Code blue, p.11
Code Blue, page 11
“It’s okay,” Violet said. “I know how these things are. This is your first time?”
“Yes,” Marie said, looking away from her. “It’s different for me…”
“What do you mean? It’s different for everybody.”
Marie nodded. “I don’t know. If I told you, I don’t know if you would believe me.”
Violet furrowed her brow. “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“Not here. Do you want to do coffee sometime?”
“I…”
Marie could tell that Violet wanted to say no, but she didn’t think that she was about to get rejected. Something about the interaction they were having made her think that Violet knew that there was something about what Marie was saying. Still, she didn’t want to push. She didn’t want to cause this woman any pain, all things considered. It felt extremely unfair to do that.
“You know what?” Marie said, shaking her head. “Forget it. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“No,” Violet said. “You have me curious, and you clearly have something to say. How about now? I have some time now, if that’s not too sudden.”
Marie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Sure, now works. Let me just go and tell my ride.”
Violet nodded. Marie could tell that she was confused, but it was clear that she was going to wait. Which was good. It was exactly what she needed.
She walked up to Landon. “I’m going to be a while,” she said. “I expect this conversation could take a long time.”
“I will wait,” he said.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to wait,” she said. “Like I said, it’s going to take a while.”
“I’ll wait,” he said. “I can go get food. Just text me when you are done, okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
After a little while, Marie was sitting in front of Violet, flashing her a nervous smile.
“So,” Violet said. “First time, then?”
“Yes,” she said. “But like I said, for me, it was a bit weird.”
“Who did you lose?”
Marie immediately tensed up. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know, because I think some people would tell you that they weren’t real.”
“What do you mean?”
Marie took a deep breath before she could start to explain. She looked away at certain times, and she never actually told Violet what her daughter’s name was. She couldn’t. Not yet.
But when she looked up at Violet, the woman’s eyes were full of tears. She reached out and touched Marie’s hands, which she wasn’t expecting at all.
“I…the reason I wanted to tell you,” Marie said. “Was because…”
She trailed off, but Violet kept staring at her. Her hands were still on Marie’s.
“Because in the dream, my daughter had the same name as the daughter you lost,” she said. “And I don’t want to compare them and make you feel like my loss is as valid as yours, but…”
Violet tensed, slightly.
“What was she like?” she asked when Marie trailed off. “Your daughter, in the coma. What was she like?”
Marie smiled. “Wonderful. She was the best daughter ever, an incredibly nice person, kind of cheeky and funny, even when she was really small. She had this birthmark on her index finger in her left hand, and I remember thinking that I didn’t know where it had come from, since neither my husband or I had any birthmarks like that.”
Violet paled, but she didn’t stop holding Marie’s hand. “My husband,” she said. “Have you ever met him?”
“No,” Marie said. “And I only came here because of a friend, but then I heard your story, and I…I had to tell you. I knew you might hate me forever or feel upset, but you had to know the truth. Whatever your daughter’s journey was, it was happy and peaceful and wonderful.”
When she looked at Violet’s face, again, her lower lip was quivering. Her eyes were swimming with tears. “Tell me everything,” she said. “Absolutely everything.”
“Of course,” Marie replied.
For the next few hours, that was exactly what she did. She told Violet everything. Every challenge, every memory, what Daniela’s favorite toy had been, what her first boyfriend’s name was. She couldn’t remember everything, but Violet seemed to get it. She understood. And for the first time since she had come out of her coma, Marie felt like things were starting to snap into place.
LANDON
They didn’t drive back until it was late into the night. It was maybe eleven o’clock by the time they were driving back to their home town, and Marie looked like she was emotionally exhausted. There was make-up smeared on her face, and while he wanted to reach out and touch her and tell her that everything was going to be alright, he stopped himself. If she wanted to say something about it, he figured that she would, all by herself.
And she didn’t want to talk to him; he had to be okay with that. He had done everything he could do. He was watching the road when he heard her speak.
