The Girl Next Door

by Emma Hart

  He didn’t say anything either.

  “Why aren’t you talking to me?” I asked after a moment, staring at him. “And why won’t you look at me? Did I do something to make you mad?”

  Finally, he dragged his gaze to me. “No. I wish you’d stop thinking that you did. It feels like you’ve spent the whole week wondering if you’ve upset me.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Need to stop it.” Kai reached over and squeezed my fingers. “Okay? Just stop, Ivy. You’re allowed to be annoyed. You’re allowed to be mad over little things. You’re allowed to run off to the restroom and take ten minutes to breathe if that’s what you need.”

  “But I—”

  “Need to stop arguing,” he repeated, lightly squeezing my hand again. “We have to figure out how to get through this pregnancy together, okay? We might not be a real relationship,” he said in a lower voice, “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to be there. I’ve shown you that, haven’t I?”

  I nodded.

  “Right. Trust me, if you piss me off, I’m going to tell you. If I think you’re being irrational, I’m going to tell you. But there are bigger things right now, like you adjusting to this new reality of how you’re changing.”

  “Are you saying I’m fat?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.” He scowled. “You’re right. This appointment with your doctor was pointless, but she did more than have you take a pregnancy test, Ivy. She checked your blood pressure and pulse and asked about your symptoms and gave you a general once-over in your health.”

  Damn it, he was right.

  “You’re healthy,” Kai said, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand. “So that appointment wasn’t a waste of time to me.”

  He had a point. Knowing that I was as normal as six-week-pregnant woman could be was reassuring, especially when she’d laughed after learning about my escapades with coffee.

  Apparently, she’d developed a dairy allergy during her first and only pregnancy. She claimed it was the reason she only had one child—she liked cheese too much to go nine months without it all over again.

  “You’re right,” I agreed, tapping my thumb against his hand. “Honestly, this feels like PMS on crack. I swear the positive test made everything so much more noticeable.”

  “I’m sure it did. But for now, if you’re done complaining about how expensive today’s pregnancy test was, can you go back to being your usual feisty self? It’s easier to talk to you like that.”

  “How did you know I was moaning about the price of today?”

  “You were muttering to yourself for five minutes in the car.” He finally put his straw in the cup and, after releasing my hand, drank some water. “You’re not the quietest mutterer in the world.”

  That was a fair point. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I could mutter at the volume most other people did.

  “How did the appointment go?” Mom set two plates down in front of us—mine the tomato soup and grilled cheese, and Kai’s a steak with fries, onion rings, mushrooms, peas, and two grilled tomatoes.

  The onions rings looked so good, and I didn’t even like onion rings.

  What was happening to me?

  “It was an exceptionally expensive pregnancy test,” Kai answered for me. “Eat,” he ordered. “You haven’t eaten today.”

  Mom shot me a glare. “You haven’t eaten today?”

  I gave Kai a flat look that I was sure relayed my thanks for him letting that slip to my mom. “I felt sick before I left so only had some water, and Dr. Watson was delayed by half an hour so we didn’t get brunch like we’d planned. It’s not my fault.”

  “Okay.” She looked unconvinced. “But you really do need to try to eat something if you know you’re going to be out, Ivy. Even if it’s a slice of toast or a banana.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I replied, deadpanning.

  “You’re drinking plenty, aren’t you?”

  “Mom. I’m hungry. I can’t eat if you’re talking to me.”

  “Okay, honey.” She touched the back of my head. “Oh, shit.”

  “What? What’s ‘oh, shit?’”

  Mom’s head jerked from the doorway to me. “Your grandmother is here.”

  Oh, shit? That wasn’t quite strong enough for the way I was feeling.

  It was like the people in this family didn’t want me to eat at all.

  “Eat.” Kai looked at me. “And I’ll let you have the onion rings you keep staring at.”

  I tore a bite out of one triangle of my grilled cheese.

