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Cam

“God, they’re fabulous, aren’t they?”

I smile at Kent’s wistful tone and look over at the space where my Shaw and Molly stand, holding court with the older ladies, their clear laughter ringing out around the cozy drawing room.

Of course, none of the younger set go near them, but stand around glaring, as if they’re an abomination amidst the glittering void that is society.

Fanny and her cohorts stand, “chatting”, the odd snide comment ringing across the room every now and then as if the poor fool can’t help but to raise her voice.

The slights go unnoticed by Molly and Shaw, as they stand talking and laughing, in their element, the only indication that the voiced insults carry their way comes from the odd glare from the high society matrons who love our girls.

“That they are mate. So you finally pulled your head out of your arse and went for it with Molly.”

“Yeah.” He sighs, and I smile when he grins wickedly. “That woman is a handful and then some. Who would have suspected the shy Miss Larson of being a hoyden and a tease?”

“It’s always the quiet ones, mate. At least that’s what gran used to tell me,” I say, grinning when Shaw looks over at me and throws a few hundred daggers my way.

Bloody impudent chit.
I’ve spent hours making love to the woman, taming the hell out of her rebellious hide and still she always gets the bloody upper hand.

I’d fucked her silly last night and into the morning hours, only stopping when my cock was so worn and tired he whimpered in defeat. I’d been smug and satisfied, and rightly so when she’d groaned and rolled to face me, a pillow or two shoved under her belly and her hair a wild mess of dark curls against the white pillow.

“That all you got, stud?” she’d smirked before pulling the sheet over her head and going to sleep almost immediately.

I’d stewed after that, unable to sleep, with my smug satisfaction evaporating with her every delicate snore. Because her saucy remark had done the impossible and brought my lad back to screaming erectness.

I have the uncontrollable need to tame her and bring her to heel, and yet, she can bring me to life with nothing more than a look or the sarcastic quirk of her delicate brow.

Kent is right. They’re bloody hoydens.

“Well, Molly isn’t quiet anymore. I put that shite to rest right quick,” he says, grinning lustily. “Bloody insatiable that one. How’s your missus?”

I grimace and look over at Letitia where she’s standing off to the side with Gen Arbsby. The fool woman has spent the last hour glaring at Shaw and making off color comments about everything from her hair, to her dress, to the rounded swell of my child, and I’m starting to get bloody sick of it.

I’d cornered Mum and Millie the moment I realized she was here, but the old broads had just laughed and said that rubbing one’s face in something isn’t easy to do when the one in question is a city away and unaware of the situation.

I agree, but that doesn’t mean I have to bloody like it. I don’t like having her near when things with Shaw are so unsettled. I have an ace up my sleeve, a last card to play if she ever decided to make a runner, but it’s so harsh a move to make that I pray I never have to use it.

She’d hate me for sure then.

“Good. Swelling. Perfect. Jesus, I never knew I could want so much,” I mutter, raking a hand through my hair and willing my dick to stay down when Shaw shifts and rubs a caressing hand over her belly.

The sight never fails to turn me on, and sick bastard that I am, I want to be that hand. Desperately.

“True mate. True. I spent so long trying to fool myself into not wanting Molly that by the time I knew what I wanted I almost lost her. It took a lot of pleading on my part to even get her to listen to a word I had to say, and then I think I only won because I used my sexy body as a lure.” He laughs, swiveling his hips and grinning like a loon.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Ah, but a happy one who happens to adore his woman,” he says, looking at me shrewdly. “So tell me what’s going on there. You are not the sort of bloke who gets a girl pregnant and then waits almost eight months to wed her.”

No. But I am, however, the man who will claim a child I consider mine and do anything to convince a woman I used to despise to give me her life and everything she is.

“Shaw is not, shall we say, that amenable to having a baby change the course of her whole life. I’ve had to step lightly with her,” I say, hedging slightly.

I’m not lying, just saying only what I need to, to give him what he wants. It’s a useful skill in business that I have honed on other men. But not men as crafty as my cousin.

“Give it a rest. I know something ain’t right there. I love your mum; she’s almost as nuts as my own, but that woman is a rabid force of nature, and she wouldn’t have let this carry on for this long without reason.”

I keep my gaze focused across the room and give the occasional glance Letitia’s way to ensure she’s as far from my girl as possible before lowering my voice to a whisper. “Whatever happened before is in the past. Shaw and that baby are mine. Got it?”

Kent holds his hands palms up and twists his lips.

