Page 24 of Secret Bump

With a jolt, I lift my head and she’s right in front of me.

“Isabelle,” I rasp.

Her expression says everything I need to hear. It says,of course I want you to hold me. But it also says,I don’t trust you.

But when she opens her mouth, nothing like that comes out. Instead she says, “I’m pregnant.”

And I hear her. Of course I do. I’m obsessed with Isabelle and hang on her every word.

Actually absorbing the words takes a few seconds longer.

She’s pregnant?

“And you don’t—” she starts to say.

I drop to my knees and press my face to her belly. I wasn’t imagining what I saw under the sway of her dress. It’s small right now, but there’s a secret bump hiding in plain sight. “You’re pregnant?”

“It’s yours, but?—”

Of course it’s mine. I look up at her, hating myself for the uncertainty painted on her innocent face. “We’ll get married.”

Her gaze flares with alarm. “No.”

“What do you mean, no? You’re pregnant.”

She steps back, leaving me on my knees in front of her. “I’m aware. And you ignored me?—”

I hold up my hand. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have— You should have told me.”

“You turned your back on me and walked away after that one time. Why should I have told you? Besides, you just said you were watching me around the clock.”

I did. And still, I missed the most important things. I missed that she needed me, and I missed that she was going through this profound change on her own. How did I not know?

Slowly, I stand. I tower over her, there’s no way around that. My voice is too stern, too demanding.

There’s nothing about me that saysyou can trust me to take care of you, because I’ve spent my entire life learning how to be terrifying, to build walls around me that won’t let anyone in.

And I accidentally kept the most important person out.

“Let me fix this,” I say as softly as I can. “Let me make you my wife.”

“No,” she says, again refusing the only obvious solution. And it’s only one word, the shortest syllable, but it still cracks under the pressure of standing up to the biggest, baddest man in town.

“Why not?”

She laughs, and it’s wild. Unexpected. Tearful, but resilient. “Because the only reason to get married is for love, Mr. Emerson. And we don’t even know each other. I know that we…” She waves her hands back and forth between us. “Whatever that is? It’s nice. But it’s not love.”

The hell it isn’t.

I growl and cross to her in a single stride, picking her up. This time, I don’t throw her over my shoulder like a caveman. She’s carrying my baby in her belly. I’m carrying her out of this bookstore like the bride-to-be that she is, whether she’s ready to accept that fact or not.

Her legs kick in protest as I stalk back out to the limo.

As soon as the bookstore door opens, the driver is out of the car, getting the back door for us.

“Thank you,” I say brusquely.

“He’s kidnapping me,” Isabelle yells.

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