“Ready, baby girl?” Richard whispered.
“Let’s kick it, Daddy,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.
The music changed as the familiar strains of the Wedding March filled the ballroom. Jasmine stared straight ahead as she walked over the white rug, her smile still in place when Cameron looked at her for the first time in twenty-four hours. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat as a loud gasp went up from the assembly amid the applause from the Singletons.
Everyone had finally settled down when Richard relinquished his hold on Jasmine’s hand to Cameron’s elbow. Everything occurred in a blur as she repeated her vows, without taking her eyes from Cameron’s. She hadn’t realized just how much she loved him until now. His voice rang clearly throughout the ballroom as he confessed to falling in love with her at another wedding. She prayed for the tears filling her eyes not to fall and ruin her makeup. There was an exchange of rings and a prolonged kiss that elicited a smattering of laughter. When the minister introduced them as Mr. and Mrs. Cameron Averill Singleton, Cameron’s frat brothers broke into their fraternity hymn.
She shook her head, knowing she had been accepted into the raucous bunch who she’d met in May in New York . . .
Five months later. . .
Jasmine moved slowly, holding her back as she tried to ignore sharp pains which cut through her like a knife. It was early January and she still had another four weeks until her due date.
She had gained twenty-eight pounds but it could’ve been eighty-eight because she felt as if she was carrying a baby calf. The renovations on the house were nearing completion and she and Cameron were hoping to move in before she gave birth. She had ordered furniture for most of the rooms, but had to wait several more months for special orders.
Bending from her knees, she picked up the package, and carried it closer to the chair so she could open it and see what had been delivered. The suites were quickly looking like a warehouse from the number of deliveries to the hotel.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? How can you even think of picking up something that heavy in your condition?”
Her head popped up, and she dropped the box on her foot, when she saw Cameron looming over her like an avenging angel. Her temper flared. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”
Cameron’s face was dark with rage. “I’ll talk to you anyway I want when I see you do something stupid. Who do you think you are? Superwoman?”
Her back hurt and her foot was on fire. She hoped she hadn’t broken it. Limping on one foot she managed to make it to the chair without collapsing. “Get away from me,” she ordered when he came closer.
“Let me look at your foot.”
She made a fist. “If you take one more step it will be your nose you’ll need someone to look at.”
He glared at her, his eyes an icy gray. “You wouldn’t hit me.”
Jasmine narrowed her eyes. “You don’t want to find out.” The last word wasn’t off her tongue when Cameron caught her wrist and swept her off the chair. She struggled to free herself but he was too strong. “Let me go.”
“No. Not until I check your foot. And I don’t know why you walk around without your shoes.”
“Because walking around barefoot is more comfortable for me.”
Cameron carried her to the bedroom and set her on the bed and held her ankle. “Damn!” he spat out.
Jasmine looked at her foot for the first time. Her instep was beginning to swell and she couldn’t move her toes. “Ouch! You’re squeezing my ankle.”
“That’s because your whole foot is swelling. You probably broke it. Why in hell didn’t you wait for me to get home to move the damn box?”
“Stop cursing at me, Cameron. You’re not your father and I am definitely not your mother.”
“I’m calling 911.”
“No! Just put some ice on it and it will take down the swelling.”
Cameron ignored her when he picked up the house phone and told the front desk he needed an ambulance. He slammed the phone in the cradle. “I’m going to get a coat for you because it’s cold outside.”
Two hours after she was wheeled into the same ER where she’d discovered she was pregnant, Jasmine sat in a bed with a light cast on her foot. She was seen immediately because of her advanced stage.
She lay back on the pillows in the private room staring at the rain sluicing down the windows. The doctor had recommended she stay in the hospital for several days so he could monitor her since she’d complained about pain in her back. She had also been spotting but hadn’t told Cameron because it wasn’t every day.
She closed her eyes, willing the pain in her back and foot to go away and leave her alone. Jasmine had read up on back pain and she’d attributed it to stress rather than weight gain.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were bleeding?”