“Got it, mate. You having any other problems that need taking care of? Griff and the lads are coming in tonight.”

I shudder at the thought of those wild animals around the “higher society” misses and grin at the thought of setting him loose on Letitia. The poor fool won’t know what hit her.

“Letitia has been sniffing around lately. Apparently seeing my pregnant fiancée hasn’t slowed her down one bit. Perhaps Griff could run interference so that I won’t have to be split in my attentions?”

Kent smirks and palms his phone, speaking quietly before grinning widely and ending the call with a snarl of excitement. “He said that if he has to fuck a half-dead carcass, you owe him. He wants your Bugatti for a month. Or two.”

“Bloody opportunist that one.”

“Aye. He’s a Stone. You ready for the theatrics? I’ve decided that if Griff can intercept for you, I might have to loose Dougal on Fanny for a few days. If she can survive him.”

We’re laughing like loons by the time lunch rolls around, and I spend the hour winking at Shaw and throwing anticipatory evil looks at Letitia.

Let the games begin.

Shaw

“Oh, I so love this movie.” Molly sighs as we cuddle up on her bed, watching
Hope Floats
and eating the chocolate cake Millie smuggled up to us earlier.

I love girls’ nights with her. This is the first, but I’m going on record saying that it won’t be that last because she is officially my favorite girlfriend.

Okay, so maybe she’s the first and only, besides Sister Francine, but she doesn’t count since she’s headed for Heaven, and I’m not one hundred percent sure I’m even in the running. Plus, Molly is hilarious and likes eating as much as I do.

We fit.

“I love this movie, too. Know what my favorite part is?”

“Harry Connick, Jr.?” she says and giggles, making cow eyes at the screen.

I snort and check out his fine ass in those jeans and just about swoon when he twirls Sandra Bullock into the slow dance and sort of sniffs at her like he loves her smell and everything about her.

Damn, that man is fine looking in that getup.

“Yes, but I really love the end.”

“Oh boo! The end means we don’t get to see his delicious arse anymore,” she gripes, crawling closer to the screen and sighing dramatically.

“Dummy. I like the end because of what she says. You know about how the beginnings are scary, the endings are sad, but the part that really counts for everything is the middle.”

I eat another piece of cake and stare dreamily at the fine man candy while she crawls back up to me and lays her head beside mine.

“That’s deep, Mallory. You have something on your mind, or is it just the hormones talking?” she asks, stealing my bite from my fork and moaning at the flavor.

“No. Yes. I dunno. I’m so confused about things, and I don’t know what to do. Cameron wants to get married and I—”

“You don’t?”

She gives me a look, as if she thinks I’m crazy, and maybe she’s right, because if I have to objectively look at Cameron, I would say that he is undoubtedly a good catch.

But I’m still annoyed with him. I feel…stuff that I won’t let myself delve too deeply into. And I’m scared. He doesn’t love me, hell, up until very recently he didn’t really even like me and he wasn’t into me.

Now that everything has changed, I’m afraid to take this huge step in case it ends up blowing up in my face. I could marry him and give him rights to the baby only to have him decide later that it wasn’t me he wanted and that’s he’s splitting up the package deal.

I can handle a lot of things, but losing my child is not one of them. And neither is divorce. The few times I went to church, I learned that divorce is not an option, and I agree.

Breaking a vow to a person is wrong but survivable. Breaking a vow you make in front of and to God, not happening for me. Ever. If I marry Cameron, that is it. We’ll be together for life whether we end up hating each other or not.

I’ll live through it just to keep my one value sacred. And to ensure that the baby never feels a moment of insecurity.

“I didn’t. At first. He is a really overwhelming man, and he can be…difficult at the best of times. I got a call from my old boss and they offered me my job back. It’s a great opportunity for my career, and I was thinking about it, but then he went and fudged it all up and I lost it.”

Molly nods in understanding and bites her lip.

“The Stone men are truly a force to be reckoned with and don’t I know it. Even Kent, with all his laughter and games, is a really hard man when crossed. I finally had to decide whether my fear of being ruled was stronger than my fear of losing the love I need. As you can see, I’ll take a good domineering man any day over losing him.”

“So you’re saying I should just give in?”

“No, you nincompoop! I had a talk with Mum, Millie, not my mum, and she gave me a few good tips to live by, the most important being that I need to give as good as I get. Kent is controlling and very iffy about certain things, but I keep in mind that he loves me and only does what he thinks is best for me. If that doesn’t work, I tease him to distraction and have my wicked way with him. Let me tell you, he seems like a tiger, but in the bedroom, he is my pussycat.”

