started. If I was pregnant, it would probably burst at the seams by the time our wedding date rolled around.

If. Such a simple word, but I didn’t want it hanging over my head. I wanted to be certain.

I pulled my pants down my legs, kicking them off when they reached my ankles, and grabbed some yoga pants to put on instead. Feeling rebellious, I snapped a quick selfie and sent it to Quinn. He deserved the torture of knowing that I was running around town in a pair of what he liked to call “ass corsets” because they lift and shape my ass. He hated when I wore them and he wasn’t with me since they could make a decent ass look amazing, and I already had what he thought was the perfect ass.

A few minutes later, my phone dinged with a text notification. I ignored it and pulled out of our driveway, intent on getting to the drug store immediately. As I passed my brother’s house, I briefly considered stopping to talk to his wife, Aspen, but then I decided against it. Weston’s goal in life seemed to be knocking her up as often as possible, so she probably had a spare pregnancy test lying around, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone other than Quinn—not until I knew the results.

I raced to the store, practically leaping from my BMW to run inside and grab a handful of tests since I didn’t want to waste the time to figure out which one was best. Then I headed towards the Gray Security offices, calling Quinn on speaker phone when I was only a few minutes away.

“Morning, baby. How’s all the errand running going?”

“About that—” I trailed off, my eyes glossing over with tears. Stupid hormones, they were another sign that the test was probably going to be positive. “I haven’t gotten anything from my original list done yet because I had to add two more stops to the list.”

“Not because of issues with the wedding, right?”

I heard the dread in his tone. Normally, I’d be understanding of it because he would have preferred to get married when he’d graduated from college, but I’d still had three years to go, so we’d waited. And waited some more, if you asked Quinn. But with thoughts of a possible pregnancy crowding my brain, I wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable. Especially not when it was all his fault.

“It depends on how you look at it,” I muttered.

“What do you mean; it depends?”

“Well,” I drawled out slowly. “You know how I am about surprises, right?”

“Of course I fucking know how much you hate surprises. I know everything about you.”

“Then you know how I get when even the tiniest surprise is sprung on me,” I snapped at him. “Multiply that by about a thousand, and you’ll get how I’m feeling right now.”

“What the fuck is going on? Tell me so I can fix it. I don’t like knowing you’re across town while you’re freaking out.”

“I’m not across town. I’m down the street from your office,” I corrected. “As a matter of fact, I’m getting ready to turn into the parking lot now.”

“Are you okay? Wait in the car. I’ll come down and get you,” he barked.

“No!” I yelped. I didn’t want to have this conversation in the middle of a parking lot. If it turned out that we were expecting a baby, I wanted this moment to be a little more memorable than us standing by my car where anyone could wander past us while I told him the news. “I’m coming up to you.”

“Jenna,” he growled.

“I know. I know,” I sighed. “You can be all macho later, after I’ve explained everything.”

I had a feeling macho was going to be an understatement if the test turned up positive. I’d seen how my brother was with Aspen when she was pregnant with their daughter, Willow. I was willing to bet Quinn was going to be just as bad—if not worse—with me.

I leapt from my car and raced towards the building as soon as I pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine on my car. If I didn’t move fast, Quinn would beat me downstairs before I could make it up to the Gray Security offices. Luckily, the guards knew me and waived me through.

“Seriously, I’m already headed to the elevator. Stay where you are. I’m coming to you.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “But I’ll be waiting for you when you get here.”

“Like I ever expected you to do otherwise,” I snorted.

My phone’s signal always sucked on the elevator in this building, and today was no exception. The call cut out the moment the doors shut in front of me. I watched the number of each floor light up, and it felt like it was taking forever. By the time they slid open again, and I saw Quinn standing there, I was a nervous wreck. His dark eyes scanned me from head to toe, and his muscular frame seemed to relax slightly when he found me in one piece.

“Whose ass do I need to kick for upsetting you?”

“Yours,” I hissed, darting a glance at the receptionist, Jessa. Her head dropped low as soon as our eyes met, and I would have made a point to go talk to her except I had more urgent business with my fiancé. “We need to talk. In private. Now.”

“What the hell, Jenna?”

I shoved the bag full of pregnancy tests into his hand and waited for him to look inside. His entire face lit up when he realized what they were. And what they meant for us.

He didn’t freak out like I had. Why would he when his tuxedo would still fit him perfectly? Instead, he led me past Jessa and into Xander’s office.

“We need to use your private bathroom,” Quinn barked at his boss, shaking the drug store bag.

Xander’s eyes darted from Quinn, to the bag, and then to my belly. The man was way too smart for his own good because he immediately figured it out and grinned, gesturing to the door. “Sure. Go ahead. It’s open on this side.”

Quinn didn’t give me the chance to offer Xander more than a quick hello before he nudged me into the bathroom and slammed the door behind us.

“Holy crap!” I squeaked, taking in my surroundings. The bathroom was huge, with travertine flooring, cream painted walls, a cream and gold swirled counter, and an enormous shower, the tiles made to match the floor. There was a bench against the wall next to the door, and before I knew what was happening I was sitting on it with Quinn kneeling at my feet. Due to his six-foot-three frame, it left us at eye level with each other.

“Are you pregnant?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. “I think I might be since my period was supposed to come yesterday and none of my pants fit me right.”

“Fuck, yeah,” he breathed out, making me narrow my eyes at him.

“Why don’t you seem the least bit surprised by this?”

“Worry about that later.” He dug through the bag and pulled out a pink box. After scanning the front and back of the package, he nodded and ripped it open. “It says you can get results up to six days sooner than your missed period with this one. Go pee on it.”

“Fine,” I huffed, scooting around him to use the toilet. It was a good thing it was in a little alcove off to the side, with a door, or else we would have ended up in an argument because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pee in front of him and there was no way I’d get him to agree to step out of the room.

I did my business as quietly as possible, and after I was done, I set the test on the counter and washed my hands. Quinn came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my belly and pulling me close. His scruffy chin rested on the top of my head, and his eyes were glued on the test. I was as anxious to know the results as he was, but I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his reflection in the mirror. I watched as his dark eyes filled with so much emotion—love, excitement, determination—and I knew. The test was positive. We were pregnant.

“C’mon,” he growled, gripping my hand in his tightly as he tugged me towards the door opposite the one we’d come through before. He threw it open and practically dragged me across the mats on the floor of the workout room.

“Where are we going?”

“The courthouse.”