When I’d had my fill, I shed my own clothes and spread out over her. I took her mouth in a deep, sensuous kiss, and a torrent of emotions rose up. This wasn’t just about sex, and I couldn’t deny it any longer. Instead of losing myself in Kinsley, I found myself.
We didn’t fuck that night. I made love to her, over and over, for hours. Eventually, she collapsed into an exhausted sleep, and I gathered her close.
All of those thoughts and questions that had been plaguing me came roaring back.
Love, home, family? Did I want those things?
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
The answer was yes.
Chapter Eight
KINSLEY
Over the last three months, I’d taken two more trips with Sullivan. He refused to go without me. I was getting used to jet lag, but I was irritated to find that this time it was lasting longer than I expected. I thought it would get better after a few days. Instead, I felt even worse when I woke up this morning. I barely budged from my spot when Sullivan rolled out of bed to get ready to head to the office. I slept for several more hours, but it still hadn’t made a dent in my exhaustion.
And the body aches. I had sore muscles where I previously hadn’t even known they’d existed…although those could be from all the sex I’d been having. When I twisted in my chair next to my brother’s bed, the groan which left my lips would’ve given his grunts of pain during physical therapy a decent run for their money.
“You sound worse than me, and I had spinal surgery a little more than a month ago. You doing okay, sis?” he asked as he scooted to the edge of his bed and slowly swung his legs over to set his feet on the floor.
“I’m fine.” He quirked his brow and gave me a look that clearly said he thought I was lying. “I’m a little tired, that’s all. It’s been a busy few months, between your surgery, the wedding, and all the trips we’ve taken.”
“And by trip, you mean one of which was a honeymoon with your billionaire husband who I haven’t even met yet,” he grumbled. “I still don’t understand how you could suddenly up and get married to guy you’d never even mentioned to me before.”
“I promise you’ll meet him soon,” I assured him, sidestepping the comment about why I’d never brought Sullivan up before I told him about our whirlwind courtship.
Now that I’d talked to Sullivan about extending our deal to pretend to be madly in love so it included my family, too, I could bring the men in my life together.
“Are you embarrassed by me or something?” he asked softly.
“No! Of course not!” I slid out of my chair and moved to sit next to him on the mattress, carefully stretching my arm around his back. “How could you think that for even a second?”
“What else am I supposed to think, Kinsley? The guy paid for my surgery and to put me in this place, and I’ve never met him, let alone had the chance to thank him.”
“I’m sorry,” I sighed. “His job is crazy busy, but I’ll make sure to bring him by to see you soon. I promise.”
“I guess I can’t complain too much about the guy working so hard, when it’s his money that’s paying for my stay in the best rehab facility in the state.” He squeezed my hand where it lay on his arm and rose to his feet. Then he turned, crossing his arms, and stared down at me with narrowed eyes. “I have him to thank for the fact that I’m able to stand already, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to neglect my responsibility as your big brother to make sure he treats you right. I don’t like the bags under your eyes or how pale your skin is. He needs to take better care of you.”
“I told you already, it’s just because of how busy we’ve been with everything lately. We don’t have any more travel scheduled, so now that I’m back in town with nothing to do, I’ll have plenty of time to catch up on my sleep.” I stood up too quickly, and my vision turned black around the edges. I reached my hand behind me to make sure the mattress was right there and dropped back down onto it.
“Kinsley! Shit! I don’t care what you say, you’re not okay. You almost fainted.”
“Do you have any other symptoms?” my brother’s nurse asked. Our heads swiveled her way in surprise, since neither of us had heard her enter the room. She hurried to the bedside and fussed over me, taking my vitals like I was the patient instead of my brother. “Let’s see if we can get you up on your feet okay.”
She helped me up, and I was relieved when I was able to stand without getting dizzy again.
“Your color looks a little better. When’s the last time you ate?”
“I had a light breakfast before I left home to come visit my brother.”
“How light, exactly?” she asked.
“Knowing my sister, it was barely anything. She’s never been much of a morning eater. It used to drive our parents crazy because they never could get her to eat before she had to leave for school.”
I must have been more exhausted than I realized since my eyes welled with tears at the reminder of happier days when there were more than just the two of us in our little family. “I was so tired it was making me nauseous, so I only had some toast with cinnamon and sugar this morning,” I choked out.
“Mom’s favorite.” My brother reached out to squeeze my hand.
“How about I take you down the hall and get you a snack?” the nurse suggested.
“Can’t you bring her something in here so she can sit down and rest?”
“Nope. Sorry, but since she’s not a patient I’m going to get her a snack from the employee lounge.” The nurse tugged on my arm to lead me towards the door. “Don’t worry. We’ll be back in a jiffy.”
She nudged me in the direction of the nurse’s station and settled me into a chair there.
“I thought we were going to the employee lounge?”
“I lied.” She glanced down both sides of the hallway before scanning my face with kind eyes. “I didn’t think you’d want to have this conversation in front of your brother.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “What conversation?”
“Have you been experiencing any other symptoms besides nausea, tiredness, and dizziness?”
