Page 49 of The Princess & the Prospect

Chapter 18

Ihad never been so scared as the day I proposed to Anna. I was on edge already, worried she would say no. Sure, we were already married, but me asking her, and actually going through with it without either of us feeling forced or obligated was something I had been thinking about for a long time. There was a bit of ulterior motive too. Anna had shit memories of our first wedding, she didn’t have any engagement memories. I wanted to start flooding her with the things she wanted to remember in order to help her move past the shit we both wished wasn’t still in our heads sometimes when we closed our eyes at night.

Then she said yes, and I was elated until she doubled over for the second time, unable to disguise the pain she was in that time. It was too early for our daughter to be born. Not that she knew we were having a girl, but I did. It was just too damn early. Thankfully, the doctor got her labor stopped and bed rest has kept our baby inside of her these past six weeks. Though, it’s probably a good thing that Anna wasn’t going to be on bed rest much longer, because she was starting to get pretty fucking cranky.

“I hate this fudging bed!” She screamed from the bedroom when I opened the door to see who had been knocking.

“I’d ask how things are going, but I’m guessing it’s been a lot of that,” Deck laughed as he pointed toward the small hallway that led to the bedrooms.

“Yeah, so you remember when your wife wanted to take her to live with you guys a few months ago? I’m thinking you should…”

“I can hear you!” Anna called out. “You better shut your darn pie hole. You aren’t the one stuck in the same room all the friggin’ time.”

“Your vocabulary has become worrisome, little Miss Anna,” Deck teased.

“Shut the front door, Deck!”

We both turned to look at the already closed front door before realizing what she had meant. “I do not envy you. I hope Ever isn’t like that when I knock her up.”

“You planning on having a baby soon?” I asked, almost relieved that I’d have a friend my age going through the same shit.

“Fuck no! We’re going to have some fun first. Ever’s had a tough enough time over the past few years. We’re trying to enjoy time together, getting her established as an artist, and all that good shit. The kids can wait until later.”

The disappointment must have shown on my face because he laughed at me. The bastard stood there and laughed in my face some more because I most definitely wasn’t getting any of the fun times and adjustment times he spoke of. I was growing bored with my own hand, and that was when Anna’s jerkoff radar didn’t have her yelling out demands for more shit she wasn’t able to get up and fetch for herself. Even her own mom – the saint that Lucy was – took a break to get away from her demanding daughter. We couldn’t even watch movies together or play games because she either got too emotional or ended up falling asleep on me.

“You wouldn’t change a thing,” Deck announced after watching my thoughts play out on my features. I just shook my head.

“No, I wouldn’t. Have you seen her? She has this cute beachball belly going on, and she’s always glowing even when she’s being demanding as shit.”

“Jesus, you’re fucked.”

“In the best way,” I admitted as we moved back to the room so I could bring Anna the water she had requested before I heard the knock on the door.

“Hey, Anna Banana!” Deck teased her as he entered the room. “How are you feeling today?”

“I’m…”Anna stopped speaking so abruptly my full attention turned back to her. “Um, not so good, actually. I think I just peed.”

“You just what?” I pulled the cover down off of her legs and sure enough there was a huge wet spot on her nightgown and soaking through the sheets around her. Thank fuck I had listened to her nurse at the last check up and put a mattress protector on the bed. Anna winced, drawing my attention back up to her face and then I glanced at the cute little beach ball belly I’d been talking about. It looked tight as fuck.

“Anna,” I huffed out. “I don’t think you peed. I’m pretty sure your water broke.”

“I’ll call everyone,” Deck managed to say before he backed out of the room looking almost as white as the sheets did before my wife wet them.

“I have your bag, babe. You think you can walk?”

“I can do it,” she insisted.

“Okay, but if you can’t, Deck can grab the bag and I can carry you.”

“You can’t carry me!” Her voice was a shrill, squeaky thing. “I look like a whole herd of buffalo right now. You’ll break your back and we’ll both be broken and in bed.” She sighed and the tears fell. “Then our baby won’t love us because we’ll be puddles of goo on the sheets.”

“What?” I asked as I stared in horror at the woman I love. She just nodded her head as if I had been agreeing with her. “It’s true,” she said before she had to stop shuffling along because a contraction hit her with force this time. She was trying to be a champ and breathe through it, while I was ready to punch something for making my woman hurt. Myself. I would have to punch myself for this since I was the one who knocked her up in the first place.

“I’m so sorry beautiful,” I told her.

“Well, you should be. Our child doesn’t want a herd of buffalo for a mom.”

“Do women actually go crazy during labor?” I asked Deck from over my shoulder.

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