  “Is this him? Is this the hooligan who knocked up my granddaughter?” Grandma Rosie shuffled over to the table, her cane tapping ominously against the floor. “Well?”

  “Mother, they’re trying to eat,” Mom said, reaching out for her.

  “No, Jasmine, you had me out of here the other night but I won’t let you do it again!” Grams’ voice raised. “I want to meet the ruffian who impregnated my only grandchild!”

  “You have three,” I replied around a mouthful of grilled cheese. “Me, Holley, and London.”

  “London?” Kai asked. “Doesn’t that mess with the flower theme you’ve got going on here?”

  “Darn it,” Grams said. “Daisy always was a rebel.”

  “My aunt,” I mouthed, switching the grilled cheese for the spoon for my soup.

  “Oh,” he mouthed back.

  “Because you named me Jasmine and her after a duck,” Mom drawled. “Mother, Ivy needs to eat. Let them eat in peace and you can speak with them after.”

  “Please,” I added.

  “I did not name my daughter after a duck,” Grandma insisted, motioning for Kai to move over.

  He did, taking his plate and water with him.

  “Now, Jasmine, I’d like a gin and tonic and whatever this ruffian is eating for his lunch. It looks delicious.”

  “I’m not serving you alcohol at lunchtime, Mother.”

  “Please do,” I said, reaching for my water. “She’ll be asleep in an hour if you do.”

  “A double gin and tonic it is,” Mom said, turning on her heel. “Mother, be nice.”

  I snorted.

  Grandma Rosie wouldn’t know nice if it slapped her ass, bent her over, and painted a bullseye on her back.

  Kai glanced at me, holding my gaze for a moment before he turned back to eating his lunch.

  “So,” Grams said, staring at me with a laser-like gaze. “How is my great-grandchild?”

  Well, I wasn’t expecting her to start like that.

  “About as well as a pea-sized fetus can be,” I replied. “How are you, Grams?”

  “Still alive,” she retorted smartly, then turned to Kai. “I suppose you’re the one responsible for this situation.”

  Kai wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire!

  “No, it’s not,” Grams replied. “Nobody ever gets any pleasure out of meeting me.”

  “You can say that again,” I muttered.

  “I heard that.”

  “You were supposed to.”

  “Shut up and eat your food, you hussy.”

  “If you weren’t old and I weren’t hungry, I’d throw this sandwich at your head.”

  “Why can’t you be more like your sister? Holley would never threaten me.”

  I stared at her flatly. “You didn’t even remember I had a sister ten minutes ago.”

  “Yes, well, I’m old.” She shuffled in her seat. “Where’s your mother with my steak? I’m turning into skin and bones here.”

  Spoiler alert: she was not. The only thing skin and bones about my grandmother was her ability to talk people to death.

  Or, you know. Make them wish they were.

  “What’s your name?” she demanded of Kai.

  “Kai, ma’am.”

  “Are you going to marry my granddaughter?”

  I choked on m
y water.

  He glanced at me. “Well, she wanted to wait to tell you, but…”

  What was he doing?

  Kai, stop it!

  “Are you married?” Grams demanded, looking at me.

  I froze. “I, uh, um.”

  “Yes,” Kai said quickly, drawing her attention back to him. “We are. This morning, before her doctor’s appointment,” he lied.

  He didn’t even twitch.

  I was both impressed by his ability and absolutely fucking horrified that we were now married.

  Apparently.

  Grams looked between us. “Why the devil did nobody invite me?”

  Because you are the devil.

  “It was a last-minute thing,” Kai continued. “We thought we would have a blessing and party when Ivy is feeling better.”

  “Feeling better? She’s just inhaled that grilled cheese. She looks fine to me.”

  “Watch it,” I warned her. “Or I’ll ask Sophie to bring me a coffee so I can throw up on your shoes.”

  “You will leave my Crocs alone, Ivy Rose Stuart.”

