My heart breaks a little.
“Baby, you don’t owe me anything. Not your trust. Not your forgiveness. Not your body.”
She settles against me, the rigidity leaving her. She’s soft and pliable.
Mine.
“I just want to be here,” I confess. “With you. For you. For our child. Whatever and however that looks like, you’ll allow me to be here with and for you.”
She exhales shakily.
Her wounds run deep.
Not only because of me, but from a lifetime of being treated like she’s expendable.
I kiss the top of her head. “I’m not going to be another person who hurts you,” I vow.
“I know.” She kisses my shoulder and then, slowly, her breathing settles, and she falls asleep.
I doze off as I hold my world in my arms, confident that we’ll make it—become a family.
I can feel it in my bones.
20
ARE WE LIVING TOGETHER?
ENYA
Idon’t notice it at first. I blame pregnancy brain.
It was gradual—quiet and sneaky, like the way fog rolls in without you realizing the horizon is gone.
One day, Nick says he must sleep at my place because I fainted, and next, he’s sleeping in my bed every night, and suddenly, Dominic Delacour is living in my apartment.
How do I find out? He’s getting his mail here.His mail.
“Why is your name on top of my address?” I ask, holding up a letter from the IRS.
Nick looks up from my stove—my stove—where he is flipping pancakes like Jamie Oliver but with a better body. “The lease on my apartment ran out.”
I gingerly sit at the kitchen island, my hand on my belly. “Ran out?”
“Yeah, last month.”
He says it casual, like no biggie. “I didn’t agree to you moving your mailing address here.” Or you.
He shrugs. “I didn’t ask.”
I open my mouth to argue, but he slides a plate in front of me. Perfect pancakes. Lush strawberries. A perfect drizzle of maple syrup.
“This is manipulation,” I mutter.
“This is breakfast,” he corrects.
I want to be irritated with him, but then the baby rolls, and Nick’s eyes go wide like he’s witnessing a miracle. And it’s not the first damn time the baby has kicked. Nick just looks like this every time.
He presses his palm gently to my belly. The baby stirs again.
