CHAPTER SIXTEEN
TWO WEEKS LATER.
Nearly every day, a new package arrived from Mia’s online shopping exploits. She was unstoppable, and if I was honest, a little scary. But on the up side, she was no longer bored being at home all day.
“You want to go to lunch with everyone today?” I asked when she woke up looking adorably tousled.
She blinked up at me hovering above her “Huh?” she mumbled.
“Lunch, with everyone, today?” I abbreviated it for her. She blinked a few times, waking up slowly, and then nodded. I stroked her cheek. Waking up with her would never get old. “God, you’re cute when you wake up,” I murmured just before my lips touched hers.
Her hands slid up my arms, over my shoulders and neck, and then into my hair. I groaned as her touch sent a shiver down my spine. “Love you,” I said against her lips.
“You too,” she uttered before I took her mouth again.
An hour later, we slid out of bed and into the shower. I helped Mia wash, and then I shaved her legs for her. There was something very intimate about shaving a woman’s legs. Her belly had gotten so big she couldn’t bend over to reach her ankles, but I was more than happy to do it for her.
We arrived twenty minutes late at the address of the café that Ivy had texted to me this morning. Mia couldn’t find anything to wear. I thought she looked smokin’ in the first outfit she put on, but she thought she looked fat. It didn’t matter what I said, she was convinced she looked like a whale. It was frustrating as fuck.
Everyone had already ordered, so I walked to the counter and added our order to the rest. Then I went back to the table and took my seat by Mia. She was fanning herself with a pretty oriental silk fan. “Where did you get that?” I asked.
She smiled wide. “Stella just gave it to me. Isn’t it pretty?”
“Yeah, Pretty Girl, it is.” Seeing her smile dissolved all my frustration from earlier.
We sat and ate with our friends while watching the girls play in the little indoor play area. Everything was perfect. I relaxed back in my seat and threw my arm over the back of Mia’s chair. Finding her had been the best thing to ever happen to me.
A year ago, I was content to be Tessa and Gracie’s godfather. I didn’t think for a moment that I would have a family of my own, my own children, my own wife. I looked at Mia sitting beside me smiling and talking to my friends, our friends. I decided right then and there I would marry this woman. This woman who had turned my life around and brought me back to the living.
Mia noticed me staring, and a blush crept up her neck. She was wearing a white, strapless sundress that was tight around her bust and flowed around her like a cloud. “What are you looking at?” she asked.
“My future,” I told her honestly.
We were the last to leave as Mia had to use the bathroom before we left. I waited by the entry for her, and when she came towards me, I couldn’t stop my heart from beating faster. She was everything I never knew I needed.
I took her hand in mine when she reached me and led her outside. “Today was nice,” she said as we made our way across the parking lot towards my truck. I’d been looking at getting a car for Mia, but she didn’t drive. I’d taken her to get her learner’s permit, but she wasn’t interested in learning until after the baby came.
When we got to the truck, I opened Mia’s door for her and took her hips in my hands, but before I could give her a boost, she turned and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I love you,” she said. I bent my head low enough for her to reach my lips and she kissed me.
A man’s hate-filled voice broke us apart. “Mia?” he said with barely disguised rage.
My head shot up immediately. “Can I help you?” I said, keeping my hold on Mia’s hips. Her body had gone rigid, and her breathing became erratic.
The man ignored me. “What the fuck? You’re pregnant.” He glared daggers at Mia’s stomach, and she moved her hands to hold it protectively.
I kept one hand on her hip and slid her behind my body as I took a step in front of her, shielding her from the guy I now assumed was Trent. I pulled my shoulders back and straightened to my full height. “I said, can I help you?”
“Who the fuck are you?” he spat.
“Mia’s boyfriend who doesn’t appreciate you lookin’ at her like that,” I replied in an even tone.
He had no choice but to look at me now, and when he did, I saw his jaw tick as his eyes thinned to slits. “That’s my fucking baby, isn’t it, Mia?” he spoke through me, not to me.
I still had one hand on her, and I felt her body shaking behind me. She was terrified. “Does it look like it’s your baby arsehole? I’m standing right here, aren’t I?”
That got his attention to turn to me. His head tilted to the side as he sized me up. I had a few inches on him and a hell of a lot more muscle. But I’d learnt long ago to never underestimate my opponent. I took stock of his stance—the way his chest moved with his laboured breaths and the pure loathing emanating from his glare.
“She hasn’t been out of my bed long enough for that to be your kid inside her,” he seethed.