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I mean it. You didn’t have to do that. But you did, and I appreciate it.”
“Really,” he said. “It is okay. It’s the least I can do after everything that happened between us.”
“You didn’t have to do anything. You could have just let things stay the way that they were.”
He shook his head, not looking at her once. It was hard to see the road. There was rain, and he could hardly see the light of the cars in front of him. “No,” he said, quietly. “I couldn’t leave it like that. Even if we were never going to be an item or anything, I just couldn’t.”
He could feel her gaze on him. “You’re a good man.”
“No,” he said, quietly. “But I try to be. That has to be worth something. At least that is what I tell myself.”
“Just listen to yourself.”
That time, he did look at her. He could hear the mockery in her voice, and he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. “What do you mean?”
“You know,” she replied. “You can sit there and act like it’s the least you could do, or whatever, or you could just say you are trying to own up to your mistake.”
“I mean, I’m clearly trying to own up to my mistake.”
“You fucked up,” she said.
He nodded, and he was about to answer something to that when she stopped him.
“You fucked up, but you acknowledged it. You tried to make it make sense. I appreciate that,” she said. “Now, I know you didn’t do it for selfish reasons, because if you had, I would be a lot less receptive. And you made me realize something…”
“What did I make you realize?”
“That I’m not crazy,” she said. “That what I experienced was real.”
“It was real to you…”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than me. Don’t you see that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I get a second chance. I don’t get to have the life that I had before, but I get to have this one. And while I will always miss and grieve the people that were my family when I was in a coma, I know they loved me. I know they are well. I can feel it in my heart. So, I think it’s time that I start living life for me too.”
“For you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Which is why I’m willing to give you a second chance too. Because if I got one, then the least I can do is extend you the courtesy of another one too.”
“Oh?”
“Because of that,” she said. “I’m willing to give you another chance. But only if you drop the pity party. Mine might have been by the grace of God, or whatever you believe in, but I can feel that it’s real. I can feel it in my bones. And after speaking to Violet, I know, now, that what I experienced was true and real and important. And I can tell that the people I love—because I will never stop loving them—still want me to be happy. So, I’m willing to give you a chance, and give myself a chance, if you drop the pity party and just admit that you fucked up.”
“Pity party immediately dropped,” he said, his heart flipping in his chest as he reached over to her and held her hand. “I would do anything you tell me to have another chance with you.”
“Great,” she said. “How about a date? This time, in public? I think that might be the perfect place to start.”
“A date in public seems like the best idea ever,” he said, and that time, he couldn’t help but look at her and smile.
EPILOGUE
MARIE
Marie tried her best not to leap off the field. She still felt the adrenaline coursing through her veins after having crushed the other team. The last goal had been hers, and the crowd had gone wild. There was no chance of the other team scoring an equalizer after that, and Marie was trying her best not to rub it into the other team’s face, no matter how much she wanted to.
Her teammates high-fived her as she went into the locker room, until her coach pulled her aside. “Hey, Jake,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“That was amazing,” he said. “But I think there is something going on, on the field, and you have to go back.”
“What? That makes no sense.”
“I’m the coach, young lady,” Jake said with mock seriousness. She rolled her eyes, but he was right. She wasn’t going to contradict him, so she went back on the field, looking around as she tried her best to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until she set her gaze in the midfield that she realized that there was a man there, and even from where she was, she could recognize him.
She practically ran toward him—as much as her tired legs would let her—and shot Landon a questioning look. “What…”
Before she could finish, he dropped down to his knees, and her eyes widened as he pulled a ring box out of his pocket. Her heart was beating hard as he smiled.
“Marie Parker,” he said.
She could hear his voice booming over the PA system.
“Would you make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife?”
“Yes,” she practically squealed. “Yes, yes, I’ll be your wife!”
He slid the ring on her finger, and she practically jumped on him until she was clinging to him with her arms and legs, and she could hear applause all around them. She had known that a proposal was coming, but she wasn’t sure when it was going to happen. The ring was beautiful, and she didn’t want to let go of Landon.
