Blurred Lines by Tamsyn Bester Page B

wait.
    “I would say I’m sorry,” I laughed awkwardly, “but we both know I wouldn’t mean it. I would have had a hard time letting her anywhere near our baby if you’d stayed together.”
    “Yeah, look, there’s something else I should have mentioned.” He let go of my wrist, and leaned against his brown leather headboard. “Stella was the one who told me you were pregnant.”
    Until he mentioned it, the thought of how he’d come to know I was pregnant hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was too busy being upset with him that I’d never stopped to wonder who’d told him.
    I frowned, and my body involuntarily took a weary step backwards. “How did she know?”
    “She said her friend works as a receptionist at the doctor’s consulting rooms, and she was the one you spoke to the day you rescheduled your ultrasound.”
    I was going to have to talk to Dr. Burke about that. Stella’s friend was going to lose her job thanks to that little stunt, but I didn’t want Stella to be a problem.
    “Hey.” Reid moved from the bed and came to stand in front of me. He tipped my chin back, and forced me to look into his eyes. The light from the lamp cast shadows over his face, accentuating the cut of his jaw, and the roundness of his lips. My heart did that stuttering thing again, and I felt my body wanting to sway towards him. In spite of the cold temperature, his hard body radiated heat. A warmth I was all too familiar with. And apparently so was my body.
    “Don’t worry about her,” he told me softly. “She won’t be a problem.”
    “And if she becomes one? If she decides she wants you back?”
    His stoic expression gave nothing away, but I could see he understood the underlying meaning to my question. I wanted his reassurance – albeit over and over again – that our child would be put above all else.
    “She never really had me, Jade. I know it, and she shows it. But the question is,” – he leaned closer, until we were inhaling the same breaths – “do you know it?”
    I pinched my eyes closed, and fought the pull between us. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was pregnant with his baby, and everything to do with the raw physical and emotional connection we shared. On some deeper level, my soul still yearned for his, and it brought back the familiar ache of having lost my missing piece. I wanted us to find our way back to that place, but not under the guise of our impending parenthood. I wanted him to want me because he couldn’t live without me, and not because he felt an obligation towards me as the mother of his unborn baby.
    He trailed his hands down my arms until he held my hands in his. “C’mon, let’s get some sleep.”
    “I should go next door,” I said, my voice unconvincing. I opened my eyes, and found Reid regarding me with a frustrated intensity. Maybe now he understood just how crazy he made me because I’d give him that very look many times.
    “Stop being so damn stubborn, and do as you’re told.”
    When I didn’t move, he started unbuttoning my light grey cardigan, and a shiver worked its way up my spine when his fingers brushed my skin. I hated how my body reacted to him, to his touch, and I hated all the confusion that had me fumbling when I was around him. I might have been angry with him every time we had anything to do with each other now, but there was one thing I couldn’t deny. I missed him.
    He led me back to his gigantic bed, switched the bedside lamp off, and pulled back the covers before sliding in and turning on his side. I removed my knitted Ugg boots, and climbed in, turning away from him. He covered me with his thick comforter, and I closed my eyes thinking that was it, but he surprised me when he wrapped his arm around me waist and pulled me into his chest.
    “Sleep,” he muttered into my hair, as if he knew I was overthinking it. He splayed his hand over my stomach, and my heart leapt into my throat. He might not have intended it that way, but I saw it as