She lifts her glass and takes a drink. “More than I care to know.”
“I’m interested in learning. I want to understand so he can talk to me about things happening on the vineyards.”
“I’m going to give you some advice.” I smile, remembering the last bit she gave me. She grins too and leans in, lowering her voice. “Some more advice. A vineyard is work to him. It’s his profession and he has employees he discusses that with. He pays them quite well for that service and you aren’t his employee. Don’t allow the vineyards to enter your home life and make damn sure you don’t let them into your bedroom. Be his outlet—a safe place where he can escape—when all the shit that goes along with that life becomes too much for him.”
Margaret has a different way of looking at things. Here I thought I would be bringing myself closer to my husband by becoming part of his work life, but she’s telling me the opposite. And I think she’s right.
“Trust me, Laurelyn. He will hold you in a different regard if he views you as his refuge and not his confidant.” She returns to her entree and I can only think of how I hope to be the kind of mother she is. I want to be strong and confident, yet gentle and loving. I wish I’d had her as my role model instead of my own mom.
Jack Henry takes my hand and gives it a squeeze under the table after we order dessert. I’m guessing that’s my cue he’s ready to spill the beans. “Laurelyn and I have an announcement.” Henry is yet to be in tune with what we’re about to say but Margaret can predict it easily. She literally looks ready to burst. “Laurelyn’s pregnant.”
Henry does the manly, fatherly slap on Jack Henry’s back as he congratulates us. I almost think I see his chest inflate, like some sort of pride thing about his boys being able to swim hard enough to impregnate me on the first try.
Margaret comes out of her chair and I do too. She pulls me into her arms in a tight embrace. “I knew it. Ohh … I’m so happy for you.” She releases me and holds my arms out for a look. “When can I expect my new grandbaby?”
“October first.”
“You have a date. Does that mean you’ve already had a visit with a doctor?”
“Yes. I have an ultrasound picture. Would you like to see it?”
“Absolutely.” She pulls glasses from her purse, slips them on, and looks up at me. “It sucks getting old eyes. I can’t see anything without these ridiculous things.”
“I think you look really good in them.” Margaret never looks anything less than classy.
“Bullshit. I look old as hell,” she laughs. She holds the printout at a distance for a better view. “I do believe that is one of the sweetest little dots I’ve ever seen.”
I laugh because she’s right. The baby is tiny. “It’s quite early—only six weeks. The doctor says it’s the size of a rice grain. Most people don’t announce their pregnancies until twelve weeks but we’re too excited to wait that long.”
“Will you tell everyone or are we privy to the information because we’re the grandparents?”
I don’t know. We haven’t discussed anything beyond telling Margaret and Henry in case this story gets out about his past. “What are we doing?”
“I told you from the beginning, love. I want the world to know my wife is pregnant.”
Okay, then. I guess we’re telling the world.
I call my mom from the car as Jack Henry drives us home from Henry and Margaret’s. I’m excited to hear her reaction. I hope she’s as happy as Margaret is.
We begin our conversation like normal, her catching me up on everything going on in her life, before I move on to the news I called to share. “Mom, Jack Henry and I have wonderful news. I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
“Mom, are you still there?”
“Laurie, why would you allow that to happen? A baby is going to ruin your career.”
Just because I ruined her life doesn’t mean my baby will ruin mine. Why can’t she understand that? “We chose to have this baby because we want to start our family.”
“You’re being stupid. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
I can’t take hearing these things from my mother. “I have to go.”
I end the call and let her reaction soak in for a minute before I tell Jack Henry the terrible things she said. I wait for his temper to engage, but it doesn’t. He pulls the car to the side of the road and takes me into his arms where I cry until I have no more tears to shed.
It’s almost been a week—that’s how long that blackmailing bitch said she’d give Jack Henry before she called again—so we expect to hear from her tomorrow. My decision still stands. I’m supporting my husband, even if this goes public. I say that with incredible allegiance but then I become afraid when I think of the remaining ten women I’ve not had the displeasure of meeting. Will they come out of the woodwork? There could be more false paternity claims. Or true ones. Are we making the wrong decision by not paying her off? I don’t know.
Jack Henry is expecting a call from Jim today. I hope he is the best—as my husband believes—and tells us he’s found something we can use to rid ourselves of that woman.
Jim phones while Jack Henry is sitting at my bedside during my morning routine—lying in bed nauseated, sipping Mrs. Porcelli’s remedy while nibbling on crackers. He sits with me every morning and helps me to the bathroom when my nausea progresses to something more.
He’s listening intently when the nearly overwhelming wave hits me. I close my eyes, wishing it all away, but it refuses to obey so I’m scrambling to get out of bed. “Just a minute, Jim.” Jack Henry drops his phone to the bed to help me up.
I rush to the bathroom but wave him away. “Take the call,” I tell him between heaves. “I’m fine.”
He’s hesitant as displayed by how long he stands in the bathroom. “Call out if you need anything.”
I nod, my head hanging over the toilet.
I wash up following my vomiting episode and I think it’s possible that I feel better. Yes, I believe I do.