He let her down gently and laughed, kissing her on the lips. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “It was really hard to wait until the end of your big game.”
She laughed as they both walked back toward the locker room. “Why didn’t you do it in private?”
“I like using your celebrity,” he said. “Now that you are known for being the athlete and not accident girl, I expect we’ll be in the front news of The Gazette. Which means…”
“That they’ll give us wedding discounts, and I was worried about cost. Sneaky,” she said.
“But you didn’t have to worry,” he said. “I got it all covered. I just wanted good pictures.”
She laughed, shaking her head.
“Why don’t you get dressed at home, instead?” he asked. “Let me drive you back and then you can get into something more comfortable before we go out to celebrate.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m going to get your car wet, though, I’m so sweaty.”
“There is a towel in my car,” he said. “And you know, you can just get out of your clothes.”
“In the car?”
“The windows are tinted,” he said.
“You are naughty,” she replied, smiling at him. “This is why we share a house, you animal.”
“Okay,” he said. “As long as you take your clothes off as soon as we walk through the door.”
She laughed, throwing her head back again as she did so. “You are so bad,” she said.
They walked to the car together, drove home, and as they walked into the house, she was already taking off her shirt and shorts before he had closed the front door behind him. Her shoes and socks had come off in the car, and while she wanted to have a shower, his arms were wrapped around her waist, and he was pulling her toward him. She jumped so that her legs were wrapped around his waist, and fumbled to take off his pants. She was already wet, already ready for him, so when she guided his dick into her, all she felt was a wave of pleasure as he continued to fuck her, standing upright as she clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs tightening around him as he thrust his cock into her. She could feel herself getting closer to ecstasy, and as he continued to fuck her, he moved so that she was pinned up against the wall. He leveraged his weight against her own until she was screaming in ecstasy, throwing her head back and screaming his name. He leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“I’m going to…”
She didn’t hear anything else, because she was screaming his name, the orgasm exploding from the core of her body to the tips of her fingers, until she felt like she had lost her hearing and all she could focus on was the pleasure coursing in her veins and making her body throb.
He let her down gently and smiled at her. “I’ll join you in the shower,” he said as he gave her his hand. “I have a night shift I have to get ready for.”
“No,” she said. “I wanted a bath. Last game of the season, I really want to take advantage of it.”
“Okay,” he replied. “A bath is good.”
“Especially because I won’t be able to play for a while…”
“Well, the season is over, but you’re still working at the gym, and…”
“No,” she said. “I probably won’t be back next season.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she replied, winking at him and putting his hand on her stomach. “I think I’ll be a bit busy.”
His eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” she said as he hugged her tight again. “Seriously.”
He buried his nose in her hair and held her close. “Our own family,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied, smiling into his chest. “Our own family.”
THE END
I hope you loved seeing Landon and Marie fall in love.
Start from the beginning of the series with a gorgeous love story in The Baron and the Babe.
Sign up to my newsletter for all updates, deleted scenes and free and discounted books. You don’t want to miss out on these exclusives! Don’t miss out. Sign up today.
Do you want to know what happens when Astrid falls pregnant with her one-night-stand’s baby, and his mother pays her off to stay away from him? Fall in love with this gorgeous doctor in Dr. Bully and The Secret Baby.
Do you need more romance than you know what to do with? Check out the Heart Lines bundle and get cozy before you fall in love.
--
A strong curvy woman runs into her high school ex-boyfriend--and bully--after she has to look after him in the ER. Catch up with Jess and Jody’s story in All Grown Up.
A steamy romance happens between a skeptical epidemiologist and a psychic as they uncover the mystery in The Psychic and The Doctor.
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THE BARON AND THE BABE
PREVIEW
CHAPTER ONE
Ari
I knew it was coming. I knew it.
I felt it, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t know if it was because I was living in denial, or just because the idea that it would happen again scared me. But I felt cramping and then, maybe three minutes later, it had started.
