Bad Boy's Bridesmaid (22 page)

And I gave her
everything.

Every thrust was
meant to slam her breasts between us. Every fierce movement designed to earn
her squeal. Every frantic breath I grunted fueled our shared passion. I
stretched her. I took her. I
fucked
her.

I made love to
her.

And her
constant, unrelenting orgasm built my own. Harder. More intense. More
meaningful
than any other moment with any other woman in my life.

I gripped her
close, fell over her to shield her with my body, and plunged as deeply as I
could into that welcoming, sensual heat.

And I came.
Again and again. I jetted inside her, filled her, and gave her everything that
was me.

My whisper
rasped, too harsh and desperate for how peacefully she rested in my arms. I
didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t I proved everything I felt? “Christ…I love—”

“Wait.” Mandy’s
fingers pressed against my lips. “Just…wait. Before you say it again. Before
you even think it. I have to tell you something.”

She could
silence me all she wanted, but nothing changed how my heart beat for her. I
gave her a smile, pressing deeper inside of her. She shuddered, but her eyes
welled with tears.

“Nate…I never
wanted to hurt you. I wanted to tell you, but the timing…I
couldn’t
.”

“What are you
talking about?”

Mandy pushed
against my chest. I hated leaving her, but she shifted away, curling her legs
under her and avoiding my touch.

“I have to tell
you the truth.”

That didn’t
sound good. “The truth?”

“I wished I hadn’t
 kept it from you.”

I tensed. Mandy
brushed tears away neither of us wanted her to shed. She couldn’t look at me.

It didn’t
matter. No matter what she said, what she thought, or what she feared, this
woman was too good and innocent for secrets. Whatever it was, I could handle
it.

I braced for
anything.

“Nate, I’m
pregnant.”

But I wasn’t
ready for that.

Why was I still
sitting in silence?

I should have
said something.

Anything
.

Mandy dressed in
the quiet. I didn’t remember putting my jeans on. I hadn’t zipped them. I just sat
on her couch.

I could have
talked, but I didn’t know what I’d hear over my pounding heart.

Pregnant.

I didn’t expect
it. I never thought of myself as a father. The possibility never crossed my
mind.

I swallowed.

Pregnant
.

A baby.

My
baby.

With Mandy.

I rubbed my chin.
“…How long?”

The question
sounded too harsh. I probably should have asked it while holding her. These
were the moments men held their women. When we kissed them. When we got excited
and celebrated.

When we
planned
for something like this.

The shock numbed
everything. Facts helped. Piecing together the puzzle calmed me down. I had to
think as rationally as I could. No matter what, I had to make this
right
.

Mandy looked
down. “I’ve known for a while.”

Okay. That
wasn’t the question, but it explained a lot.

I nodded. “So, when
did I…?”

Knock you up
.

Wow, was I glad
I didn’t say it out loud. What was a man supposed to ask?
When did I
impregnate you
? That was too formal, too clinical.
When did I put a baby
in you
?

Christ, it
wasn’t like I hijacked a stork and stole the bundle to stuff clandestinely into
her belly when she wasn’t looking.

“It happened the
first night we were together,” Mandy said.

Whoa
.

I stood, but the
weight of that implication nearly slammed me to the couch again.

“The…
first
time? You’ve been pregnant for…like
three
months!”

She nodded. “I’m
twelve weeks.”

I had no idea
what that meant. What the hell happened to nine months? Did all men have to do
division in their heads? Fathers-to-be probably got really fucking good at
mental math.

I took a deep
breath. It didn’t matter when or how. Mandy was pregnant. And she was scared.

And so far, she
had been alone.

She twisted her
fingers in her lap. “I planned to tell you after the wedding because the
preparations were getting overwhelming. The stress and my parents fighting and
Lindsey being Lindsey just made it too difficult. And…” She bit her lip. “The
first trimester is tricky. A lot of things can go wrong.”

Her voice
cracked. I knew why. She didn’t want to think such horrible thoughts.

Neither did I.

She shifted from
the bed to root in her closet and handed me a small picture.

A sonogram.

