His Pregnant Princess Bride

by Catherine Mann

  Needing to take control of the situation, Erika cleared her throat. Her goal was the same as before. To get to know him. “What did you want to be as a little boy growing up?”

  Finishing chewing, he tilted his head to the side. “Interesting question.”

  “How so?” It had seemed like a perfectly reasonable question. One she had been meaning to ask for a while now.

  “Everyone assumes I wanted to be a pro football player.”

  To Erika, Gervais had seemed like the kind of man who wasn’t nearly as cut-and-dried as that. He might live and breathe football, but it didn’t seem as if it was the only dimension to him. Childhood dreams said a lot, after all. She’d wanted to be a shield maiden from long ago. To protect and shelter people. Her adult dream was still along those lines.

  A nurse did such things. “And you did not want to be a football player like the rest of your family?”

  “I enjoy the game. Clearly. I played all through elementary school into high school because I wanted to. I didn’t have to accept the offer to play at the college level. I could afford any education I wanted.”

  “But your childhood dream?” She pressed on, before taking the cream-covered peach slice he’d offered her. She savored the taste of the sweetness of the peach against the salty flavor of his fingers.

  Looking down at his feet, then back at her, he smiled sheepishly. “As a kid, I wanted to drive a garbage truck.”

  Her jaw dropped. Closed. Then opened again as she said, “Am I missing something in translation? You wished to drive a truck that picks up trash?”

  “I did. When my parents argued, I would go outside to hide from the noise. Sometimes it got so loud I had to leave. So I rode my bike to follow the garbage truck. I would watch how that crusher took everyone’s trash and crushed it down to almost nothing. As a kid that sounded very appealing.”

  Thinking of him pedaling full-tilt down the roads as a child put an ache in her heart she couldn’t deny. “I am sorry your parents hurt you that way.”

  “I just want you to understand I take marriage and our children’s happiness seriously.”

  His brown eyes met hers. They were heated with a ferocity she hadn’t seen before.

  This offer of a life together was real to him. His offer was genuine, determined. And from a very driven man. She needed to make up her mind, and soon, or she could fast lose all objectivity around Gervais.

  Ten

  It had only been three days since he’d gotten home from the loss in St. Louis. He needed time to think of his next strategy. And not just for the Hurricanes. With Erika, too.

  Which was exactly why he’d pulled on his running shorts and shirt. Laced up his shoes and hit the pavement, footsteps keeping him steady.

  Focused.

  Sweat curled off his upper lip, the taste of salt heavy in his mouth. The humid Louisiana twilight hummed with the songs of the summer bugs and birds.

  This always set his mind right. The sound of foot to pavement. Inhale. Exhale. The feel of sweat on his back.

  He’d been quite the runner growing up. Always could best his brothers in distance and speed. Especially Jean-Pierre, his youngest brother.

  Jean-Pierre had to work harder than all his older brothers to keep up with them as they ran. Running had been something of a Reynaud rite of passage. Or so Gervais had made it out to be. He’d always pushed his brothers for a run. It was an escape from the yelling and fighting that went on at their home. Whether the family was at the ranch in Texas, on the expansive property on Lake Pontchartrain or on the other side of the globe, there was always room to run, and Gervais had made use of those secured lands to give them all some breathing space from the parental drama.

  Slowing his pace, he stopped to tighten his shoelace. Looking at the sparkling water of the lake, he realized it had been too long since he talked to Jean-Pierre. Months.

  Gervais knew he needed to call him...but things hadn’t been the same since Jean-Pierre left Louisiana Tech to play for the Gladiators in New York. Sure, Jean-Pierre maintained a presence on the family compound, sharing upkeep of one of the homes where he stayed when he flew into town. But how often had that been over the past few years? Even in the off-season, Jean-Pierre tended to stick close to New York and his teammates on the Gladiators. When he did show up in New Orleans, it was to take his offensive line out on his boat or for a raucous party that was more for friends than family.

  How Jean-Pierre managed to stay away from this quirky, lively city was beyond Gervais. When they were younger, the family had spent a lot of time in Texas. Which, make no mistake, Gervais loved, but there was a charm to New Orleans, a quality that left the place rarified.

  He wanted to share those things with Erika. The cultural scene was unbeatable, and the food. Well, he’d yet to take her to his favorite dessert and dancing place. He pictured taking her out for another night on the Big Easy with him. She’d love it if she’d give him a chance to show her.

  And though they’d fallen into a pattern over the past few days, he felt as distant as ever and all because she wouldn’t commit even though they had children on the way. Sure, they made love nightly now. And he relished the way her body writhed beneath his touch. But it wasn’t enough. He bit his tongue about the future and she didn’t say anything about leaving.

  Or staying.

  And he wanted her to stay. Starting to run again, he picked up the intensity. Ran harder, faster.

  He didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t want a repeat of London. Before he’d even woken up, she’d packed her things and let herself out of the hotel suite. Though it had been only one weekend, he had fallen for her. Now they’d spent days together.

  Rather blissful days. Mind wandering, he thought to the last night in St. Louis when they’d explored the rooftop garden that was attached to their hotel suite. There’d been a slight chill in the air, but things between them had been on fire. In his memory, he traced the curves on her body.