As I come out of the bathroom, Jack Henry is finishing his call. “My man, Jim, has discovered a lot of dirty little secrets about one Jenna Rosenthal. Most are insignificant for our needs but one transgression will be of use. I say we invite Miss Rosenthal to dinner. I don’t believe a phone call will do.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Something not befitting a gentleman—and I want to see her face when I do it.”
We wait in the restaurant at the hotel where all of this shit began—the one where I came to Jack Henry as someone else. Worst idea ever.
I can’t believe Jenna agreed to meet us here. It’s really sort of stupid on her part since it’s her place of employment, at least the hotel is, but the restaurant is inside. I wonder what she does here—and what she did three years ago that drew Jack Henry to her.
He hasn’t told me what Jim found on her. Frankly, I don’t care as long as it gets her out of our lives. I shudder when I think of how differently this could have gone. What if Jack Henry had been her son’s father? What a nightmare that would’ve been.
“She’s late.” That irritates him even further.
“Don’t worry, that money-hungry bitch is coming. She didn’t do all this to not carry through on it.”
She arrives ten minutes later. “You’re late.”
“I couldn’t get here sooner because Ashton is sick. He probably caught whatever it is at that medical clinic you made us go to.”
Jack Henry is quick to reply. “Maybe you should’ve tried knowing who fathered your child and we wouldn’t have been there in the first place.” I think I’m most glad her son wasn’t his because I don’t think I could have taken the bickering between them.
Our server comes by and Jenna orders a glass of wine. “I’m only staying long enough to discuss what I want from you.” She looks at
me. “I must say I’m surprised to see you here, so that can only mean one thing: you once agreed to be his whore just like the rest of us.”
I don’t respond because I can’t deny what she’s saying.
“She was never my whore.”
“Right.” A glass of wine is placed in front of her and I watch as she goes through the process of using her senses to judge it. “Logan Ross, that’s who he was to me, taught me a lot of things but appreciating a great glass of Shiraz is something I’ve kept with me. Which wine has he taught you to enjoy?” She looks down at my water. “What … no wine for the vineyard princess?” Neither of us replies and she begins smiling. “Ah-hah … you’re pregnant. I guess congratulations are in order for the perfect couple.” Her voice is saturated with venom. “Is that why you stood firmly by his side? Or is it because he’s filthy rich?”
Jack Henry is fuming. “Not what we’re here to discuss.”
She’s grinning. “Then let’s get down to why we’re here. I’ve done a little research on you since we spoke and I’m glad I did because it turns out you’re even wealthier than I first thought.”
“Say what you want,” he tells her.
“I was going to ask for a million but then I decided I was lowballing myself. I want two million dollars and all of this goes away. I won’t go to the press about your nasty little practices and you’ll never see me again.”
“Two million dollars for your silence seems reasonable until I consider that I can have it for free.”
She’s clearly confused. “It’s not free.”
He passes a manila envelope to her. “But I think it is … Aurora Dawn.”
She doesn’t even open the envelope. “Do you seriously think you’re going to convince me to keep my mouth shut over some stupid porn video I starred in for a lousy hundred bucks when I was eighteen?”
“No. I just brought that to humiliate you. The thing that’ll keep your mouth shut is the proof I have of you embezzling a shitload of money from this hotel, the very one we’re sitting in. So while it might be uncomfortable to know your coworkers can watch you take it up the ass on film, jail is a hell of a lot more uncomfortable. And I’m sure you’d miss your son terribly. Maybe he wouldn’t be completely grown by the time you got out.”
She appears indignant. “Well, you have me over a barrel and you’ve fucked me again.” She throws back the last of her wine before taking her purse and the manila envelope from the table. “I’d be careful with this one if I were you, Mrs. McLachlan. He always gets his way.”
She’s right. Jack Henry generally gets his way—whether the means are reasonable or not.
Our friends and family have known about the baby for weeks but there’s something grand about hitting that twelve-week mark. We’re finally able to breathe a sigh of relief since that typically means the pregnancy has made it to safety and the miscarriage risk is behind us.
We hear twelve to fourteen weeks is when the morning sickness gets better so we’re hoping for sooner rather than later. These past several weeks have been miserable for L, but she never complains. She does what she needs to in the mornings, while listening to the beating and banging of the construction work going on in her studio, and then works writing music as soon as she’s able to get up and around. It’s not ideal but she somehow manages.
I’m ready for work but I’m sitting next to L on the bed while she trudges through another morning of nausea. Damn, it’s been relentless but at least it doesn’t usually last beyond the morning hours. I hear some women have it all day. “Do you have anything planned for today?”
“I’m hoping to put the final touches on a song I wrote for Southern Ophelia and then go see Addison for a little while.”
“How’s she handling the whole bed-rest thing?”
“Not good, I’m afraid. She feels like a caged animal but I keep telling her to be compliant so she doesn’t end up back in the hospital. Her doctor warned her that if she had problems at home, he’d admit her for the rest of the pregnancy.”