“I didn’t want
to say anything until it was certain.” She pointed to the little blur. “That’s
it.”

I had no idea
what I was looking at, so I stared at the words printed above it instead. Her
name. Her birthdate.

Today’s date.

“This was from
today
?”
I whispered.

“Everything
is…fine. Perfectly healthy.”

“You went
today
.
Alone?” 

She nodded.

Oh shit. This
wasn’t something she should have done alone. “Does anyone know?”

She wiggled her
hand. The Band-Aid still covered her stitches. “Rick knows. He found out when I
went to the ER.”

Rick?

That son of a
bitch. He knew the whole
fucking
time.

I’d spent two
hours with the bastard yesterday, moving tables and stringing lights in the
bushes outside the church for the damn wedding. He pissed around with me,
nearly getting my finger slammed on a rickety picnic table. Didn’t say a damn
word. Just scowled.

The asshole
blamed me for getting Mandy in trouble.

Damn it. I
blamed myself too.

She was a virgin
when I took her, and she probably wasn’t on the pill. But I had used a condom.

How the hell did
I knock a
virgin
up? Jesus, I knew I was bad for her, but
this
bad?

Mandy’s tone
shifted. She tensed, and I wished she’d sit down.

“No one else
knows,” she said. It didn’t matter. “I didn’t want to upset Lindsey or Mom…and
I don’t know how to tell my dad.”

I clenched my
jaw. “You didn’t tell me either.”

She crossed her
arms, almost shielding her stomach. She didn’t have to hide.

It made sense
now. Her body was softer than I remembered. Feminine. I didn’t see any…bump,
but that didn’t mean anything, especially when I held the sonogram in my hand.

“I wasn’t sure how
to tell you,” she said. “I tried. A couple times.”

Not hard enough.
I dropped the photo before I accidently wrinkled it in my fist.

“How could you keep
this a secret? I deserved to know.”

Mandy flinched.
Her lip trembled, but she held it together.

She shouldn’t
have pretended to be brave. Why didn’t I just hold her? Shock still froze me in
place.

She swallowed.
“You’re right. I wanted to tell you. I almost did a few weeks ago when we were
doing the cake tasting. I had you in the back office alone. But then you told
me about—”

“California.”

The thought
shattered in my chest. Did I tell her I decided not to bid on the property in
Santa Barbara? It hadn’t come up, and I hadn’t regretted missing the
opportunity.

Christ, all this
time she kept the baby a secret because…

“You thought I’d
leave you?” The implication crushed me. “You were afraid to tell me about
my
baby because you were worried I’d move to the West Coast and leave you
alone
?”

“No. No, that’s
not it at all.” She reached for me. I stood instead. “Nate, I didn’t want to
stand in your way. You had all these plans. You’ve
always
had these
plans. You’re not like me or Lindsey or Bryce or Rick. You’ve been on your own,
and you’ve made your success unconventionally. No college, no support from your
parents. You had an
amazing
opportunity, and I refused to let this ruin it.”

Ruin
it?

It was a
baby
,
not a crisis. How long had she worried about this?

“You should have
talked to me the instant you found out.”

“I know.  I
regret it. Nate, please, what we have is special. I was afraid this would jeopardize
it.”

“Didn’t you think
I’d find out?”

“I planned to
tell you
after
the wedding.”

“Why? So you
could put everyone else first again? So you could worry about what they’d think
or what they’d say? Mandy, you aren’t protecting them. You’re hiding from
yourself
and everything that
this
means.”

Her eyes welled
with tears. “I was
scared
.”

“Yeah? I bet you
were. I’m scared too, but Christ, I would’ve
helped
you. I would’ve
protected you from anyone who gave you shit because you carried
our
baby.”

And I meant it.

Was I that
untrustworthy? Did she think I wouldn’t be able to take care of her? That I
couldn’t fix this?

No one would
give her grief for this. I wouldn’t let anyone shame her.

Except Mandy worried
about her family’s reaction. I hadn’t thought about mine.

It was the first
time in years I gave a damn what they’d say, and I knew exactly what my father
would have asked of me.