  Though she might be pumping the brakes on the future, he was getting to know her. To see past her no-nonsense facade to the woman who was a little sarcastic, kindhearted and generous.

  The thought of her just leaving again like in London...it made his gut sink.

  Rounding the last corner on his run, he didn’t hold back. He sprinted all out, as if that would allow him to hold on to Erika.

  This was damn awful timing, too. He knew he needed to focus on his career. To turn the Hurricanes into a financial dynasty to back the championship team Dempsey assured them they had in place. And this thing with Erika—whatever it might be—was not helping him. Sure, he’d nabbed that sponsor in Chicago. But every day he spent with her was a day that he wasn’t securing another sponsor that would make the Hurricanes invincible as a business and not just a team. They’d been teetering on the brink of folding when he’d purchased them, and he’d reinvigorated every facet since then, but his work was far from done to keep them in the black.

  But damn. He could not. No. He would not just let her leave as she had before. This wasn’t just about the fact they were having a family, or that they were amazing together in bed.

  Quickening his pace, he saw the Reynaud compound come into sight. The light was on in Erika’s bedroom.

  His grandfather had taught him a few things when he was a kid. Two of the most important: build your dream and family is everything. Two simple statements. And he wanted Erika to be a part of that. To create the kind of home that his own kids would never want to run from.

  * * *

  Sitting cross-legged on a cushioned chair in the massive dining room, Erika absently spread raspberry jam on her puffy biscuit. Try as she might, she couldn’t force her mind to be present. To be in the moment.

  Instead, her thoughts drifted back to Gervais and last night. He’d knocked on her door after his
run. She’d opened the door, let him in. And he’d showered her in determined, passion-filled kisses. There was an urgency, a sincerity in their lovemaking last night. A new dimension to sex she had never thought possible.

  Last night had made it even harder for her to be objective about their situation. She wanted Gervais. But she also wanted what was best for them both. Balancing that need seemed almost impossible.

  A motion in the corner of her eye brought her back to the present. She found Gervais’s grandfather filling his plate at the buffet with pork grillades and grits, a buttered biscuit on the side.

  Gracious, she could barely wait for the morning to wane so the queasy feeling would subside and she could indulge in more of the amazing food of this region. Everything tasted so good, or perhaps that was her pregnancy hormones on overload. Regardless, she was hungry but didn’t dare try more for a couple more hours yet.

  She looked back at Gervais’s grandfather, keeping her eyes off the plate of food. Leon hadn’t gone with them to St. Louis, but Gervais had explained how travel anywhere other than from his homes in New Orleans and Texas left the old man disoriented.

  He took his place at the head of the table, just to the left of her, and poured himself a cup of thick black coffee from the silver carafe. “So you’re carrying my first great-grandchild—” He tapped his temple near his gray hair. “Grandchildren. You’re having twins. I remember that. Some days my memory’s not so good, but that’s sticking in my brain and making me happy. A legacy. And if you won’t find it disrespectful of me to say so, I believe it’s going to be a brilliant, good-looking legacy.” He toasted her with his china coffee cup.

  “Thank you, sir. No disrespect taken at all. That’s a delightful thing to say, especially the smart part.” She gave him a wink as she picked at her biscuit. Praise of her intelligence was important. Erika had worked hard to be more than a pretty princess. Wanted her worth and merit to be attached to her mind’s tenacity. To realize her dreams of setting up a nurse-practitioner practice of her own someday, one with an entire section devoted to homeopathic medicines and mood-leveling aromatherapy.

  “That’s important.” He sipped more of his coffee before digging into his breakfast. “We have a large family empire to pass along, and I want it to go into good hands. I didn’t do so well with my own children. But my grandkids, I’m damn proud of them.”

  “Gervais will make a good father.” Of that she had no doubt. He was already so attentive.

  “He works too much and takes on too much responsibility to prove he’s not like his old man, but yes, he will take parenthood seriously. He may need some books, though. To study up, since he didn’t have much of a role model. He sure knows what not to do, though.” A laugh rasped from the man’s cracked lips and he finished more of his coffee.

  “I believe you played a strong part in bringing up your grandchildren.” She reached for the carafe and offered to refill his cup, even though she wasn’t drinking coffee. She stuck to juice and water these days.

  He nodded at her, eyes turning inward as if he was reading something she couldn’t see. “I tried to step in where I could. Didn’t want to bring up spoiled, silver-spoon-entitled brats again.” His focus returned to her. “I like that you went into the military. That speaks well of your parents.”

  Her mother and father had pitched an unholy fit over that decision, but she would not need to say as much. “It was an honor to serve my country.”

  “Good girl. What do you plan to do now that your studies are on hold?”

  Technically, they weren’t. She would be back in university in autumn.

  “When I return to school, I will undertake the program to become a nurse-practitioner, even as a single mother.” And she would. No matter how long it took.

  “Really? I didn’t expect you to, um—”

  “Work for a living? Few do, even after my military service.” Her voice went softer than she would have liked.