  “I’m not Stuart anymore,” I ground out, glaring at Kai. “Am I, darling?”

  He grinned, looking every inch as if he were enjoying my extreme discomfort in our newfound level in our fake relationship. “That’s right, sweetums.”

  Sweetums?

  Gross.

  “Where’s the wedding ring?” Grams demanded, pointing her finger at my hand. “If you’re married, where’s the ring?”

  “Getting sized,” I said quickly. “It’s gorgeous, Grams, you’ll love it. Big and shiny and sparkly.” I sent a look in Kai’s direction as a challenge. “We’ll have it back in a few days.”

  His jaw twitched, but his eyes shone with laughter.

  “What ring?” Mom asked, setting down Grams’ gin and tonic.

  “Jasmine! Did you know they’re married? This morning? Before they saw the doctor?” Grams asked.

  Mom clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Ivy! Is that why you didn’t eat breakfast? Why didn’t you tell me? Why weren’t we invited? Simon! Siiiiimonnnnnn!” she hollered in the direction of the bar. “Your daughter is married!”

  I swear, every single person in the bar turned to look at me.

  I was going to kill Kai.

  CHAPTER NINE – IVY

  “I cannot believe you. I cannot believe you told my grandmother we got secretly married this morning.” I tossed my purse on the sofa and stomped into my kitchen.

  Kai closed the door behind him. “You’re the one who started this fake relationship thing because it was easier for you, remember?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think we’d actually have to get fake married! It was to buy myself some time!” I stopped and fisted my hair. “Jesus Christ!”

  “I don’t think he’s going to help you.”

  “You’re gonna need him to help you,” I warned him. “Now what do we do? How the hell are we supposed to fake a blessing and wedding in front of my family?”

  Kai rubbed the back of his neck. “All right, that was a little far.”

  “You think?”

  He held out his hands, palms up, and shrugged.

  Like that was a real response.

  I sighed and leaned against the sink, folding my arms across my chest. “Well, now we’re in too deep. What do you propose we do now?”

  “Well, we have to go with it, don’t we?”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “You started it, Ivy.”

  “So you’ve said, but I didn’t expect that it would go this far. God.” I groaned, bending over. “This is a nightmare.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Kai, my grandmother thinks we’re married. Shit, the entire town thinks we’re married. How is this not bad?”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but quickly shut it again.

  Uh-huh.

  “Well, I guess we have to get married.”

  “Be realistic!” I snapped, putting my hands on my hips.

  “Date for real?”

  “I said realistic, Kai!”

  “That is realistic! Everyone thinks we’re married, is actually dating that wild?”

  I stared at him. I had no idea if he was being serious or not, but I wasn’t going to date him just to make this all easier. That wasn’t the right reason—just like I wasn’t going to let myself get carried away with how good it felt to sleep next to him.

  The only reason he’d spent the night a couple of days ago was because I was pregnant.

  If I weren’t, I doubted we’d spend this much time together in a month.

  “Yes,” I said after a long month. “We’d be doing it because I’m pregnant. No other reason. We wouldn’t even be in the same room right now if I weren’t pregnant, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong.”

  He raised his shoulders before dropping them in a defeated shrug, complete with a heavy sigh. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I am, and you know it. Until… that night… we didn’t actually spend time together outside of stupid apartment building parties and—”

  I was cut off by a knock on my door.

  I shared a look with Kai. Who the hell was that?

  He walked over to the door and opened it. “Mrs. Valentino. What a surprise.”

  “I’ll say!” Isabella Valentino said. “I’ve heard you’re married and having a baby! My, you kept that a secret!”

  Oh, Jesus, no.

  “They’re relatively recent developments,” Kai replied slowly.

  “Well, congratulations! I baked you a cake!” She held up a big, square cake in a silver foil tray. It was covered in pink, white, and blue icing, and there was both a bride and groom statue and various baby things in pink and blue like booties and pacifiers and—was that a diaper?