Another period.
Another failure.
I knew that Roger had to be the first person to know. He was invested in this, maybe even more than I was. We had been lucky. It just hadn’t taken. We hadn’t had any losses yet. We had started going to a specialist, but the IVF process was still a way off.
Dr. Zaphyr had said that we were lucky we hadn’t conceived yet. She recommended a therapist to everyone whose pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. After she told us that, she stared. As if she wanted me to ask her to recommend a therapist.
But we weren’t there yet. We were trying and that was all that we could do.
I went to the bathroom, fixed my tear-stained make-up, and sniffled a little before I went back into our living room. Roger was watching the TV—golf, I think—and he barely looked up at me as I slowly shook my head.
He didn’t say anything.
“Roger,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering.
He looked up then, and our gazes met for a long second. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, even though I’d told myself before that I wasn’t going to apologize about this again. “I got my period.”
He looked back at the TV. He muttered something, but I couldn’t hear him.
“What was that?”
He looked up at me again. “Nothing,” he said, then straightened up a little bit. “It’s just, it’s not a fucking surprise, is it? Knowing you.”
I blinked. “You think I made this happen?”
He took too long to answer. By the time I heard his voice, I wasn’t in the living room anymore.
***
The divorce, my lawyer assured me, was going smoothly. I had no point of comparison, nothing to relate it to, and I wasn’t particularly interested in delving into the process.
As long as I got to keep what was mine, he could protest all he wanted. My friends all told me that I should be able to see what had happened between us as a blessing in disguise—you didn’t really want a kid with that guy, did you?—but it didn’t feel like a blessing. It felt like a slap in the face, like I hadn’t even managed to escape our relationship with dignity.
He had been the one to push for the child, and I always wanted to please him, but I had realized that I desperately wanted a baby too. Divorce, it turned out, was a long, drawn-out process, and while there was a part of me that told myself it was archaic to worry about being past my prime before I got pregnant, I couldn’t afford to just go for it by myself.
And the idea of finding a man…it wasn’t just distasteful. It was as ludicrous as the moon being made of cheese.
“Yes,” Marie said, looking away from her. “It’s different for me…”
“What do you mean? It’s different for everybody.”
Marie nodded. “I don’t know. If I told you, I don’t know if you would believe me.”
Violet furrowed her brow. “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“Not here. Do you want to do coffee sometime?”
“I…”
Marie could tell that Violet wanted to say no, but she didn’t think that she was about to get rejected. Something about the interaction they were having made her think that Violet knew that there was something about what Marie was saying. Still, she didn’t want to push. She didn’t want to cause this woman any pain, all things considered. It felt extremely unfair to do that.
“You know what?” Marie said, shaking her head. “Forget it. You don’t have to worry about it.”
“No,” Violet said. “You have me curious, and you clearly have something to say. How about now? I have some time now, if that’s not too sudden.”
Marie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Sure, now works. Let me just go and tell my ride.”
Violet nodded. Marie could tell that she was confused, but it was clear that she was going to wait. Which was good. It was exactly what she needed.
She walked up to Landon. “I’m going to be a while,” she said. “I expect this conversation could take a long time.”
“I will wait,” he said.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to wait,” she said. “Like I said, it’s going to take a while.”
“I’ll wait,” he said. “I can go get food. Just text me when you are done, okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
After a little while, Marie was sitting in front of Violet, flashing her a nervous smile.
“So,” Violet said. “First time, then?”
“Yes,” she said. “But like I said, for me, it was a bit weird.”
“Who did you lose?”
Marie immediately tensed up. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know, because I think some people would tell you that they weren’t real.”
“What do you mean?”
Marie took a deep breath before she could start to explain. She looked away at certain times, and she never actually told Violet what her daughter’s name was. She couldn’t. Not yet.
But when she looked up at Violet, the woman’s eyes were full of tears. She reached out and touched Marie’s hands, which she wasn’t expecting at all.