I don’t care who you are, that would be a shit-ton-load to handle. “I’m sure she’s bored and needs something to do. Maybe a project would take her mind off everything. Why don’t you hire an interior designer to decorate the nursery? It can be our gift to her.”
“You are amazing. She hasn’t been able to get out and buy anything since they found out it was a boy, so she’s going to be so excited.” She sits up to hug me. “I would kiss you if it wouldn’t make me throw up.”
“Nice, L. Thanks a lot.”
She shrugs. “You know what I mean.”
Another reason the morning sickness needs to go away. My wife won’t kiss me—or anything else—in the mornings, and I really miss our first-thing romp before I shower for work. Evan warned me a baby would be a cock-blocker—and it is—but only in the mornings so far. L’s pregnancy hormones have her primed and ready to go at it all the other times of day. Really. “So I don’t get a midday naughty at lunch?”
“Not unless you can talk Mrs. Porcelli into it?”
I could’ve gone my whole life without her saying that. “Damn, L. You could’ve just said no.”
“But that wouldn’t have been near as funny.”
The alarm goes off, waking me from one of my more erotic dreams, so I’m hard. Damn.
I lie in bed thinking about anything except the only thing that’ll relieve my raging hard-on, but it’s no use. This isn’t going away without some kind of action and I know the kind I prefer.
We’re at the fourteen-week milestone and L has felt much better this week, so I decide to test the waters. She’s lying on her side, her back to me, and I creep my hand around her waist. I rub her lower belly where our baby is growing and recognize the firmness now present. It doesn’t seem like that was there last week.
I slide my hand lower and kiss the back of her neck before I cup my hand between her legs, rubbing up and down. “Babe, I’m getting up to shower.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
I press my hard-on against her bum. “I’m sorry. I was having a really good dream when the alarm went off and I’m still wound up by it.” Wound up is putting it mildly. I want inside L bad. I kiss the back of her neck and down her shoulder. “But it’s fine if you don’t feel up to it. My palm can become better acquainted with my cock in the shower.”
She places her hand around my wrist and pulls it away from her body, deflating my hopes for an early morning fuck, but then shocks me when she slides it down the front of her knickers and begins moving her groin back and forth. “Fuck me from behind.”
She doesn’t have to ask twice.
I shove my hand further into her knickers and hear threads popping. I’ve never ripped her undies off but the sound is hot, I give the crotch a hard yank, tearing them to give me access to get inside her. “Oh, fuck.” I want to slam my cock into her hard but I can’t. I have this phobia about hurting her or the baby, so I use every ounce of self-restraint to ease inside gently.
I’m only a few strokes in when L starts talking. “I know you want it harder than that.”
This isn’t the way we fuck hard but it’s still good. “I do but you know why I hold back.” I’ve told her my fears.
She pulls away from me. “Get on your back.” This is how we do it most of the time now, with L on top, and I don’t mind a bit. She’s in control and I’m able to enjoy sex without the fear of being too rough with her. We both get what we need.
I move my hand to her clit and stroke it as she slides up and down on my cock. I want her to come too. If she doesn’t, I feel like a selfish, inadequate lover. “Does that feel good?”
“Yeah, don’t stop.”
And just like two, perfectly synced bombs, we explode together.
Eighteen weeks—almost halfway through the pregnancy. I can’t believe how much L’s belly has changed in
the last month. It’s a small bump you can barely detect beneath her clothes but I’m amazed by the way it feels when she lies flat, like a firm grapefruit protruding from her lower abdomen.
L has a visit with her OB today. I had to skip her last appointment because of work but I wouldn’t miss today for anything in the world. She’s getting her first four-dimensional ultrasound. I’ve been looking online at some of the pictures and we should be able to see our baby’s face for the first time today.
Dr. Sommersby comes into the room and does all the routine stuff first. I get to hear the heartbeat for the first time and I swear it triggers something in my chest, a sensation I’ve never felt before, and I have this crazy picture pop into my head of my heart growing like The Grinch’s.
“Are you okay?”
“That’s my first time to hear the heartbeat. I didn’t know it would make me feel like this.”
Dr. Sommersby laughs. “Well, Mr. McLachlan, you’re going to be feeling a lot of different things when you see your baby on this ultrasound. He or she is going to look a lot different than when we looked at six weeks.”
L pushes the waistband of her bottoms down and the good doctor begins the scan. It takes a minute for me to get my bearings but then it becomes clear. “Look, L.” I laugh—maybe even sort of giggling. “It’s a hand—and I can see all of the fingers.” I watch the screen, mesmerized by what I’m looking at because it’s so much better when it’s your own child you’re seeing.
I’m not sure I blink for fear of missing something. It’s moving so much—she hasn’t mentioned feeling anything. “Do you feel those somersaults?”
“Maybe little flutters here and there—nothing I registered as the baby moving. I thought it was gas bubbles or something.” She giggles.
Dr. Sommersby moves the probe and we get a perfect shot of the face so she still-frames it. “This is a nice one.”
“Look at that. It has to be a girl because that little face looks just like you.”