Adam, Enough Said (This Can't be Happening) (20 page)

He didn't want this baby
, but hopefully he’d come to love him or her when they were born. And until then, I’d try to make him happy. For the baby, and for Adam, I'd try hard to make this work.

Amazing how things could be so good one minute
, only to fall apart the next.

"What do you think, Mrs. Bryant?"
Adam asked, surprisingly cheery, as we pulled up to a white, two-story, Victorian style house in Clear Lake that was located about ten minutes from his mom's house. I glanced around and my stomach did a somersault when I saw the SOLD sign in the front yard. I was going to be sick.

He bought a house without even including me. And when did
he have the time to find this?

"Mia,
Baby, what's wrong?"

"You boug
ht a house without me?" I asked in a voice that was barely audible.

He grabbed my hand and he gripped it hard. "No, Mia, not completely. The paperwork is almost done on it, but I wanted you to see it first. Look at me," he ordered and when I did, he finished. "I don't want you in that apartment anymore. Our baby will not grow up there. The only reason I started the paperwork is because I think you'll love it, but if you don't, I'll put a stop to it. You'll have to sign anyway
, so your name is on the deed. If you don't like it, you won't sign it, okay? I just wanted to do this for you. I didn't want you to stress about it. Believe me, it's been a major fuckin' headache already."

I didn’t know if I should be touched or upset, so I just nodded.

“Baby, you don’t like it, we won’t get it,” he reiterated.

He lifted my left hand
and placed a kiss over my plain, but beautiful, white gold wedding ring.

I instantly calmed.

And lucky for him, I did like the house. It was beautiful and I was in love with it, but it was way too much house for just the two of us.

“This is too big, Adam. What in the world do we need all this room for?” It was…I think he said something like thirty-
four hundred square feet. Whatever. All I knew was that it was fucking huge compared to the apartment.

I looked at him, but he wouldn’t look at me.

“How are we going to afford this?” I asked, extremely worried about his answer.

“
You let me worry about that, Mia,” he replied, walking up and wrapping me in his arms. I rested my head against his shoulder.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it, but I don’t want it if you’re going to have to work day and night to pay for it. I can start full-time at work, but I don’t know how much that will help,” I said.

“
You’re not working full-time, Mia. When my dad died, he left me a little bit of money. It’ll help if I need to use it.”

“Oh. Are you sure? I don’t need this
house, Adam. I don’t mind the apartment.”

“I want to do this for you,
Baby…for us,” he said softly and then he rested his hand on my stomach carefully. I placed my hands over his.

“I love you, Adam. If it makes you happy, I’ll sign.”

Chapter Fifteen

Six
Weeks Later

The Demise - Day 1

Adam
Bryant

I already knew what this meeting was about, and it pissed me off that they were asking me again.

“
Adam, I know you don't want to, but you should consider it. You'll move up faster in the department. It's who you know, not what you know. I guarantee you, Mia will never find out. This case should only last a week, tops. Our informant will only talk to you, and all we need is a location,” my first year Lieutenant pleaded, but all I could think about was how badly I’d fucked up last night to get me in the situation.

I never should have gone, but after putting them off for so long, I
'd finally decided to go out for a beer with some of the guys after work. The night had started out fine until everyone decided to hit up a strip club named Hunnies. I only went for forty minutes, to show face, but it'd been forty minutes too long.

The fucked up part…I
hadn’t called Mia to let her know. I figured with the bullshit way I’d been acting lately, the last thing she needed was the added stress of wondering what I was doing at Hunnies.

And shockingly, it was my first time at a strip club
, but after walking in, I’d planned for it to be my last. Don’t get me wrong, a couple of the chicks were hot and some of them could dance their asses off, but about eighty percent of them were covered in stretch marks which, coincidentally, only had my mind stuck on my woman.

My wife.

My pregnant wife.

Not that she had stretch marks yet, but she’d pro
bably get them – a thought that actually excited me. To think about Mia’s belly growing, my baby growing inside her…all I’d wanted to do was get home to her, and ironically, a night out with the boys had turned into a wake-up call.

The dancers had been all over us, and one in particular wouldn’
t get off my jock. For some reason, my boss egged her on and paid for her to give me two lap dances, regardless of how many glares I’d shot in his direction. It wouldn’t be until earlier this afternoon that I’d found out why.

“I’m not sure how
whoring around for the police department will move me up the fuckin’ ladder,” I finally replied and I couldn’t keep the disgust out of my voice.

“You won’t be whoring around. You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do
, but the fact remains, she’s decided she’ll only deal with you. You already have an in. I wouldn’t have offered you the job if I didn’t think you could do it. You go in a few nights, we wire you, you talk, you get the location or a name and you get out. It’s rookie investigative work, and if that’s what you want to get into in the department, this is a good start. You do this, and after you take your test for Sergeant, I’ll put in a good word…hell, I put in a good word before your test since you have a long way to go.”

Fuck!

What he was saying was true. I knew this would help me get my foot in the door faster, but going out two or three nights this week was going to put even more tension on my already strained marriage. My brand new marriage. I hadn’t even taken Mia on a honeymoon. I needed to do that, and I needed to start fixing the trust that I know I’ve broken between us.

