Page 208 of The Baby Bargain
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After wanderingaround MoCA all morning, Chase and I head to Chinatown, share sweet and sour chicken, beef and broccoli, and copious piles of white rice.
Then we head to Silverlake, window shop hip boutiques, drink expensive coffee (decaf for me. It's good, but I don't get the fuss), stop at a baby store.
I know it's early. Too early to get this excited. But I can't help myself.
I buy a tiny onesie printed withcutie pi.
I hold it close through ice cream, dinner, a walk in the hills, the drive back to the Westside.
To a shop with lingerie wearing mannequins in the window.
Chase motions to a sex toy—a giant glass dildo—on display. "Come on." He turns the car off. "I still owe you a vibrator."
Chapter Forty-Three
Ariel
Wide windows let in the soft blue evening light. The curtains are drawn. The merchandise shines in the twilight.
Everything is on display.
I'm on display. To anyone in the strip mall.
Anyone who drives along the busy street.
Okay, maybe it's not all that busy this far into Santa Monica. It's past rush hour. There's nothing nearby except a bunch of car dealerships. And the hospital.
God, what if Phillip was driving home and he saw me here?
I mean, he doesn't live in this direction. And, really, what if he saw me here? It's not like I was some sort of virginal prude. We had sex. We had good sex. It wasn't Earth-shattering, but—
"Princess, you there?" Chase wraps his arm around my waist.
I lean into the gesture. I need the steadiness. I need the weight of his limb. The pressure of his touch. It's right. It shouldn't be right. But it is. He is. We are.
This is just…
My hand goes to my stomach reflexively. Not my stomach exactly. The space below my belly button. I know enough about anatomy to know where this is happening.
There's a tiny being the size of a seed inside me. She's so small. How can she make my life feel so full? It defies reason.
But then, reason is still incredibly unappealing.
"Ariel?" Chase brushes my long hair behind my ear. His eyes meet mine. They fill with all the happiness in the world.
He wants this as badly as I do.
He must.
I get lost in his blue eyes. They're so pretty. So deep. So blue.
Will Charlotte have blue eyes?
God, a tiny baby with big eyes the color of a lake—
"Where are you going?" he asks.
