Page 57 of If You Fight

“Yeah,” she said, frowning as she nodded.

“You don’t seem happy. Why?”

Without looking at me, she fiddled with her fingers in her lap. “I remembered how you reacted last time. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about this with everything going on.”

How I’d behaved when she told me before she was carrying my child flashed through my mind, and I cringed at how much an asshole I’d been questioning if it was mine. No wonder she wasn’t sure I’d even want to know about it now.

But things weren’t the same as they’d been then. She wasn’t another man’s wife and we wouldn’t have to hide the good news that we were having a baby.

I reached out to take her hands in mine and pulled her up. Taking her in my arms, I hugged her to me. “I’m sorry I was such an ass then. I’m happy you’re pregnant, Serena. I don’t care what’s going on with everything else.”

She looked up at me and smiled. “So you’re not worried?”

Cradling her face in my hands, I shook my head. “Worried about what?”

With a sigh, she said, “Everything. My father. You fighting. The fact that we’re still stuck here. Everything.”

I shook my head at each mention of the very things that could make our life together misery. “Nope. None of that worries me.”

“And you’re happy about the baby?”

“Yes. Very happy. Are you?”

She hesitated for a second and took my hands in hers to kiss them. “I want to be happy. I’m happy it’s your baby. I just worry that something is going to happen that’s going to make having this baby difficult.”

I hated seeing her worried when this should have been one of the happiest days of her life. I wanted her to love the idea of us having a baby, not spend nine months concerned that at any moment her father would do something horrible to ruin it for her.

“I think it’s perfect timing. You’re going to find your mother any day now, and then the baby will get to know his grandmother while you’re getting to know your mother.”

Serena smiled and then her eyebrows raised into her forehead. “Wait a minute. His grandmother? How do you know it’s a boy? Maybe it will be a girl.”

“That would be okay too. I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl as long as it’s healthy and you’re healthy.”

“You promise? I’ve spent my life living with a father who wanted sons. I’d never want a daughter of mine to go through that.”

I kissed her sweetly and pressed my forehead to hers. “I promise. I’m not like him, Serena, so you don’t have to worry. Girl or boy, it won’t matter to me. I’ll love him or her as much as I love you.”

She slid her arms around my neck and hugged me. “Then I’m happy we’re having a baby.”

“Good. I don’t want you to worry about anything. I’ll take care of you and whatever comes up. You take care of our baby. Deal?”

Lifting her head off my chest, she smiled. “Deal. It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?”

I looked down into those dark eyes still with a hint of worry in them and nodded. “It’s going to be more than okay. I promise.”

As she sighed contentedly, I silently made plans to ask Floyd if he would be able to find me more fights. With a baby coming, I needed to make a lot more money as fast as possible so no matter what happened with Robert, we’d be able to leave so our child wouldn’t grow up around the ugliness of his world. I’d won last night, and if I trained even harder than I had for the past three weeks, I knew I could win even more.

The undefeated champion who hadn’t lost in nearly twenty matches still existed inside me. Now I needed to bring him back to life so I could provide for the woman I loved and our baby. I didn’t want to be in the position where Robert would be able to dictate our lives anymore, and fighting would finally let me take Serena and escape this place.

We’d just have one more to leave when the time came, and I had to make sure we didn’t lose that chance because I didn’t do enough to ensure it happened.

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