“Every page.” My laugh bellows through a bathroom bigger than my first apartment. “And he likes to share any knowledge he unearths. How do you think I know so much about pregnancy and birth in this day and age?” She knows how much my brother and I doted on our mother when she was pregnant with Darcy, but she is clueless about Alex’s gradual transition into fatherhood.
I turn to face her when she remains quiet. A weird look mars her pretty features. I could be wrong, but I believe it is the cruelty of jealousy.
Upon noticing that I’ve spotted her puzzled expression, Macypfftsbefore pushing off her feet to enter the central part of our room. “I figured you had a handful of baby mommies begging for a slice of your minimum wage.”
I laugh before shaking my head. She’s not wrong about the pittance we get paid for putting our lives on the line every day, especially after coming from a wealth like her parents clearly have, but I also find it amusing considering she dipped out on any chance of child support by using an anonymous sperm donor.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Macy whispers, well-versed on my stirring expressions, before she bends down to collect her stilettos from her suitcase.
When she groans, I race to her side like she’s in labor. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” When I growl in a silent reminder of the promise she made only this morning to be honest, air whizzes from her nose. “It’s difficult to put on shoes when you have a watermelon strapped to your stomach.”
When I chuckle, she shoots me a riled look.
If death stares could kill, I’d be a dead man.
“If you think it’s so easy”—her eyes bounce around the room before landing on the overnight bag I packed in a hurry—“put your shoes on while wearingthatstrapped to your midsection.”
“Sorry, freckles, I don’t have any tape,” I say with a shrug, assuming I can take the cheat’s route like my father did when my mother purchased a watermelon and two cantaloupes to teach him a lesson on the anatomy of a pregnant woman in the final trimester of her last pregnancy.
Macy would never fold in teaching me a lesson so easily. “Please. Let me.” With my bag snatched off the bed, she shoves it into my stomach, then walks behind me, where she holds the bag in place by using the carry straps as restraints. “Bend at the knees, Agent Rogers. We don’t want you getting a bulging disk.”
I roll my eyes before bobbing down to collect the stinky socks I dumped onto the floor before entering the bathroom. They need to be changed, but with Macy holding my bag to my stomach, they’ll have to do for now.
“What the fuck?” I murmur when I’m not even halfway down before something jabs into my spleen. It is sharp and pointy, most likely the backup gun I carry anytime I travel.
Macy’s pout is as fake as the concern in her tone. “Oh… what happened? Are you okay?”
Determined to win, even if it kills me, I angle my hips and then gingerly lower my hand toward the stinky socks soiling the thick woolen carpet fiber beneath my feet.
This time, I make it two-thirds of the way down before I’m stabbed in the bladder so firmly that I’m seconds from pissing my pants.
“All right. I give in. You win.”
Macy hollers in victory before she dumps my bag back onto the bed and then heads back to the stiletto she dropped when her eagerness to teach me a lesson saw it slipping from her grasp.
“Let me,” I offer when she struggles to collect it from the floor.
I snatch it up before she can reply, then gesture for her to sit on the bed.
She does, albeit hesitantly. She hates appearing helpless, and it projects in her tone when she murmurs, “I can’t even put on my own shoes, so why the hell did I think I could take down Samuel by myself?”
She’s mumbling to herself, yet I reply as if she had asked a question. “You’re growing a child. That’s the most important job in the world. I’d feel invincible if I were you.”
“You’d be more than invincible. You’d also feature in every news article from here to Australia.”
Laughing, I kneel in front of her, pick up her shoe, and then gently lift her foot. While slipping the modest-heeled shoe over her toes, I hold up her leg from behind her knee. Her skin feels warm yet prickly, mirroring Macy’s conflicting emotions.
I mutter a silent prayer to stop being so easily readable when Macy warns, “If you utter a single word about the length of the hairs on my legs, I will stab you with my fork before you can eat a single canapé.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”I was, but I ain’t now.
Once I buckle her stilettos, I peer up at her. The vulnerability in her eyes is shocking, and it has me speaking before thinking. “Did you want help with that too?”
Macy can’t play the daft card. She’s too smart, but she tries hard to prove otherwise. “With what?”
With our time limited, I get straight to the point. “With your legs.” I gesture toward the bag she left on the bed. “I have a razor and shaving cream in my bag. We could get them cleared away in a couple of minutes.”
