Page 36 of Seven Minutes In Heaven
She looked between Claire and Jake. “Are you two a couple or something?” Chuckling, Ophelia released the first smile Claire had ever seen on her. It was also probably the only smile she had to give lately. “Oh my God. Did it happen beforeorafter you got engaged to Arthur?”
Neither of them denied it. Luckily, Ophelia didn’t seem interested in using it as leverage against them.
“Wow,” she said. “What a mess this is, huh?”
Ophelia left a few minutes later. She and Jake shared a few private words in the doorway before he saw her off with a short list of numbers for her and the other women in the suit to call.
“Suppose I should be glad that Arthur is legally getting what’s coming to him,” Claire said when Jake returned to the table. “I’m afraid of what it means for… well, me.” Her hand absentmindedly went to her abdomen.For us.
“It will give you the perfect opportunity to break off the engagement without fear of reprisal,” Jake said. “You won’t have to do anything you might regret.”
Like eloping with you?“Is that why you’re getting involved with this? You can tell me the truth, Jake. Are you helping those women only because it frees me from your father?”
“No,” he said, hand firmly on her shoulder and somber eyes locked on hers. “I said I was doing it because it was the right thing, and I maintain that. My father has hurt a lot of people. I intend to rectify some of the wrongs.”
“Sins of the father?”
He glanced at her stomach. “If we… ifyouhave a son, I hope you’ll let me be involved with his life, so I can teach him how to be a decent man.” Jake shook his head. “I don’t even hope to make a good man out of anyone. Just a decent man. Sometimes I think that’s all I can be after the shit that’s been shoved into my head.”
Claire held her envelope to her chest. “What if it’s a girl?”
“I’d be terrified for her every day of her life, but I guess that’s why I need to help clean this world up of scum that would want to hurt her.”
The crinkled envelope landed on the table. “I brought these over to show you.” Claire’s fingers trembled as she undid the metal twist and pulled out the small stack of sonograms. “I thought you might want to see them.”
Jake slid the top picture off the pile. “Holy shit,” he muttered. “It actually looks like…”
“An alien with a big head,” Claire said with a smile. “Can’t wait to shove that out of my vagina. It’s only going to get bigger.”
Jake couldn’t contain the terrible joke coming out of his mouth. “What? The baby or your vagina?”
Claire smacked his arm with a hearty laugh. “Both, obviously!”
For some reason, that made them both laugh until tears were in their eyes. What was it? The severity of the situation? What had happened with Ophelia? The uncertainty of Claire’s future? The uncertainty ofJake’sfuture?He could lose everything. His status, his career, his inheritance… even if the lawsuit is thrown out, his connection to it could end everything with his father.Maybe they weren’t so different in this after all.
That must have been why Claire didn’t think twice about kissing him at the dining table.
He instantly kissed her back, his arms tight around her shoulders and his tongue making more love to her than the rest of his body. That was what she had come to expect with Jake, though. He was a passionate man prone to romantic whims.He is very much like his father in that regard.Yet Jake knew how to go about it the proper way. Well, maybe having unprotected sex in a closet wasn’tproper,but Claire had been 100% into it and was as guilty as him. She wasn’t afraid to own up to that anymore.
“I love you,” Jake muttered on her lips. “I love you and this baby.” His hand landed on the sonogram. The slap wasn’t threatening. It was protective, as if it had the power to bash away any negative forces daring to encroach upon his family. “I will fight for what’s right, Claire. That means making what we’ve done right.”
“Yes?” She waited for him to say it. One day, when her child asked her how this moment went, she wanted to be able to say,He did it on one knee with love in his eyes.
The love was in his eyes, but he couldn’t get down on one knee. Instead, Jake took her hands into his and said, “Marry me, Claire. Right now. Before everything goes to hell… at least we’ll still have each other.” He kissed her, both hands grabbing her hips, thumbs digging into her pregnant stomach. “At least we’ll have our family.”
She only had to think about it for two seconds. Before, his suggestion that they elope had been madness. Now? It was the only thing that sounded right.
“Yes,” she said in between kisses. “Yes, Jake. Let’s get married. Right now.”