  “You’ll take good care of my grandson when I’m gone?” His question pierced her tender heart on a morning when her emotions were already close to the surface.

  “Sir, you appear quite spry to me.”

  “That’s not what I mean and if you’re wanting to be a nurse-practitioner, you probably know that.” He tapped his temple again. “It’s here that I worry about giving out too soon. The doctors aren’t sure how fast. Sometimes I prefer the days I don’t remember talking to those experts.”

  “I am so very sorry.” She hadn’t spent a lot of time with Leon Reynaud. But she could tell he was a good man who cared a lot about his family. And the stories Gervais told her only confirmed that.

  “Thank you. Meanwhile, I want to get to know you and spend time with you so you can tell my great-grans all about me.” He pointed with his biscuit for emphasis and she couldn’t help but smile.

  “That sounds delightful,” she said to Gramps, but her eyes trailed over his head. To Gervais, who strode into the dining hall.

  Sexy. That was the only word that pulsed in her mind as she looked at him. Dressed in a blue button-down shirt, he looked powerful.

  “Don’t mind me,” he mumbled, smiling at her. “Just grabbing some breakfast before heading to the office. You can go back to telling embarrassing stories about me, Gramps.”

  Gramps chuckled. “I was just getting ready to tell my favorite.”

  Gervais gave him a faux-injured grin, swiping a muffin and apple from the table.

  He stopped next to her. Gave her a hug and a kiss. Not a deep kiss or even lingering. Instead, he gave her one of those familiar kisses. A kiss that spoke of how they’d been together before. That they knew each other’s bodies and taste well. She bit her bottom lip where the taste of him lingered, minty, like his toothpaste.

  As he walked away, everything felt...right. Being with him seemed so natural, as if they had been doing this for years. It’d be so easy—too easy—to slide right into this life with him.

  And that scared her clean through to her toes.

  * * *

  It had been a long day at the office, one of the longest since their return from St. Louis. Gervais had tried his best to secure a new technology sponsor for the Hurricanes, a west coast company with deep pockets that was currently expanding their presence in New Orleans. The fit was perfect, but the corporate red tape was nightmarish, and the CEO at the helm hadn’t been as forward thinking as the CFO, whom Gervais had met on another deal the year before. Not everyone understood the tremendous advertising power of connecting with an NFL team, and the CEO of the tech company had been reluctant. Stubborn. It had been a hellish day, but at least the guy hadn’t balked at the deal. Yet.

  Gervais had left work midday to talk with some of Gramps’s doctors. They were discussing treatment plans and some of the effects of his new medicines. All he wanted to do was give the best he could to his family.

  Family. Gramps. Hurricanes. Jean-Pierre. Work and Reynaud business had swirled in his mind all day. The only thing he wanted to do this evening was see Erika. The thought of her, waiting at home for him, had kept him fighting all day. Besides, he had a gift for her and he couldn’t wait to present it to her.

  Walking into her room, he felt better just seeing her. She was sitting on the chaise longue, staring blankly at her suitcase.

  Her unzipped suitcase.

  That fleeting moment of good feeling vanished. Was she leaving? If he had come home later, would she have already been gone, just like London?

  Taking a deep breath, he set aside his gift for her and surveyed the room. The two arrangements of hydrangeas and magnolias were on her dresser alongside an edible bouquet of fruit. He’d had them sent to her today while he was at work. For her to think about their time in St. Louis together.

  As he continued to look around the room, he didn’t see any clothes pulled out. So they were al
l either in the drawers or in her bag.

  He hoped they were still in the drawers. Gervais didn’t want her to go. Instead, he wanted her to stay here. With him. Be part of his family.

  Tapping the suitcase, he stared at Erika “That’s not full, is it?”

  He tried to sound light. Casual. The opposite of his current mental state.

  She looked up quickly, her eyes such a startling shade of blue. “No, of course not. Why would you think that?”

  “You left once before without a word.” He wanted to take her in his arms and coax her into bed for the day, not think about her leaving.

  “I promised you I would stay for two weeks and I meant it. After that, though, I have to make a decision.”

  He tensed.

  “Why? Why the push?”

  “I need to move forward with my life at some point.” Chewing her lip, she gestured at the suitcase.

  “I’ve asked you to marry me and move in with me, yet still you hold back. Let me help support you while you make a decision, with time if not money, wherever you are.” He would do that for her and more.

  She looked at him with a steady, level gaze. “Seriously? Haven’t we had this discussion already? We have time to make these decisions.”

  “The sooner we plan, the sooner we can put things into place.”

  “Do not rush, damn it. That is not the way I am. My parents learned that when they tried to push me into their way of life, their plans for me.” Her gaze was level, icy.

  “So you plan to leave, just not now?”

  “I do not know what I am planning.” Her voice came out in a whisper, a slight crack, as well. “I am methodical. I need to think through all of the options and consequences.”

  “Is that what you did the morning you left me? Stayed up and thought about why we needed to turn our backs on the best sex ever?” Dropping onto the edge of the bed across from her, he caught her gaze. Looked at the intensity of her blue eyes. She was damn sexy. Beautiful. And he wasn’t going to let her walk away as if this was nothing.