Page 83 of My One
We checkedinto the hotel that Edna booked for us. It was a British Colonial style villa that faced the marina and felt more like a home than a hotel because we had our own kitchen, two floors, and a private balcony—though this private balcony wasn’t secluded. I would have to get creative if I wanted to pleasure my wife on another balcony.
“This is amazing,” Nic stated as she twirled around, looking at where we would call home for the next week.
“Edna did good,” I replied, opening the balcony door and stepping out into the eighty-degree weather. We’d left the mid-forties and were now in what felt like summer in December. Fucking nirvana.
“I can’t wait to lay by the pool, walk on the beach, and do absolutely nothing for a week.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. “Then are you going to tell me what’s wrong so we can have a good time?”
She sighed and sat on the small couch, and I stepped back inside to talk to her. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just scared.”
I balked because I wasn’t prepared for her to say she was afraid of something. “Scared about what?” I sat next to her.
Nic turned, her knee resting against my thigh. “You know I would never keep something from you unless it was for a good reason, right?”
“I’m not in the mood to play one of your mind games, Nic. Just tell me.”
She let out a long breath, paused, and then said, “I’m pregnant.”
My gaze snapped to her eyes, and I sucked in a breath. “What?”
Nicole bit her lip and lifted a shoulder. “I’m pregnant,” she repeated.
“Since when?”
She lowered her gaze as though she were shameful. “I’m not sure how far along, but I’ve known for a week.”
“A week?” I shouted.
“I didn’t keep it from you because I didn’t want you to know—”
I stood. “Then why did you keep it from me at all?”
She stood and reached for my hands, clasping them in her soft ones. “Because we were coming here, and I wanted to have a good time and not really think about it.”
I blinked. “What? Why?”
Nic sighed again. “Because what if I lose this one too?”
My heart cracked a little, and I reached up, cupping her cheek with my palm. “Oh, baby, we can’t think about that each time. We just need to take each one as a gift, and whatever happens, happens.”
“I know, but I don’t think I can get through another miscarriage. It broke me.”
“It broke me too, but if it were to happen again, I know we can get through it—together.”
“I know,” she said again. “I’m just terrified the same thing will happen.”
I wrapped her in my arms. “Everything will be okay. And if it’s just us in our five-bedroom house when we’re old and gray, then we’ll make it a mini Playboy mansion.”
She snorted and pushed at my chest. “In your dreams.”
I grinned at her, knowing that I just needed to make her smile. “Yeah, but we’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.”
I brought her to me again, kissing her forehead before engulfing her in my arms. I held her for a few minutes as the worry I’d had about what she was hiding from me lifted. Finding out she was pregnant again was the best kind of secret.
We walked to Zelly’s, the place where Edna told us to have a drink. It was a hut-style bar on the beach with fire pits in the sand and a view that I wouldn’t mind seeing every day. Halo was my baby, but when it was time to retire, I could see myself opening a bar on the beach and living in paradise with Nicole.