“I…the reason I wanted to tell you,” Marie said. “Was because…”
She trailed off, but Violet kept staring at her. Her hands were still on Marie’s.
“Because in the dream, my daughter had the same name as the daughter you lost,” she said. “And I don’t want to compare them and make you feel like my loss is as valid as yours, but…”
Violet tensed, slightly.
“What was she like?” she asked when Marie trailed off. “Your daughter, in the coma. What was she like?”
Marie smiled. “Wonderful. She was the best daughter ever, an incredibly nice person, kind of cheeky and funny, even when she was really small. She had this birthmark on her index finger in her left hand, and I remember thinking that I didn’t know where it had come from, since neither my husband or I had any birthmarks like that.”
Violet paled, but she didn’t stop holding Marie’s hand. “My husband,” she said. “Have you ever met him?”
“No,” Marie said. “And I only came here because of a friend, but then I heard your story, and I…I had to tell you. I knew you might hate me forever or feel upset, but you had to know the truth. Whatever your daughter’s journey was, it was happy and peaceful and wonderful.”
When she looked at Violet’s face, again, her lower lip was quivering. Her eyes were swimming with tears. “Tell me everything,” she said. “Absolutely everything.”
“Of course,” Marie replied.
For the next few hours, that was exactly what she did. She told Violet everything. Every challenge, every memory, what Daniela’s favorite toy had been, what her first boyfriend’s name was. She couldn’t remember everything, but Violet seemed to get it. She understood. And for the first time since she had come out of her coma, Marie felt like things were starting to snap into place.
LANDON
They didn’t drive back until it was late into the night. It was maybe eleven o’clock by the time they were driving back to their home town, and Marie looked like she was emotionally exhausted. There was make-up smeared on her face, and while he wanted to reach out and touch her and tell her that everything was going to be alright, he stopped himself. If she wanted to say something about it, he figured that she would, all by herself.
And she didn’t want to talk to him; he had to be okay with that. He had done everything he could do. He was watching the road when he heard her speak.
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I mean it. You didn’t have to do that. But you did, and I appreciate it.”
“Really,” he said. “It is okay. It’s the least I can do after everything that happened between us.”
“You didn’t have to do anything. You could have just let things stay the way that they were.”
He shook his head, not looking at her once. It was hard to see the road. There was rain, and he could hardly see the light of the cars in front of him. “No,” he said, quietly. “I couldn’t leave it like that. Even if we were never going to be an item or anything, I just couldn’t.”
He could feel her gaze on him. “You’re a good man.”
“No,” he said, quietly. “But I try to be. That has to be worth something. At least that is what I tell myself.”
“Just listen to yourself.”
That time, he did look at her. He could hear the mockery in her voice, and he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. “What do you mean?”
“You know,” she replied. “You can sit there and act like it’s the least you could do, or whatever, or you could just say you are trying to own up to your mistake.”
“I mean, I’m clearly trying to own up to my mistake.”
“You fucked up,” she said.
He nodded, and he was about to answer something to that when she stopped him.
“You fucked up, but you acknowledged it. You tried to make it make sense. I appreciate that,” she said. “Now, I know you didn’t do it for selfish reasons, because if you had, I would be a lot less receptive. And you made me realize something…”
“What did I make you realize?”
“That I’m not crazy,” she said. “That what I experienced was real.”
“It was real to you…”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than me. Don’t you see that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I get a second chance. I don’t get to have the life that I had before, but I get to have this one. And while I will always miss and grieve the people that were my family when I was in a coma, I know they loved me. I know they are well. I can feel it in my heart. So, I think it’s time that I start living life for me too.”
“For you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Which is why I’m willing to give you a second chance too. Because if I got one, then the least I can do is extend you the courtesy of another one too.”
“Oh?”
