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“I had an unexpected two-hour window yesterday. An old friend was in Boston for a medical conference. We went to dinner in her hotel—”
“Let me guess, and you ended up staying for dessert?” I smiled viciously.
His face was blank. Unresponsive. I was going to burst in tears. Or maybe just burst period. Maybe my skin would rip apart. Maybe green, jealous goo would pour out. Maybe I would finally remember what I seemed to forget recently—that men are horrible creatures designed to hurt you.
“You slept with her.” I said it as a statement, hoping he would deny it or he’d say that he kissed her and it didn’t feel right so he left. Or promise it would never happen again, because he didn’t even enjoy it—that it was me he had thought about the whole time.
But he simply said, “Yes.”
The cab driver shifted in his seat uncomfortably, uncomfortable with the prospect of his car becoming a crime scene when I murdered Devon. Poor thing. I was going to tip him double.
“Did she suck you off?” I asked in a businesslike tone.
The cab driver choked on his saliva.
Devon picked at invisible lint on his sharp suit, looking bored and closed-off. “Sweven—”
“Don’t call me that, you asshole. Don’t you even dare use my nickname right now.”
“I’ve a suspicion you will come back from the jealous haze you’re wrapped in right now in a few moments and regret this. Let’s change the subject,” Devon said confidently. He wasn’t wrong. Which drove me even more crazy.
“Not until you answer me. Did. She. Suck. You. Off?”
His pale eyes met mine soberly. “Yes.”
“And did you enjoy it?”
“Yes.”
I laughed throatily. The world spun out of balance around me. I was going to be sick.
“You said not to wait for you. Twice, in fact. Logic dictates you have no authority nor claim on my affections.”
His affections. My ass just had to go and mess with the only dipshit in Boston who talked like a Jane Austen novel dropout.
“Fuck your logic,” I said.
“Gladly. But it’s not going to be the only thing I’ll be fucking.”
“Your phone’s ringing,” I said dryly.
He pulled his phone out, frowning at the screen.
Tiffany.
He sent the call to voicemail.
Tiffany called again. He pressed his lips into a thin line, sending her to voicemail—again.
The cab pulled up at my OB-GYN’s clinic. I tipped the guy fifty bucks and dashed out, Devon at my heel. His phone flashed in his hand again. This time the screen said it was Tracey calling.
I started taking the stairs to the third-floor clinic without even realizing what I was doing, knowing Devon didn’t do elevators and not wanting to part ways.
“Do you only fuck women whose first names start with a T?” I asked cordially.
“Tracy is a partner at the firm.”
“I bet you screwed her too.”
“She is sixty.”
“So are you.” Seriously? I had the mental maturity of a cupcake.
He gave me another pitiful look before we reached the door to the clinic.
This, I reminded myself, was a valuable lesson. A good thing. If anything, the last half hour was proof I was right, as per usual.
That Devon was still a man, still incapable of keeping his junk in his pants, and still a great danger to me.
Sure, he was nice—more civilized than the men I’d encountered over the years—and polished to a fault. But a man nonetheless.
Devon grabbed my arm, spinning me around and pushing me against the door, crowding me. I looked at him, feeling his body everywhere and craving it and hating it and loving it. All at the same time.
“Leave me alone!” I growled.
“Not in a thousand years, darling. Now tell me—have you not been with anyone since we started hooking up again?”
I hadn’t. Before I got pregnant, I wanted to limit my sexual encounters to Devon in order to ensure he’d be the father of my child. And after, I just couldn’t see myself jumping into bed with some rando when I had a child inside me.
I thought about telling him I had sex all the time. It was the obvious Belle thing to do.
But when my mouth opened, I just couldn’t do it.
He had a way of getting the truth out of me, even when the truth sucked.
“No,” I admitted. Then added louder, “I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
A grunt left his beautiful lips, and he closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, there was fire behind him. “I could kiss you, Emmabelle Penrose.”
I forced myself to smile, pushing the door open, just as Tiffany called him again.
“Don’t, Devon Whitehall.”
One day, while I was cradling my flat, three-month-pregnant belly, eyeballing rows of diaper bags and infant car seats at buybuy Baby while slurping on a deplorable green juice, I noticed a distressed-looking, heavily pregnant woman breaking down at the register.
She folded in two, hands flat on the conveyor belt, a mountain of essential baby supplies in front of her. A diaper bag, burp cloths, and bibs. Things any new mother needed to survive the crazy journey called motherhood. At first I thought she was going into labor. Oh shit. I’m going to stop leaving the house as soon as I hit week thirty-eight, I thought. With my luck, my water was going to break in an elevator full of people. And then we’d somehow get stuck there.