“Symptoms?” I echoed. “You’re talking like I’m sick or something.”
Her gaze dropped down to my stomach. “Not sick. But pregnant, maybe?”
“No,” I gasped, shaking my head.
“You’re newly married, right?”
I nodded. “Around three months.”
“But you don’t think it’s possible that you might be pregnant?”
“I’m on the mini pill. I take it every single day.” I yanked my phone out of my purse and pulled up the clock to show her the alarm I had set as a reminder.
“You were traveling for your honeymoon?” she asked. “Where did you go?”
“Australia.”
She jerked her chin towards my phone. “Did you take the time change into account when you were gone?”
“No,” I answered slowly as my eyes grew wide with understanding.
“Your doctor should have mentioned it when you got the prescription, but the mini pill is slightly less effective because it’s only one hormone. Because of that, the timing is much more important for patients who use it.”
“Yeah, I didn’t respond well to the estrogen in the regular pill, so she switched me to the mini a couple of years ago,” I whispered.
“If you’re even a few hours late taking it, you’re supposed to use a backup method of contraception.”
Oh.
My.
God.
“I might be pregnant.” I slumped in the chair, dropping my head into my hands.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about the time difference when we took the red-eye flight to Australia with a layover in Los Angeles the night after our wedding. I’d been late taking my pill right off the bat, and then we’d had unprotected sex as soon as we’d arrived at our hotel. And again the next morning. And the night and morning after that.
Sullivan could have k
nocked me up a dozen times over with how often he’d been inside of me. Sullivan—my husband who had been incredibly clear the day we met about how opposed he was to the idea of us having kids. I’d been worried about how he’d feel if he discovered that I’d fallen in love with him, but his reaction to a pregnancy was bound to be a million times worse.
“You look like you’re about to hyperventilate,” the nurse told me as she pushed on my shoulder blades to put my head between my legs. “Don’t freak out until you take a test to confirm if you’re pregnant or not. Just because you might be doesn’t mean you actually are.”
“Good point.” I jumped up, steadying myself against the desk when I saw spots and waiting for them to clear before I moved toward my brother’s room again. I poked my head in and said, “Hey, Graham. That snack did me a world of good, but I got a phone call and have to run.” Then I took off down the hall.
He called out my name, but I couldn’t talk to him right then. Not without telling him what was going on, and there was no way that was going to happen without me spilling all my secrets about my marriage. The phone call was a lie, but the urgency with which I had to get out of there couldn’t have been more true. I needed to stop by a pharmacy to grab some pregnancy tests and take them with enough time to think about what I was going to do before I saw Sullivan tonight.
And that’s exactly what I did, hitting up the closest pharmacy to purchase several different tests and then heading back home. As soon as I walked in the door, I snagged a few bottles of water out of the fridge and headed up to our bedroom. I kicked off my shoes and tossed my sweater on the bed before wandering into the master bathroom. Dumping the contents of the shopping bag on the counter, I rifled through the pink and purple boxes to pick one out to take first.
After I read the directions on the back of a couple of them, I decided to try for more than one in the first round. Ripping two of the boxes open, I tore the inner packaging and pulled the stick out of two of them before I pulled my pants and underwear over my hips and got down to business.
Five minutes later, I was sitting on the floor with a test in each hand. One of them had a plus sign in the little display window. The other had two pink lines. The results meant the same thing—I was pregnant.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there in a daze, but it was long enough that I lost most of the feeling in my butt from being on the hard floor, and my stomach was growling. “You’re going to give me all sorts of trouble, aren’t you?” I whispered, rubbing my lower belly. “I’m willing to bet some of this tiredness is because of you and not the trip to Australia. Same with the nausea this morning.”
I hauled myself up to my feet and splashed my face with cold water. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, but I looked the same as I had that morning. There were no visible changes to my appearance, even though my entire world had been rocked. “Those will come soon enough, I guess. But that’s okay, because I’ll love you no matter what. Just like I love your daddy. Only he doesn’t know it yet, so I’m going to have all sorts of surprises in store for him.”
I wasn’t sure when I was going to be ready to share them with him. First, I needed to figure out what I was going to do if he was as angry as I expected him to be about the baby—only I didn’t have a lot of time, because the clock was already ticking. After all, I couldn’t hide a pregnancy forever. And I didn’t want to keep quiet about my love for him, either.
Chapter Nine
SULLIVAN
Something was off with Kinsley. She’d been distant and quieter than normal. I hadn’t known her very long, but in the three months we’d been married, she’d become ingrained in my life and I could tell that she had something on her mind. When I asked about it, though, she just smiled and kissed me and assured me that nothing was wrong.
We had made arrangements to spend the day with her brother this weekend, and I figured she was just nervous about introducing us and making sure we appeared in love to him.
She certainly had nothing to be worried about on my end. I was fucking head over heels for her. However, she didn’t know that, because I hadn’t had the courage to tell her about my emotional revelations yet. My goal was to sweep her off her feet and make sure she had fallen madly in love with me before admitting to her that I felt the same.
“Are you ready?” I asked her as our car pulled up to the rehab facility.