“Because of that,” she said. “I’m willing to give you another chance. But only if you drop the pity party. Mine might have been by the grace of God, or whatever you believe in, but I can feel that it’s real. I can feel it in my bones. And after speaking to Violet, I know, now, that what I experienced was true and real and important. And I can tell that the people I love—because I will never stop loving them—still want me to be happy. So, I’m willing to give you a chance, and give myself a chance, if you drop the pity party and just admit that you fucked up.”
“Pity party immediately dropped,” he said, his heart flipping in his chest as he reached over to her and held her hand. “I would do anything you tell me to have another chance with you.”
“Great,” she said. “How about a date? This time, in public? I think that might be the perfect place to start.”
“A date in public seems like the best idea ever,” he said, and that time, he couldn’t help but look at her and smile.
EPILOGUE
MARIE
Marie tried her best not to leap off the field. She still felt the adrenaline coursing through her veins after having crushed the other team. The last goal had been hers, and the crowd had gone wild. There was no chance of the other team scoring an equalizer after that, and Marie was trying her best not to rub it into the other team’s face, no matter how much she wanted to.
Her teammates high-fived her as she went into the locker room, until her coach pulled her aside. “Hey, Jake,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“That was amazing,” he said. “But I think there is something going on, on the field, and you have to go back.”
“What? That makes no sense.”
“I’m the coach, young lady,” Jake said with mock seriousness. She rolled her eyes, but he was right. She wasn’t going to contradict him, so she went back on the field, looking around as she tried her best to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until she set her gaze in the midfield that she realized that there was a man there, and even from where she was, she could recognize him.
She practically ran toward him—as much as her tired legs would let her—and shot Landon a questioning look. “What…”
Before she could finish, he dropped down to his knees, and her eyes widened as he pulled a ring box out of his pocket. Her heart was beating hard as he smiled.
“Marie Parker,” he said.
She could hear his voice booming over the PA system.
“Would you make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife?”
“Yes,” she practically squealed. “Yes, yes, I’ll be your wife!”
He slid the ring on her finger, and she practically jumped on him until she was clinging to him with her arms and legs, and she could hear applause all around them. She had known that a proposal was coming, but she wasn’t sure when it was going to happen. The ring was beautiful, and she didn’t want to let go of Landon.
He let her down gently and laughed, kissing her on the lips. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “It was really hard to wait until the end of your big game.”
She laughed as they both walked back toward the locker room. “Why didn’t you do it in private?”
“I like using your celebrity,” he said. “Now that you are known for being the athlete and not accident girl, I expect we’ll be in the front news of The Gazette. Which means…”
“That they’ll give us wedding discounts, and I was worried about cost. Sneaky,” she said.
“But you didn’t have to worry,” he said. “I got it all covered. I just wanted good pictures.”
She laughed, shaking her head.
“Why don’t you get dressed at home, instead?” he asked. “Let me drive you back and then you can get into something more comfortable before we go out to celebrate.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’m going to get your car wet, though, I’m so sweaty.”
“There is a towel in my car,” he said. “And you know, you can just get out of your clothes.”
“In the car?”
“The windows are tinted,” he said.
“You are naughty,” she replied, smiling at him. “This is why we share a house, you animal.”
“Okay,” he said. “As long as you take your clothes off as soon as we walk through the door.”
She laughed, throwing her head back again as she did so. “You are so bad,” she said.
They walked to the car together, drove home, and as they walked into the house, she was already taking off her shirt and shorts before he had closed the front door behind him. Her shoes and socks had come off in the car, and while she wanted to have a shower, his arms were wrapped around her waist, and he was pulling her toward him. She jumped so that her legs were wrapped around his waist, and fumbled to take off his pants. She was already wet, already ready for him, so when she guided his dick into her, all she felt was a wave of pleasure as he continued to fuck her, standing upright as she clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs tightening around him as he thrust his cock into her. She could feel herself getting closer to ecstasy, and as he continued to fuck her, he moved so that she was pinned up against the wall. He leveraged his weight against her own until she was screaming in ecstasy, throwing her head back and screaming his name. He leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“I’m going to…”
She didn’t hear anything else, because she was screaming his name, the orgasm exploding from the core of her body to the tips of her fingers, until she felt like she had lost her hearing and all she could focus on was the pleasure coursing in her veins and making her body throb.