  I stared at Kai with my eyes wide.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Valentino,” Kai said, taking the cake from her. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing!” She rushed past him and over to me where she cupped my face in a grandmotherly way. “Ivy! How are you? When is the baby due? Do you need anything? I can help!”

  “I, uh—”

  “Does this mean you’re moving in together? Oh, silly me, of course you are! We should throw you a party! Oh, yes! A joint wedding and baby shower! How lovely! Vincent will be delighted. Amanda not so much, but it’ll be fun!”

  “Actually, Mrs. Valentino,” Kai said, moving into my apartment and putting the cake down. “We’ve had a long day so far, and Ivy was just telling me how she was going to take a lie down.”

  I yawned to prove his point.

  “Oh, of course!” The elderly woman flapped her hands and turned, heading back for the door. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk soon. Have a nice nap, Ivy!”

  Like the whirlwind she was, she disappeared as quickly as she came, and Kai locked the door behind her.

  The cake smelled divine.

  Like sugar and candy and vanilla and—

  “You’re drooling over the cake.”

  I wasn’t, technically, but whatever. “It smells so good.”

  “It smells like cake,” Kai said, approaching the island. “Just cake.”

  “It’s vanilla,” I said. “With strawberry jam and fresh cream.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “I can smell it.”

  “What are you, a police dog?”

  I grabbed a fork from the drawer and dug into the cake. I pulled out a huge chunk of the cake and held it up so he could see. “Fresh cream and strawberry jam,” I said triumphantly.

  Then shoved the entire bite in my mouth.

  “For someone who doesn’t want to be fake married, you have no issue eating our fake wedding cake.”

  “As it turns out, yes,” I said around a mouthful of said cake. “It’s good cake.”

  “You’re so weird,” Kai mumbled, walking over to the island. He stole the fork from me and scooped up a big bite from the tray. His ey
es closed the second he put the cake into his mouth, and he moaned. “That’s so good.”

  “Told you.” I snagged the fork back. “Get your own.”

  “I thought you were gonna take a nap.”

  “You made that up.” I pulled another forkful from the tray. “And I was actually considering it, but a sugar coma seems like a far better use of my time.”

  Kai stuck his own fork into the tray. “Too much sugar isn’t good for the baby.”

  “I had fruit for lunch.”

  “You had grilled cheese and soup.”

  “Tomato soup. What do you think tomatoes are? Fruit.”

  “They’re salad vegetables.”

  “Hah!” I pointed my cake-coated fork in his direction. “Wrong! They’re fruit! Now who needs to use the internet?”

  He frowned for a moment, then set down his fork to pull his phone from his pocket.

  All right, apparently Kai did.

  “Huh, how about that? You’re right.” He swapped the phone for his fork and dug into the cake again.

  “Of course I’m right. I thought everyone knew a tomato was a fruit.” I shrugged a shoulder.

  “Why would anyone know that?”

  “Because it’s more obvious than what the little numbers on the toaster are for?”

  “I thought everyone knew that.”

  “You only know it because you used Google.”

  “Technically, it was on one those of those stupid ass memes on Facebook.” He scraped some frosting from the side of the tray. “You know those ‘I was this many years old when I found out’ bullshit things?”

  “And you took a meme’s world as gospel?”

  “No. I googled it after that and the general consensus is that it is true.”

  “Hmm,” I mused. “I’m going to time my toast tomorrow.”

  Kai rolled his eyes. “Unless you forget to eat breakfast again.”

  “I don’t forget to eat breakfast,” I argued. “I just don’t eat it. This morning because I might throw up.”

  “Yet here you are, mid-afternoon, eating half your body weight in cake.”

  “Well, I’m a woman, and we’re known for being unpredictable. What can I say?”

  He grinned, his entire face lighting up. Even his blue eyes sparkled, and I looked away before my stomach flipped—in a good way.

  I didn’t need Kai Connors getting me all worked up right now, thank you very much.