Taking a deep breath, she nodded, and I took her hand and placed a kiss on the back. Her blue eyes snapped up to mine, and I was shocked to see them swimming with tears.
“Kinsley? What the fuck is wrong?”
Another damn smile and kiss. “Nothing, I promise. Everything is all right. I’m just emotional. The two most important men in my life are about to meet.”
The driver opened the door, and before I could object, Kinsley was out of the car and waiting for me on the sidewalk.
I hopped out, and she slipped her arm through mine before leading me through the sliding glass doors. We stopped at a large desk where a young woman in scrubs had us fill out some paperwork, then handed us both badges.
“He’s having a good day,” she told Kinsley quietly. The nurse’s eyes darted to me briefly before settling back on my wife. “How are you doing?”
“Um, good,” Kinsley mumbled, her expression oddly wary. “Patty, this is my husband, Sullivan. Sullivan, Patty is one of Graham’s nurses.”
“Very nice to meet you,” I said congenially, shaking her hand. She blushed deeply and scurried around the counter.
“It’s time for Graham’s vitals, so I’ll walk you to his room.” As we started down the hall, she sidled up to Kinsley and whispered, “Holy cow, girl. He’s smoking hot. No wonder you’re—”
“Patty!” Kinsley’s face filled with panic as she glanced at me to see if I’d heard. I laughed and slipped my arm around her waist, pulling her into my side.
“You think I’m hot, huh?” I asked her smugly.
Her expression smoothed out, but her cheeks turned bright pink and she blew out an unsteady breath. “Maybe,” she snipped playfully.
“Any man would look good with you on his arm, gorgeous,” I told her as we approached the open door to a patient room. Patty sighed dreamily and waved us in ahead of her.
“While I don’t disagree, comments like that make me think you’ve already screwed up with my sister or you’re banking brownie points for the next time,” a dark-haired, blue-eyed man said as he smirked at me from his bed on the right side of the room. His resemblance to Kinsley was undeniable, and with the way he looked me up and down in assessment, I had no doubt this was her older brother, Graham.
Kinsley rushed over to give him a hug and he mock-whispered, “Need me to kick his ass?”
“Like you could take him,” she scoffed and cuffed his shoulder before stepping back so Patty could start her tests.
“Hey,” he pouted. “I’m trying to keep up appearances over here. Husbands should fear the older brother.”
Kinsley threw her head back and laughed. Her face was filled with so much warmth and love, it made my chest squeeze with emotion. I wanted to see her look at me like that. Sometimes, I thought I caught a glimpse, but she was very adept at keeping her thoughts and emotions shuttered. It was driving me fucking crazy. But now wasn’t the time to focus on that.
“I’m sufficiently terrified that one day, you’ll be able to put me in the ground,” I assured him with a grin. “So I’m just banking those brownie points while I can.”
“As long as we have an understanding, bro.”
I nodded and stepped forward to formally shake his hand and introduce myself. Once that was done and Patty had left, Graham got out of bed and we all sat around a little table by the large picture window in his room. There was a small kitchenette, and Kinsley made us each a cup of coffee for while we visited.
“So, Sullivan, what was the big rush to get married? You didn’t knock up my sister, did you?”
Kinsley had just taken a sip of her drink,
and at Graham’s question she did a movie-worthy spit take. Her brother laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair, whipping Kinsley up into a worried frenzy and a five-minute lecture on taking better care of himself.
Graham took it in stride and let her go until she ran out of steam. He’d clearly heard it all before, but he was patient and understanding. It was obvious these two had been through a lot together and they shared a deep bond.
Eventually, he turned back to me. “Seriously, though, are you taking care of my baby sister? Did you make her go to the doctor?”
Stiffening in my seat, I raised my brow in question. “Excuse me?” I turned to Kinsley. “Why does your brother think you need to go to the doctor?” My voice was steadily rising in volume as fear filled me.
Kinsley put her hand over mine and rubbed it soothingly. “He’s overreacting. It’s nothing—”
“Like hell, it’s nothing. You almost fainted a couple days ago.” Graham frowned fiercely at the both of us.
“Fainted?” I shouted as I jumped to my feet.
“Graham, would you shut up?” she hissed as she stood. “Seriously, Sullivan, there is nothing wrong with me. I’ll explain when we get home.”
But I was already out the door, hunting down a nurse to find me a doctor. One of the best things about having made a huge donation to the facility housing my brother-in-law was that I could throw my weight around, and I quickly found a doctor willing to do an exam on someone who wasn’t a patient.
I practically dragged him back to the room where Kinsley sat stewing next to her brother, who was grinning triumphantly.
“I like this guy, little sis.” She threw him a glare but didn’t respond.
“Mrs. Bradford, would you like to step into another room?” the doctor asked politely.
“This really isn’t necessary,” she protested.
“She’s been overly tired, and nauseous, and she almost fainted when she was here a couple of days ago,” Graham announced helpfully, earning himself another nasty look from his sister.
Bought for Marriage (Bought by the Billionaire Book 1) Page 6