No, what he
would have
demanded
I do.

I never agreed
with him before. Now it only made sense.

“We should get
married,” I said.

Mandy stared at
me, her eyes dark with exhaustion, stress, and utter disbelief. “
Married
?”

My mind spelled
the words with thorns. “Yeah. Married.”

“But
why
?”

“Because you’re
pregnant.”

“We can’t get
married because we’re having a baby.”

“Why the hell
not?”

More tears. More
stress. More
loneliness
.

Couldn’t I do
anything right by her?

“We can’t get
married just because there’s a child involved.” Mandy covered her tummy with a
hand. “You’ve seen everyone else’s marriage lately. Mom and Dad can’t stand
each other. Lindsey might murder Bryce before they get to the altar. Mom’s off
sleeping with the groom’s father…” She sucked in a breath. “And your parents
are married, but they’re—”

“This isn’t
about them. This is about doing what’s right for us.”

“It
is
about them! Look around you. No one has a happy marriage. Everyone stays
together for the wrong reasons. We should
learn
from that, not replicate
it!”

That stung.

No. It fucking
hurt.

“You wouldn’t
want to be married to me?”

“Nate, three
months ago, your throat would have swollen shut over that word.”

“Yeah? Well
maybe that’s because I didn’t see what good there was in it. Not until I spent
that night with
you
.” I swallowed. How could a woman as delicate as her
rip me apart? “Maybe we didn’t have the connection I thought we did.”

“What?” Mandy’s
eyes glistened with tears. “We do. I know we do.”

“Then why didn’t
you tell me the truth about the baby?”

“I’m
sorry
—”

I tugged on my
shirt and turned to the door. Mandy rushed after me.

She grabbed my
arm. I resisted the urge to shake from her touch.

Christ, how
pathetic was I that I
needed
to feel her hands on my skin?

“I have feelings
for you,” she said. “Nate, I’ve never felt like this before, and that’s why we
can’t rush into anything. I know you’re hurting, and this news is so
shocking…but getting married for the wrong reasons isn’t noble or practical.
It’ll only end in heartbreak. I don’t want that. It’d hurt too much.”

Now I did pull
from her. I left my voice low. Raw.

“Yeah. Heartbreak
sucks, doesn’t it?”

Mandy called my
name. I ignored her.

The door slammed
shut behind me.

What was I
doing?

What was I
supposed to do?

I had to be
calm, rational, and, above all else, comforting to the woman who seemed
terrified to be having a baby.

My baby.

So far, I was
doing a piss poor job of it. It wasn’t fair to her to leave, but if I didn’t
sort my own shit out first, I’d say the wrong thing and ruin everything. If I
wanted to take care of her, I had to work through my own emotions.

Even if I felt…betrayed.

Not because she
hid the truth, but because she feared that I wouldn’t have been there, helped
her, or
wanted
her.

She didn’t trust
me, and the thought tore me apart.

I drove to my bar,
but I didn’t want to fight the crowd. Even isolated in my office, I’d have to
fight through memories of her. Christ, she had tried to tell me about the baby that
one day. Of course, I’d interrupted her and pressured her and chased her for
all the wrong reasons.

Goddamn it. I
was an idiot. Blind to the most obvious thing any other man would have instantly
realized from his woman. I knew Mandy was in trouble. She acted distant, was
sick with stress. She guarded herself as best she could against my charm, but I’d
never met a woman I couldn’t seduce.

We hadn’t moved
too fast, I just never stopped to see what she needed along the way.

And it was me.

Or I thought it
was.

I drove until I
had no other place to go. Then I pulled into my parents’ driveway.

It was late, but
the light in the study was on. Dad said he prayed better at night, but he still
enforced a strict silence during the day when Mom and I were home.

The curtains
stirred. I had a key for emergencies, but I never used it. As far as I was
concerned, I escaped the house. That severed all ties.

Except now.

Figured.

I knocked. Dad
answered after a moment. He stood in the doorway, somehow colder than the door
itself. I matched his scowl.

It was a mistake
to come here.