“Oh, I like the bloodthirsty side of you.” Fiona winked. “Does Rowan know about that?”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but press my legs together, thinking of how I’d handcuffed him to the bed just last night. It turned out my alpha bad boy did love giving up control. To me, at least.
“Does he know about that?” She tipped her head downward to my stomach.
I gasped, looking at her in shock. “How did you know?” I asked, cupping my stomach.
“Girl, you’ve not touched that.” Her eyes flickered to my glass. “And that’s a $300 bottle of French champagne. One of your favorites. Which I’ll not let go to waste.” She picked up the glass. “Your tits are even bigger than usual,” she added, gesturing to my chest with the glass. “And you’ve got the whole pregnancy glow going on. You haven’t been eating anything in the mornings, just nursing a cup of fucking tea like you’re an eighty-year-old English woman. I’m not blind.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m surprised your man doesn’t know already. Since his powerful, masculine dominant gaze is always zeroed in on you whenever you’re in the vicinity, and he notices every time you fucking blush.”
I grinned at her words. She wasn’t wrong. Rowan’s attention was always on me. Always. He watched me with an intensity like I tethered him to the earth or something. And the feeling was totally mutual. He was incredibly in tune with my body. He noticed tiny things about my mannerisms and expressions that signified I was overly anxious, tired, sad.
But he hadn’t noticed the pregnancy.
Granted, I only found out three days ago. But seventy-two hours was long enough to keep a secret from the man I loved more than life itself.
“He’s been busy finishing up the job before the wedding,” I explained to Fiona. “And I’ve been here, baking cakes.”
I’d planned on telling Rowan last night, but I’d been here late, putting the finishing touches on everything, and was so tired by the time I got home, I ate the meal that Rowan had cooked and promptly passed out on the sofa.
He’d carried me to bed… Something I hadn’t noticed because I’d been dead to the world. A state that continued the entire night with Rowan needing to pretty much shake me to get me up, something unheard of.
He could tell something was off then because no matter how tired I was, my internal alarm always woke me. Pregnancy hormones trumped that, apparently.
I didn’t want to sit him down and tell him I was carrying his baby at five in the morning; it wasn’t something I could blurt over coffee while we were still both half asleep. I wanted to do it right. Wanted to present him with a little onesie that read ‘Daddy’ and the positive pregnancy test like all the cute couples did online.
I planned on doing that tonight after the wedding. Hopefully he was happy. I was pretty sure he was going to be happy.
This wasn’t exactly going to come out of the blue.
“He’s going to be over the moon,” Fiona said softly, reading my mind. Or maybe the wrinkle in my forehead.
“I hope so,” I replied weakly.
“I know so,” she replied firmly. “That motherfucker is so in love with you, it would sicken me... If I didn’t love you so much and want to see you living out your own little American dream. You have a real one, you know? Not the kind that looks shiny like veneers but underneath there’s really just pointed nubs of teeth. The kind with the crippling debt people take on so they can keep up the affair with the secretary, that kind of thing.”
I smiled, cradling my not so flat stomach—which had to do with my affinity for sugar rather than the pregnancy. I didn’t feel completely at peace, I was still bracing for the bad since I couldn’t trust that life could be this good.
I tried to push the negative thoughts away, but while thinking about the worst things that could happen, my mind went to what Rowan told me about Kip.
“Do you know… everything about him?” I asked carefully. Even though this whole thing had been a whirlwind, I figured he’d told her about that life-changing, traumatic event from his past.
Fiona screwed up her face. “I know he’s got a six-pack and a prize hog, that’s all I need to know.” She peered at me. “What do you know?”
Shit.
Okay, so he hadn’t told her. And it definitely wasn’t my place to tell her, even though I thought it was the kind of thing that was way too important to hide from the woman you were marrying.
“Nora,” Fiona warned, putting down her glass. “You know something.”
“No, I don’t,” I squeaked.
“You’re a fucking terrible liar,” she folded her arms in front of her. “And I’m not getting married if you know he’s like a secret serial killer or claps when planes land.”