He let her down gently and smiled at her. “I’ll join you in the shower,” he said as he gave her his hand. “I have a night shift I have to get ready for.”
“No,” she said. “I wanted a bath. Last game of the season, I really want to take advantage of it.”
“Okay,” he replied. “A bath is good.”
“Especially because I won’t be able to play for a while…”
“Well, the season is over, but you’re still working at the gym, and…”
“No,” she said. “I probably won’t be back next season.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she replied, winking at him and putting his hand on her stomach. “I think I’ll be a bit busy.”
His eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” she said as he hugged her tight again. “Seriously.”
He buried his nose in her hair and held her close. “Our own family,” he said.
“Yes,” she replied, smiling into his chest. “Our own family.”
THE END
I hope you loved seeing Landon and Marie fall in love.
Start from the beginning of the series with a gorgeous love story in The Baron and the Babe.
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Do you want to know what happens when Astrid falls pregnant with her one-night-stand’s baby, and his mother pays her off to stay away from him? Fall in love with this gorgeous doctor in Dr. Bully and The Secret Baby.
Do you need more romance than you know what to do with? Check out the Heart Lines bundle and get cozy before you fall in love.
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A strong curvy woman runs into her high school ex-boyfriend--and bully--after she has to look after him in the ER. Catch up with Jess and Jody’s story in All Grown Up.
A steamy romance happens between a skeptical epidemiologist and a psychic as they uncover the mystery in The Psychic and The Doctor.
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THE BARON AND THE BABE
PREVIEW
CHAPTER ONE
Ari
I knew it was coming. I knew it.
I felt it, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t know if it was because I was living in denial, or just because the idea that it would happen again scared me. But I felt cramping and then, maybe three minutes later, it had started.
Another period.
Another failure.
I knew that Roger had to be the first person to know. He was invested in this, maybe even more than I was. We had been lucky. It just hadn’t taken. We hadn’t had any losses yet. We had started going to a specialist, but the IVF process was still a way off.
Dr. Zaphyr had said that we were lucky we hadn’t conceived yet. She recommended a therapist to everyone whose pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. After she told us that, she stared. As if she wanted me to ask her to recommend a therapist.
But we weren’t there yet. We were trying and that was all that we could do.
I went to the bathroom, fixed my tear-stained make-up, and sniffled a little before I went back into our living room. Roger was watching the TV—golf, I think—and he barely looked up at me as I slowly shook my head.
He didn’t say anything.
“Roger,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering.
He looked up then, and our gazes met for a long second. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, even though I’d told myself before that I wasn’t going to apologize about this again. “I got my period.”
He looked back at the TV. He muttered something, but I couldn’t hear him.
“What was that?”
He looked up at me again. “Nothing,” he said, then straightened up a little bit. “It’s just, it’s not a fucking surprise, is it? Knowing you.”
I blinked. “You think I made this happen?”
He took too long to answer. By the time I heard his voice, I wasn’t in the living room anymore.
***
The divorce, my lawyer assured me, was going smoothly. I had no point of comparison, nothing to relate it to, and I wasn’t particularly interested in delving into the process.
As long as I got to keep what was mine, he could protest all he wanted. My friends all told me that I should be able to see what had happened between us as a blessing in disguise—you didn’t really want a kid with that guy, did you?—but it didn’t feel like a blessing. It felt like a slap in the face, like I hadn’t even managed to escape our relationship with dignity.
He had been the one to push for the child, and I always wanted to please him, but I had realized that I desperately wanted a baby too. Divorce, it turned out, was a long, drawn-out process, and while there was a part of me that told myself it was archaic to worry about being past my prime before I got pregnant, I couldn’t afford to just go for it by myself.
And the idea of finding a man…it wasn’t just distasteful. It was as ludicrous as the moon being made of cheese.
