Page 89 of Forbidden

I guess we hadn’t talked about this. She’d been so busy pregnant and me avoiding it. I felt guilty for ignoring my friend, but I knew she wouldn’t want me to. Isla was good. A great person. A wonderful friend. And now an amazing mama.

“Yeah, you were,” Angelo smirked, and I had a feeling her anger ended in the bedroom.

Vander kind of blackmailing me into our marriage wasn’t a secret. But it didn’t sting like it used to.

I was about to say that when Nathan spoke. I’d almost forgotten he was here because he’d been sitting silently in the armchair opposite me. He didn’t hold the baby, just observed us like animals in a zoo. Or a scientist trying to figure out our strange customs.

“Why did he do it?” He tilted his head, but there was no malice in his words. “Why did Vander marry you? It goes against societal standards to marry your former sister-in-law.”

He spoke so clinically, it always threw me off. He wasn’t cold or uncaring, just neutral. Unemotional.

“Um…” I looked to Angelo. I suspected he might understand it better than I did, but he wasn’t jumping to my rescue. A small smile on his lips. If he weren’t a new father, I’d kill him. My cheeks flushed. “Yes, it does.”

“So why did he do it?” Nathan asked again. His sincerity compelled me to answer as best I could.

“I suppose he didn’t care what people would say.”

“Why?”

“Sometimes being happy is more important.”

“So you make him happy?” It felt like speaking to an inquisitive child, one question after another. They were so quick I kept answering.

“I guess.”

“Does he make you happy?”

“Yeah.”

“So, you love each other?”

Love. The word froze me. My lips were parted. My tongue pressed into my teeth, forming the Y sound.

The yes was so automatic in my mind. But I’d never told Vander. I couldn’t blurt it out to his family.

But as my body buzzed with warmth. I knew it was true. When had it started, I wasn’t sure. After the wedding, before? After Mitchell’s death, before?

It didn’t matter. Because it was there. It wasn’t a question anymore.

I was in love with my husband. And I was pregnant with his baby.

44

Grace

For once, I was happy about Joyce’s interruption, so I could avoid answering Nathan’s question about my love for Vander. “I think we’ve kept the new parents too long.”

“Oh, no. It’s okay.” Isla smiled, but I could see the tight corners of her mouth.

“Joyce is right.” My fingers brushed over the baby’s peach fuzz hair as his mama held him safe. “Congratulations again. He’s perfect.”

“He really is.”

My heart ached for the baby I’d lost. Being pregnant didn’t take that pain away, but it shifted. It wasn’t pressing down from every corner now. It was a dull pulse under my skin. A reminder.

And If I were being honest with myself, I would’ve noticed it faded a long time ago. Because I wasn’t breathing in my grief anymore. I had other things to think about. To look forward to. To make me happy.

Friends. New family. And Vander.

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