Shopping for a CEO's Baby (Shopping for a Billionaire Series Book 16), стр. 10
“Yes. You read it.” Closing her eyes, she uses her right hand to scratch Spritzy's forehead. His eyes tighten and he looks like he's grinning.
“Okay.”
I slide the letter out of the envelope, unfold it, and scan the document. My throat tightens, stomach dropping as all the pieces come together in my mind, the implications enormous.
Then I grab her hand and gently, so gently, I squeeze. Years of her pain and suffering, her stoic resolution, of supporting her through it all, have to be expressed in pressure so tender that it conveys love, but not so hard that it adds to her struggle.
That balance is impossible.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
The tears I'm trying to hold back don't care about what I want, dotting the page as I tell her, “James was right.”
5
Amanda
“Your father!” I say in a voice that even I know sounds accusatory. Andrew just walked in the front door, and he's dripping with sweat, so soaked that I cringe when he wraps his arms around me and tries to kiss my cheek.
“Why won't you hug me? And what about my father? What did he do now?”
I ignore the second part and focus on my husband's sweaty, humid body. “Why didn't you shower at the gym?”
“Vince made me go for a long run.”
“How long?”
“All the way home.”
“To the condo?” We still have his condo in the Seaport District, though we moved to Weston a while ago, renovating Andrew's childhood home. “There's a bathroom there, with a shower.”
“I know there is. We've had some fantastic sex in that shower, but no. He made me run here.”
“He made you run all the way from the city to Weston?”
Andrew rakes one hand through soaking wet, dark hair. “Yes. Stuck with me the first ten miles, then peeled off to head to his home.”
“That's got to be twenty miles!”
“We started at the gym. Fourteen point eight, to be exact.”
“I didn't know you could run that far.”
“Neither did I, until today.”
“Your security team let you do that?”
“Let?” Andrew's glare makes me feel like my skin is being peeled off by lasers. “My team doesn't let me do anything.” He puffs up. “I do what I want.”
“Right.” I avert my eyes. “Why is Vince pushing you so hard?”
“Because old Jorg told him.”
Uh oh.
The chain of gyms is Andrew’s personal project, and I'm so excited for him. Telling Vince about it was presenting a challenge to my husband, and now it sounds like that has just exploded.
Andrew begins to stretch, giving me a chance to admire his body, but nausea is trying to creep back in. This mixed reaction to the world is driving me nuts. How can I be nauseated and sexually aroused at the same time? The two conditions are wholly incompatible, but welcome to pregnancy, where nothing makes sense and all of the inconvenience is on you.
“I'm sorry. How'd it go?”
He lets out a laugh that doesn't sound amused at all. “It went fourteen point eight miles of pain, that's how it went. Vince thought I was firing him.”
“But you want to hire him!”
“I know. He misinterpreted everything.” Andrew stops at the foot of the stairs and stretches more, a long, slow movement that moves my inner turbulence up a notch.
“So he's angry with you?”
“Fourteen point eight guesses why.”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“He thought I wanted to remodel the gyms and make them–his word–bougie.”
“Bougie! No! You want to keep them authentic and comfortable and… gritty. Like they are.”
“Right.”
“And have Vince be in charge of keeping them that way.”
“I told him that. Gina's sending the proposal to him. Already did, in fact. Not sure he'll bite.”
“I hope he does.”
Andrew winces. “Vince replaced my arms and legs with rubber bands filled with pain.”
“You say that every time you come home from a training session with him. Why torture yourself?”
“Because keeping a body like this takes effort.”
I let my eyes comb over his tall, muscular form. “I owe Vince my gratitude, then.”
“Oh, really?” The gleam in his eye makes my stomach clench. He wants sex. My joke triggered the always-on-the-surface reaction that makes it clear how ready he is. Gym shorts hide nothing.
A war begins in my mind, two very different Amandas squaring off.
“So, about your dad,” I blurt out.
Something in his eyes dims. “Yes?”
“He figured out my mother's fibromyalgia.”
“I see. The conversation is now about our parents. Got it.” Andrew pauses, as though my words are finally sinking in after a time delay. “My father did what?”
“Figured out the source of her fibromyalgia.”
“My father? James McCormick? Are we talking about the same man?”
“We are. He encouraged Mom to get some complicated Lyme disease test, and it came back positive. It could explain everything with her.”
“Lyme?”
“I know, right?”
Andrew guides me upstairs, gently encouraging me to walk up the stairs first.
“Where are we going?”
“I need a shower.” He winks at me, eyes going straight to my midsection, his wolfish smile softening. My body is growing two human beings that are part him. It connects us. His loving gaze is endearing, a source of comfort.
The babies are part me, too, of course, but the idea that I have a piece of Andrew in me is so amazing.
Happiness makes me warm. Or maybe that's just hormones.
We walk into the bathroom together, and Andrew turns on the shower jets. The renovated master bath is half shower room, half everything else. Satin nickel frames the creamy white subway tiles of the shower walls, the floors all Carrera marble. We went for a classic look in here, timeless elegance to suit this antique estate. Sconces are mounted on the mirrored wall over the sinks, adding extra sparkle that’s both flattering and soft.
It’s like staying at the world’s most luxurious hotel, but it’s also your home.
“You joining me?”
Before I can answer, he stops himself, reaching for my hand, eyes concerned.
“Wait. Sorry. Let me drag my lust-filled brain out of the lake of testosterone it's swimming in and ask: How is Pam?”
“She's stunned. It was hard to leave her alone today,”