A nervous shiver went down my spine. “What if they don’t like my answers?”
Bryce closed the folder back up. “My family is going to love you. You know me—I like to be prepared.”
Thinking of the pregnancy books he’d read, I nodded. “True.” That’s when I realized this was as much for him as it was for me. So I asked, “Where should we start?”
Producing a pen from his back pocket, he opened the folder back up and said, “I have a list of all the common premarital questions we should know about each other. Let’s go over them.”
“Sure. Hit me.”
His light-blue eyes flitted side to side as he skimmed the page. “Do you want to have children? If so, how many?”
My lips quirked involuntarily. “Yes. At least one. If not several.”
He grinned, seeming happy about that. “No specific number?”
I shook my head. “Numbers always go out the window when real life gets involved.”
“You’re a realist,” he commented like he was filing away that information.
“Wasn’t always.” A sad smile touched my lips.
He nodded with a look of understanding. “I’d love to have more children too. Maybe two or three. But I’m happy with one.” He put his hand over my stomach, and I covered it with mine. Somehow, the gesture felt even more intimate than a kiss.
“What’s next?” I asked.
“What is a deal-breaker for you in a relationship?” he read from the page.
“Cheating,” I answered. I’d been cheated on before, and I never wanted to go through that again. “And I know your business matters to you, but if we’re raising a family together, I don’t want to feel like I’m in it alone.”
Bryce nodded. “I know guys at my level who outsource everything in their lives, but being a father is one thing I’d never want to hand off to someone else. I promise.”
My heart fluttered at the words, and baby girl kicked like she was dancing at the news. But I reminded myself that actions meant more than words. I prayed Bryce would continue showing me his good character.
“Cheating and keeping secrets are mine,” he said. “I want us to be honest with each other, no matter how hard it gets.”
My stomach squirmed, because I’d come so close to betraying him in the biggest way. “I’ll be honest from here on out,” I promised him.
He gave me a weighty look that spoke volumes. “I know you will.”
My lips twitched, relieved, happy too.
For the next half hour or so, we went through Bryce’s list, answering everything from if we wanted pets (no, neither of us had time) to what we wanted birthdays and holidays to look like.
Just when I thought we were done, Bryce asked Gen for the next folder, and she passed another one back.
“There’s more?” I asked.
He cringed a little. “This one is on my family. They’re a lot, so I thought you might want to know what to expect going into it.”
The gesture was kind of sweet, and I found myself eager for him to peel back the cover and show me the people who made him who he is.
I leaned a little closer, my senses getting inundated with the subtle hint of his cologne. I swear the stuff made my ovaries shiver. Was that part of being pregnant? Getting turned on at the drop of a hat? Because damn, I was already uncomfortable.
The first page showed an older man and woman together on a cruise ship. They stood in front of the railing, a vast expanse of blue ocean behind them. The man looked friendly, with blueeyes and deep-set wrinkles that spoke to a life in the sun. The woman was younger than him, by a decade or so. She had tawny skin like she may have been Hispanic or some other ethnic mix. Her black hair was long and straight, and her smile looked incredibly kind. Like she was the kind of person you could sit by and instantly feel like friends.
“That’s my dad and his wife,” Bryce explained. “They got married a little over ten years ago, although they’d been in love way longer than that. Aggie’s sweet as pie, and my dad’s nice too, but he’s famous for his come-to-Jesus talks. I don’t think you’ll need one of those.”
I winced a little. “Let’s hope not.... Does he know I’m expecting?”