But
, this was also a way to move up, to make more money, to secure our future without having to touch my father’s dirty money. I wouldn’t have to live with that regret. And I’d be able to give Mia some of the things she never had growing up.

I wanted that for our baby too.

“I’ll do it,” I decided and when the Lieutenant nodded, I continued. “But I won’t touch her and she’s not touching me. She does, this is over.”

He nodded again. “It’ll work out fine. We’ll start tomorrow night.
”

“Fine,” I finished, stood and walked out the door
, wondering if I'd just made the worst decision of my life.

It too
k me twenty minutes to get home, and when I walked in, the house was silent, and the only light came from a small table lamp in the living room. I noted right away that it was fuller, filled with more furniture and decorations, which helped me relax. Slowly but surely, the house was coming together; though, I didn’t give a shit what Mia and my mom did with the place as long as Mia was happy with it.

I glanced at the clock:
midnight. She’d still be awake and I couldn't wait to see her. I had to touch her, I had to feel her and know she was still with me...still mine. I climbed the stairs and headed toward the master bedroom. The TV was on, but it was muted and Mia was curled up on her side with her back toward me and she looked asleep, which was completely out of the norm at this time.

Pregnancy, maybe?

I took off my uniform, threw it on the floor, and walked around the bed to kneel at Mia's side. Her hands were tucked under her pillow and her knees were bent to her waist, curled into a ball. She looked so small, so fragile in this position that my heart lurched.

I studied her and
memorized every unique feature...her thick, wavy red hair, her freckles, her small, straight nose, her full, pink lips, her high cheekbones, her long, naturally curled eyelashes, her soft, creamy skin, her perfectly arched brows, and her peaceful face.

But something on the pillow caught my attention and my eyes shifted. I touched my fingers to the spot, careful not to disturb her, and it was wet...
right under her cheek. My stomach plummeted. She'd been crying and I knew it was because of me. She needed me and I wasn't here for her. She was my wife, pregnant with my baby, and I'd been distancing myself from her when she fuckin' needed me.

I'
d been so stupid in thinking I had to give her all the things she's never had growing up in order to keep her and make her happy, when all she ever wanted was me. She'd grown up with nothing, asked for nothing, and wanted nothing. However, that was exactly part of my problem. She was so selfless and self-sacrificing, that I wanted her to have everything and I wanted to be the one to give it to her. But in my own selfish crusade to keep her, I'd only been hurting her, and myself, in the process.

Here my pride had kept me from using the money my asshole father left me, but how ironic was it that
I felt I needed a lot of it to keep Mia happy?

Jesus, I'm an idiot.

And on top of all that, Mia was having my baby. She was going to be a mommy and I was going to be a daddy...hopefully to a redheaded, freckle-faced little girl who looked just like Mia. I was scared to death about it too...I don't think I'd ever been more scared of anything in my life. I’d been worried that I'd be as shitty a father as my own, but then I’d gone and bought a monstrous house with the intention of keeping Mia knocked up and filling it with more babies.

I groaned
silently. I should be shot. My mind was finally seeing clearly and I was relieved. It was as if I'd been looking through a kaleidoscope from the moment Mia told me she was pregnant. Man, when I fucked up, I did it royally.

Somehow, I had to
make things right and I'd do it fast.

I
wasn't letting her leave me.

The Demise - Day 2

Mia
Bryant

I stood there frozen until what I was looking at finally sank in. Then I started shaking, body wracking tremors. The pain in my chest was unbearable and the baby in my stomach was making me sick.

I quickly thought back to last night
, when I'd awakened to Adam's chest pressing against my back and his arm wrapping around my body, hugging me like he never wanted to let me go. He'd tucked his face in my hair, took a deep breath, sighed and kissed my shoulder. His fingers had traced patterns on my stomach.

I hadn't moved.
I think I'd even stopped breathing.

Since moving into this house,
Adam's been so close, yet a million miles away.

"My wife," he'd mumbled against my ear, oddly sounding comforted by the word.
"I'm so sorry, Baby. I promise I'll fix us," he'd finished and I'd stayed up at least another hour contemplating what he meant by that.

But now I knew.

It'd been words spoken out of guilt.

He
was guilty.

My hands were trembling
now. I'd just been about to put a load of laundry in the washing machine when I spotted the smear of red lipstick on the crotch of the jeans Adam wore two night ago...when he supposedly went out with the boys from work.

Heat filled my cheeks and tears pricked my eyes at what this meant
. Could there be some other explanation than him cheating? Why would he even look for ass somewhere else? Not that he actually had to look far. Badge bunnies were easy to come by, but I'd never given him a reason to find sex somewhere else. I’d never denied him. Even with his distance, we had sex nearly every single day. Probably even more so since he found out I was pregnant, as odd as that may seem.

I threw the jeans on the floor
, as hard as I could, and they landed with a thud at my feet.

I was home pregnant with his baby
while he was out fucking around on me!

UGH!

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to strangle him, but more than anything, I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I had to see it. I had to know for certain. I had very little doubt that he wasn't cheating; it only made sense with all the "extra jobs" he's been taking, but I did have hope, and I owed it to myself...to my baby...to never give up unless I was absolutely positive.

And God
, I hoped I was wrong.

The Demise – Day 6

Mia
Bryant