I freaking wish. I can’t touch Cameron without him turning into a wild animal. The man does not understand the meaning of the word mutual, and I freaking hate it.

If he’s going to use not only his body, but my own against me—yes please, against me some more!—then I think I should be able to touch him, too. No such luck.

Last night he’s almost killed me, he’d gone so hard and long. Not that I’m complaining about that, but just that when I’d had the temerity to try to explore him afterward, he’d rolled me over, taken my wrists in one of his hands, and done it all over again, not stopping until I was so done I couldn’t have moved without a hurricane blowing through the room.

Control freak
.

“I’m glad you’re having fun. Cameron won’t let me take any control. Like any!”

That sets her to laughing, as if my complaints aren’t serious.

“And plus, we’re not in love.”

That shuts her up immediately, and she stares at me agog for so long I chuck her chin to close her mouth.

“At all?” she asks, her voice dripping with horror.

“Nope. Nothing there. Nada. Zip. We have sex, really good sex, considering I would have thought my junk would turn him off. But that’s it. We don’t talk unless we’re in public or his parents are in the vicinity. The most we’ve discussed in the last few days is whether I want a chicken or beef wrap. And he only did it because I threatened to chew his leg off in the car if he didn’t feed me. Apparently, you don’t eat in an Aston Martin.”

Cue major female eye roll.

“Do you…think you
can
love him?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. He’s nothing at all like the man I thought I’d end up with, and he is very frustrating. Most of all, I don’t think I can even begin to fall for a guy who doesn’t trust me. He still thinks—”

“What?”

I shake my head and cringe at the almost slip. No one knows that Cameron is not my baby’s father, and he threatened to muzzle me if I even so much as thought to mention it.

“I think he still thinks of me as an…opportunist or something. Hell, I don’t know, just he doesn’t talk to me about anything besides what, er, what he wants in…”

“Bed?”

She bursts into a fit of giggles and starts rolling around as if I’ve just made the biggest funny ever.

“For someone as pregnant as you are, you are really prudish, Ducky.”

Oh, now she’s calling me that, too? The freaking horror. I don’t have the heart to tell Marge the name makes me feel like an unattractive mallard, but this will not be borne.

“Stop calling me that. And shut up. You have no idea what an animal he is in the sack.”

Oh, and what a fine, wild beast he is.

“But Ducky is a term of endearment. Anyway…I think I know all about ravenous beasts, thank you very much. Kent is no stodge you know. Why, the ways in which I never knew I could bend,” She says, waggling her eyebrows. “But seriously now.”

Uh oh, she’s getting that hungry expression.

“What’s up with you two? He watches your every move. My God, today is the first day of the ‘fun and games’…and if I didn’t know better, I’d be searching for a leash and collar. The man is positively obsessed with you.”

If by obsessed, you mean he likes having me on a short leash and within spitting distance so he can make sure I don’t do a runner. Sure.

“He’s just scared I pull a Julia on him and run my ass home before he can Beyoncé me,” I say, discarding my cake when my stomach churns.

“Aaah, but that rock on your finger tells the tale. He definitely put a ring on it. Not to mention….” She pointedly looks at my stomach.

God, I feel guilty lying to her. Things would be so much easier if everybody knew the truth. So what if they all looked at me as if I’m the Whore of Babylon? So what if they all looked at him as if he’s the savior of the free world.

I should be able to tell the truth and hold my head up high and not worry about…

And then it hits me. Cameron isn’t getting very much out of this deal is he? I mean sex he can get anywhere, especially him being as hot as he is. And if he wanted a baby, he could probably put out an ad and have the droves storm his home, salivating for the chance to carry his holy seed.

The only person getting a break here is me. I get to legitimize my kid, and I will never have to worry about anything else. Not money, or doctors’ appointments, or late night feedings, or anything.

I’m the only one benefitting here besides Marge and Vic.

Cameron isn’t getting anything out of it.

And then that brings me to the sex. Part, well, most of the problem I’m having revolves around guilt for sleeping with my dead Robert’s brother and liking it a heck of a lot more than I did with him.

And then I’m also confused as to why Cameron would even want me.

I’m no oil painting for one, and pregnant or not, I’m on the heavier side and nothing at all like the supermodels and celery eaters that most men go for nowadays.

Doubts bombard me as we watch the rest of the movie. Molly keeping up a salacious commentary the entire time.