AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“About the sex of the baby?” Jane said hopefully to the rest of the room, while simultaneously praying it wasn’t about guessing who the baby’s daddy was. Rafe’s doubts were stressing her out enough without everyone else getting in on the action. But hope died a swift death, the immediate chuckling from around the room confirming her fears.
“Nope,” Ulysses said from the couch.
“We’re betting on which one of you stubborn idiots gives in first,” Oliver said, flopping down in an armchair. The big Viking-ish brute was immediately pounced upon by Josie and Diana, who began braiding white clover and lavender stalks into his long blond hair.
“We figure either you’ll say yes or he’ll stop asking,” Henry continued.
Shock left Jane spluttering for a reply, partly in relief over what they were betting on, but also not. Her temper found her tongue quickly enough. “Wait, you all knew he was going to pull that marriage proposal stunt?”
Every Bennett in the room, from the teens to the septuagenarian, shrugged. “It’s Rafe.”
Jane could almost hear the unspoken “duh.” Responsibility was the man’s middle name. And apparently he felt responsible for her.
Whether the kid turned out to be his or not.
Which it is, she thought with a mental stamp of her foot.
Jane really wanted to be mad at Rafe for his bullheaded, overprotective pedanticism, for making her go through what could ultimately shatter any surviving remnants of her pride if the kiddidturn out to be someone’s other than his, but she wasn’t stupid. She recognised the fact that getting a paternity test done was in everyone’s best interests.
And while Rafe’s dominant ways grated on every last fiercely independent nerve she owned, his taking control of the situation also calmed her mind and stopped the incessant overthinking she was prone to when she was stressed or upset, when her brain concocted a million and one ways to sweep her crap under the carpet so she could pretend it didn’t exist, then built a six-foot wall around it so no one else knew it existed either.
The bottom line?
Jane didn’t want to know if the kid wasn’t his.
But Rafe did.
And not because he was selfish, or that he had some diabolical ulterior motive, but because he was a good and decent man.
“And for the record, I don’t care if it’s not mine. I’m here. I’m in.”
How many men out there would say such a thing? Not many, she guessed. Even fewer would follow through on that promise. But Rafe would, and her heart melted a little at the thought he was willing to go to so much trouble to protect her and the baby.
Itwaskindaromantic.
For a lawyer.
But she’d be damned if she was going to give anyone the satisfaction of watching her soften towards him, and she certainly wasn’t going to marry him just because she was pregnant.
No way was she saying yes to such a half-arsed proposal for such an archaic reason.
“What are the odds?” she said, lifting her chin and tossing her hair over her shoulder.
“Four to one Rafe caves before you do.”
Mischief lit along her veins and her mouth lifted in a broad grin. She nodded at Oliver. “Put me down for twenty, my favour.”
“That’s our girl,” Ulysses laughed. “Give him hell.”
“Oh, I plan to.”
Rafe came out of hiding to say goodbye to his brothers and nieces, then spent the next hour trapped in an endless parade of hugging and kissing and farewelling.
Of watching Jane smile at everyone but him while he got Scowly Jane and Peevish Jane and If-daggers-could-kill Jane.
Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have Pin-up Jane back again. To watch her slide her pretty pink tongue through the frosting of a cupcake as she tempted him to replicate the motion and slip his tongue through the soft folds of her sweet pussy.
He missed that Jane.
