Page 78 of Diary of a Mafia Princess

I nodded. “As far as I know.”

“Same, so I know how she’s feeling. Probably terrified. First thing she’ll want is prenatal vitamins. Then I would recommend a baby book. I have a good one. It tells you everything you can expect to happen at each stage of her pregnancy.”

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and started writing it down in my Notes app. “Okay, vitamins and books. What else?”

“A body pillow for once she has a bump,” Bliss, the prez’s wife added as she passed with a baby on her hip. “They’re a godsend. Impossible to get comfortable without one.”

Rebel, Violet’s sister-in-law and Fang’s partner, caught wind of the pregnancy talk and sat on the chair across from us. “Oooh, are we talking pregnancy must-haves? With five kids, I’ve tried every product out there. You might want to get her a belly band. Once that baby starts getting heavy, she’ll be grateful for that.”

My finger hovered over the touch screen. “A belly band? I don’t even know what that is.”

Rebel rattled off a few other things, some sort of weird plant tea that was supposed to make labor easier, and various foods she’d craved. She grinned. “You know, if she’s single and second trimester, what she probably wants most is some dick.”

Violet blushed pink.

Rebel clapped her hands together and pointed at her. “See! You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You feel like shit for the first few months, but then you start feeling good again, and all of a sudden, all those pregnancy hormones are swirling through your system, reminding you daily how attractive your man is… Just wait ’til you get to third trimester. You don’t feel like it so much then, but you get to the point where you’re so big, and you just want the baby out that you start begging for sex in the hopes it’ll get things moving.” She looked at me again. “Sperm softens the cervix. So I read online, anyway. I don’t know if that’s really true, but by that point in my pregnancies, I was always desperate enough to try anything. So you know. If you have a dick, it might be nice to offer it to her.”

Violet and Levi both laughed.

I just shook my head. “I have the dick. Pretty sure she doesn’t want it though.”

Rebel patted me on the shoulder sympathetically. “Poor Lynx. The friend zone sucks.”

“I’ll get the rest of the things you suggested though. Thanks.”

A squawk came from a couple of kids somewhere across the yard, and Reaper, Violet, and Rebel all got up to go investigate if it was one of their kids who needed them.

I just sat there wondering if Nyah was as horny as Rebel suggested she might be.

And then mentally punching myself in the junk because even if she was, it wasn’t me she was going to be turning to for help in that department.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight, trying real fucking hard not to remember the curve of her hips and the swell of her tits from that night I’d walked into Luca’s bedroom and found them both naked. Remembering that wasn’t going to help anyone.

But my list of things she needed would.

It might not have been my place to touch her, but I could damn well take care of her.

25

NYAH

Dear Diary,

I’m standing in the exact footsteps of a dead woman. And they fit perfectly.

Istared down at the ultrasound image of my tiny baby for about the hundredth time since the night Lynx had taken me to the hospital. I couldn’t believe that even though I only had the tiniest of bumps, small enough that if you didn’t know my body well, you probably wouldn’t have even noticed the slight swell, there was a fully formed baby in there. Tiny, but with hands and feet, a spine, a head…all the little parts perfect, according to the ultrasound report I’d been given to take home.

Of course now, I had to hide the images away, buried deep in my drawers beneath my clothes.

Because someone finding them would be a disaster.

If I’d been smart, I would have taken a lighter to both.

I clearly wasn’t though, because I just couldn’t, no matter how many times I willed myself to do it.

But it had been a reminder that I was running out of time. That I needed to break Carlos Guerra, because waiting even a few more weeks until the wedding was going to set off alarm bells when this baby came before Christmas.

The thought of Carlos touching me sent me into a tailspin though, and I choked on a sob, right as the door opened and Virginia walked in.