Page 65 of Thin Lives

“Take a breath,” Emma ordered, glancing between the glaring sisters, “and chill out.”

Neither Michelle, nor Cynthia, said a thing.

Emma was grateful.

At least when they didn’t talk, they weren’t arguing.

It was something.

“Maybe we can do something else,” Cynthia said, breaking the staring contest with her sister to look at Emma. “For Daddy, I mean.”

Emma nodded, happy with the change of direction. She dropped her hands, knowing the fight was likely defused for the moment.

But as she rested her hands back onto her lap, a sharp ache stabbed into the side of her swell. It quickly melted into a cramp that wiggled its way over the left side of her stomach before it disappeared. As fast as it had come, the pain was gone.

Still, Emma had felt it.

And it took her breath away.

She froze on the spot, pressing her palm to the side of her stomach. It was hard to the touch, but that wasn’t unusual. Neither was the cramping given how far along she was.

Maybe it was just the baby boy trying to work his way into a more comfortable position, and that was what caused the strange pain. Emma hoped so.

She had been to her regular appointment the day before at the specialist’s office to once again, measure and check her cervix for any changes. There was very little, though she was thinning out.

It was concerning, but they weren’t willing to do anything just yet. The doctor had sent her home with an order to stay off her feet as much as was possible, and to avoid stressful things.

She almost laughed in the doctor’s face.

Her life was the very definition of stress at the moment.

“Well, what do you think?” Cynthia asked.

Emma blinked out of her haze, realizing that neither of her step-daughters had noticed that anything was wrong.

Nothing is, she told herself.

… she hoped.

“About what?” Emma asked.

“Cee thinks we could go shopping and pick up Daddy a few things for when he gets home—stuff he likes, you know,” Michelle said through a bite of her waffle.

Emma hesitated.

She should refuse them, only because she couldn’t spend a day on her feet walking through the malls for hours on end looking for gifts that Affonso would only pretend to care about before tossing away in a drawer.

And yet … the girls looked happy.

Hopeful, even.

She couldn’t refuse.

“Not all day,” Emma said. “The baby needs to rest.”

Michelle rolled her pretty brown-black Donati eyes. “He’s inside you—all he does is rest.”

Emma nodded. “I know, and he needs to stay there for a while longer.”