Page 103 of Crossed By the Stars
“We sleep naked. We make love all the damn time. It was bound to happen.”
I was thoroughly and completely confused, but my heart was still hammering because she’d retreated so much.
“I don’t know if I can do it.” She looked up at me, and there were tears in her eyes, and her hands were shaking as she pushed a tendril of escaped hair behind her ear.
I pursued her, trapping her at the window by pressing her body against the glass. She went to push me away, and I grabbed her hands and growled, “Pour l’amour de Dieu, just tell me.”
She lifted her chin, defiant and angry, eyes flashing at me. “I’m pregnant.”
I stared, trying to absorb the words she’d said. Finally, as they settled in my chest, joy filled me. Joy and pleasure that showed on my face in the form of the wide grin that took over my lips.
She only glared more. “Wipe that smile off your face, Armaud.”
And the ‘Armaud’ did it for me.
“Mon bijou, this is a good thing.”
“For you. The man who wanted half a dozen kids. But not for me…the person who’s always known she’d be an awful mom,” her voice cracked, and the tears she’d held back spilled over her cheeks.
I swallowed hard. “You don’t want it… You want to… I understand.”
It would kill me a bit, to get rid of the little being we’d made together. But Jada was my life. I’d do anything for her.
“Don’t be daft!” she hollered at me. “I can’t…I can’t get rid of it! It’s ours…our baby!”
I couldn’t help the relief that filled me, but I also realized this was bringing up too many memories from her past. A childhood where she’d been raised by staff but forced to conform to her father’s world. I wrapped my arms around her again.
“You are not your parents. You are going to be a wonderful mother.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I have no idea how to be a mom.”
“Yes, you do. You do it every day.”
She looked up at me, brows crinkled, confusion written on her face.
“Every day, you take care of me and Violet and your team. Every day, you do your best for the people in your life. To show up for them. To love them. Doing those things…being there and loving them…it’s all a child really needs.”
She closed her eyes, dark lashes resting against her pale cheeks, and I reached up to brush aside the tears that creeped out. “Mon bijou, you are the epitome of sacrifice and love. Our child is going to be lucky to call youMaman.”
Her eyes opened, staring into mine as if searching for a different truth than the one my words told. When she saw nothing but honesty there, her face filled with emotions much deeper than lust or caring or even adoration. A look she’d had for me once upon a time in a fairy tale where I’d been the prince, and she’d been the princess, and we’d been kept apart by warring families. It was love encased in hope.
I kissed her, a soft and gentle one. A promise. As if swearing my fealty just like Romeo had to his Juliet. Like Shinji had to Hatsue. Like I would always swear tomon petit bijou. It took a moment, and then she was kissing me back, the softness disappearing with her fierceness. The moment the princess picked up the sword and swung back.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” she asked against my lips, hers finally curling up into a smile that filled me with even more relief.
I shook my head.
“It means you’re going to have to start wearing clothes to bed.”
I gasped, “Never!”
“You want to scar our child for life when they come into our room because they had a nightmare?”
I groaned, closing my eyes. “It’s just a body. They have to get used to seeing them.”
“Do you want to see your father’s naked ass?”
I shuddered. “No.”
