Page 74 of His Secret Virgin
Chapter 30
Emma
I’d kept my job for several months after we married. Christopher had been right—the people who worked for him didn’t bat an eye at our marriage. But it wasn’t the people who worked there that made the place feel uncomfortable to me—it was who wasn’t there. With Dad no longer working there, it just didn’t feel right.
He and Mom moved back to Rhode Island, where they both took jobs at a much smaller company. I only checked in with them once a week or so. They wouldn’t come around, and they never called me; I had to make the calls to them. I couldn’t understand how they could be so disappointed in me over something that made me so happy.
When we learned we were having a son, I called my father to let him know. His reaction wasn’t what I thought it would be. “Great, now Christopher will have a boy. He’s got it all now, doesn’t he?”
The conversation went no further, as he’d said he had to get back to work. I’d hung up the phone with my heart feeling like it weighed a million pounds.
As far as Christopher’s daughters were concerned, they kept away from our home and their father. At times it made me mad that they were willing to keep taking his money but refused to see the man.
Christopher just kept assuring me that the day would come when all of our family members would come to realize that what they were doing was hurting them more than us. He and I were happy, whether they were pleased with us or not. We still had each other, and nothing could shake that happiness.
With no job, I stayed home and went to work setting up our son’s bedroom and a playroom too. And as I worked through the decorating process, I found that I had a real knack for it. According to the interior decorator Christopher hired to help me, I had a natural instinct for colors and setting up a nice flow.
Eventually, Lawrence asked me to join his design team. I’d been thrilled, and Christopher had been so proud. I’d accepted the job, but only on the condition that I’d start after the baby turned six months old and then only part-time. I didn’t want the nanny to raise our son.
We’d hired a sixty-three-year-old nanny to help us in the early stages of our son’s life. The goal was having her help me learn everything I would need to know to raise a child and then we would let her go with a tidy pension to make the rest of her days a little bit easier.
Being married to Christopher was better than I could’ve dreamed. He made my life so much more than I ever thought it could be. It wasn’t his money that made me happy, either. It was definitely the man himself.
One week when I’d been feeling particularly tired, I’d spent much of the time sleeping. He’d come in with a handful of flowers for me, waking me with a kiss. “Good evening, Mrs. Taylor.”
Rubbing my eyes, I sat up on the sofa I’d fallen asleep on. “Oh, I fell asleep watching TV again. What time is it?”
“Six,” he said as he wiggled the flowers in front of my face. “I stopped and picked these wildflowers for you, baby. When I saw them, I thought of you and knew I had to get some for you.”
Taking them from him, I smelled them. “They smell so good, and they’re so pretty.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, sexy.”
“Thank you,” he said then scooped me up in his arms. Even though I was over eight months pregnant, he was still able to carry me around.
And people called him old? This man was in his prime.
I laughed as I wrapped my arms around him. “For what? I didn’t get you anything.”
“For being you.” He kissed my lips softly. “For making my life so damn wonderful that I walk around whistling all the time.”
“Whistling?” I’d never heard him do that.
“Yes, apparently I whistle a lot at work now.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it until Mrs. Kramer pointed it out today. She said I seem like a new man. A very happy man.”
Resting my head on his chest, I loved to hear that. “I’m so glad we found each other. Even if our families aren’t.”
I realized he was taking me upstairs, most likely to our bedroom. When his foot touched the first step, something strange happened. A weird cramp began in my back, and it went all the way around to the front of my body.
He felt it too as my body tensed. “Baby, are you okay?”
“I have a cramp that’s kind of weird.” I looked at him with confusion. “Do you think…?”
He interrupted me. “That you’re in labor?”
I nodded then thought about the dream I’d been having before he woke me up. “You know what, I was just having this bizarre dream that a gorilla was coming out of nowhere and grabbing me, squeezing me.”
“I bet you’ve been having contractions in your sleep.” He carried me up to our room then laid me on the bed. Pulling out his cell, he made a note. “Okay, this contraction started at ten after six. I’ll keep track of them, and we’ll head to the hospital when they’re ten minutes apart, the way the doctor said.”
“But we’re a week before the due date,” I said, recalling what the doctor had told us. “She’d said that first births are usually late, not early.”