I raised a brow. “Oh, really? And how do you figure that?”
“She fat as a fucking house, that’s how.”
That did it, I was done with this shit. Nobody called my girl fat. “Ex-fucking-scuse me?” I gave Mia’s hip a gentle squeeze then released my hold on her and took a step towards him. “You wanna run that by me again?”
He didn’t back down, not immediately. He wanted me to make the first move, I could feel it. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. I stared him down until he finally relaxed his stance. “Whatever, you can have her cheap arse.” He smiled like the cat that caught the canary. “I’ve already had it. Everywhere you touch her, I already have. Every way you fuck her, I already have.” He moved his upper body to the side to see past me to Mia and blew her a kiss. “I’ll be seeing you later, Mia.” Then he shot her a wink and backed away a few paces before he turned his back on us and walked away.
I could feel my pulse beating in my temples. My whole body was wound tight and ready to tear that fucker to shreds. How dare he talk about Mia like that. I took a moment to slow my breathing before I turned around to look at Mia. She was leaning against the side of the car, one hand over her heart and the other wrapped around her belly. Tears ran freely down her cheeks, and I wanted to go after that arsehole and beat him within an inch of his miserable life.
With two long strides, I was in front of her and took her in my arms. “Shh, baby. It’s alright,” I murmured into her hair at the top of her head. When I breathed in her scent, its calming effect took hold, and my body relaxed. She was fine, she was in my arms and we would be fine.
“He’s never spoken to me like that before,” she whispered.
I ran my palms up and down her spine. “I don’t know what to tell you, baby. Jealousy is an ugly thing.”
Mia nodded against my chest and snuggled in closer. We stood like that for another few minutes before I helped her into my truck and took her home. The drive home was filled with silence, and I worried Mia was shutting down on me. She hadn’t looked at me since we started driving, just kept her eyes on her hands in her lap. It made me nervous.
When we pulled into the carport, I unclipped my belt and turned to face her. She was still staring at her hands. I reached over and took them from her lap and pulled them towards me. “Mia, Pretty Girl, what’s going on in that head of yours?”
Her eyes met mine. “I shouldn’t be here. I’ve been living in this fantasy world, and it’s been amazing. Better than amazing, it’s been the best few months of my life.” She bit her lip to hold back a sob as it tried to break free from her chest. “But I don’t belong. I’m nothing, Kai, and you, you’re everything.”
She couldn’t be serious. I sat there staring at her in bewilderment. I couldn’t believe she didn’t see what I saw every time I looked at her. I reached across, unclipped her seatbelt, and urged her over into my lap. She came willingly, tears still streaming down her cheeks. Once I had her sitting across my legs, I turned her face to mine. “You are my everything.”
A pained cry wrenched from her chest, and she buried her face in my neck. I held her there until she calmed down. “I don’t care about your past, Mia. It means nothing to me. But your future, that’s mine, Pretty Girl, and I won’t let your past take that away from me.”
Her lips met mine in a passionate kiss, which told me everything I needed to know in this moment. She was with me, and that’s all that mattered.
Seeing Trent had rocked me. I didn’t know what to do or say. He was so hostile. He’d never been that openly brutal when we were together. His words cut me like a blade. I thought Kai was going to kill him right there in the parking lot, and all I could do was sink further into myself.
All the feelings I had about myself before, when I was with him, resurfaced. I was a nobody, and I was lucky he’d even given me the time of day. What did I think I was doing here with Kai? I didn’t belong in a place like this. Kai begged to differ, but he only knew who I was now, not who I was before. The person I’d always be inside.
I was contemplating my life. How I’d gotten here, how Kai had taken me in, and how he meant so much to me now. I saw him as the father of my baby, not Trent. He was nothing more than a sperm donor in my opinion.
It was hot as hell out, and I was lying on the couch with the air con on and a cool washer on my forehead when a knock sounded at the front door. I wasn’t expecting anyone, but that didn’t mean anything. Ivy, Stella, and Sloan often popped over without notice, and I loved it. Even Axel would show up on occasion. He liked to rub my belly. He told me he thought my belly was lucky, like a Budda but cuter.
I rolled to my side and put my feet on the floor before pushing myself up. Getting up and down had gotten harder and harder lately. I was huge, and with only three weeks to go, I was the size of a house. I waddled over to the door and opened it without looking through the peephole.
It wasn’t Ivy, or Stella, or Sloan. It wasn’t even Axel. It was Trent, and he was pissed.