Open & Honest (Sometimes) (A High Tea & Flip-Flops Novel Book 3)

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  We’re halfway out the door when the guy calls out to him, “Hey, you forgot your change.”

  “Keep it.” Jeremy guides me to the car. He starts dialing his phone as he walks around to the driver’s side.

  “Hello, Gabi,” he says into the phone as he buckles his seat belt. “Do you know if hornet stings are dangerous for a pregnant woman?”

  Eye roll. Wait. Maybe that’s not a stupid question.

  “She looks normal,” he says. “Do you feel odd?” he asks me.

  “No.” As he relays my answer to Gabi, I grab a tissue from the ever-ready nosebleed stash in my purse and blow my nose. Trying to ignore the throbbing, I close my eyes and yoga breathe. Damn you, hornet.

  After a pause, he says, “You’re sure?” Pause. “Twice.” Pause. “I don’t know; I wasn’t there.” Pause. “Right. I’ll tell her.” He ends the call, starts the car, and pulls away from the pumps. “Gabi says you should make a paste of bak—

  “Baking soda and water and put it on the stings.”

  He exhales hard. “I guess that was a wasted phone call.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I didn’t even think about the baby being affected.” Seriously, Chelsea? Think quick. “I mean because of the pain.”

  He pats my knee. “We’ll be home in a minute.” He smiles and wags a finger under his eyes. “You have a bit of a raccoon look.”

  I wipe off my running mascara with the tissue and then try more controlled breathing, even though it’s not working. Crap. If I can’t handle this little bit of pain, how will I make it through giving birth?

  Jeremy takes my hand. “We should probably text Barbara about the stings … just to be sure.”

  “Uh huh.” I think an ice pack will help the swelling. Oh. “Hey, I didn’t get my Popsicle.” Jeremy gives me a look like he can’t believe I just said that. I can’t believe it either. Maybe I am having a bad reaction. Can hornet stings make you delirious? Deciding I should probably stay quiet, I lie back and close my eyes. But then I remember something else. “That little snot did steal my money.”

  He sighs. I don’t even have to look to know he’s slowly shaking his head. If he’s so concerned about money, why isn’t he outraged that we just wasted ten dollars?

  At the next stop light, he startles me with a bark of a laugh. “What’s so funny?” I ask him.

  “I’m sorry.” He’s struggling to hold back a grin. “I know you’re hurting, but … when I walked in and saw you standing with your shirt in your hand and a crowd around you, I thought you were doing a striptease.”

  Now, it’s my turn to give him that you-must-be-kidding look.

  “I doubt we should return to that particular mini-mart,” he says, his grin now unrestrained. “Though if we could get that security video on YouTube, it would go viral. You’d be a celebrity.”

  I wait for him to say he’s kidding. One. Two. Three. “Seriously?”

  “What?”

  “YouTube? My god, Jeremy, neither of us is mature enough to be a parent. Our baby doesn’t have a chance.”

  He flips into Mr. High Tea mode. “Actually, I think a sense of humor will serve us well in child-rearing.”

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  I’m organizing my makeup drawer but stop to examine my body in the vanity mirror. There’s no longer any trace of the hornet stings. We’re at fifteen weeks now. My morning sickness is gone, and my boobs are huge, but my stomach shows only a little roundness. Jeremy says I look sexier than ever and he can’t keep his hands off me, which is totally cool because my hormones have turned me into a nympho.

  Speak of the devil.

  Jeremy’s standing in the doorway watching me. When our eyes meet in the mirror, he walks directly to me. He lifts my hair and kisses the nape of my neck, finding the exact spot he knows will cause a response deep inside me. His lips move to my ear, and he whispers, “Can that wait?”

  I drop my eye shadow compact and push the drawer shut. His arms slide around me, pulling me tight against him, as if I need to feel the evidence of his intention. He’s the aggressor this time, and I gladly submit because our lovemaking always ends with me feeling that I’m a queen who’s granted him the finest of favors.

  His fingertips brush lightly across my bottom lip and descend to my throat. I turn my head, arching my neck to receive his kiss. I breathe deeply, seeking his familiar scent of lime and spice, centering myself in this moment. His fingers graze my shoulder, then slide down my arm, igniting each nerve they pass over. Electrifying me.

  “The mirror,” he whispers, ordering me to watch.

  He threads his fingers through mine and guides our hands over my body, sliding up to cup my breast, then down over my stomach and thigh. Our hands reach under the hem of my dress and between my legs, fingers pushing aside my panties to explore the slippery darkness.

  “Will you give me this?” he says. A moan is my response. He drops my hand and grasps me by the hips. He turns me, holding me captive in his gaze, stepping backward, leading me to our bed.

  “Don’t move,” he says as reaches behind me to unzip my dress, sliding it off my shoulders to puddle at my feet. He unhooks my bra, freeing my breasts, cupping them as he patterns featherlight kisses from my nape to my shoulder. My knees weaken, and he grabs me by the waist, trailing his tongue down my spine as he kneels. With one practiced hand he reaches around, grasping me between my legs, pressing me back against him, claiming me. He moans and then pauses, panting, his breath hot on my back. After a moment, he slips my panties down my thighs and turns me, seeking my scent now. This heat we generate between us has melted me, I am slick against his fingers, his lips, his tongue. My desire is an ache only he can soothe, a thirst only he can slake.

  “Please,” I beg.

  He rises and lays me down. Resting on his elbows, suspended above me, he seeks my eyes. “What do you want?”

  “You. All of you.”

  He gives me what I asked for. And more. He gives me us.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  At eighteen weeks, we have another ultrasound, and Barbara says we’re going to have a boy—and only one, much to Jeremy’s relief. A son. When I picture us as a family, I get a little breathless.

  I think the grandmothers are a little disappointed we’re not having a girl, and I was apprehensive that Jeremy would be too. I thought he might fear he’d have the same sort of contentious relationship with his son that he had with his father, but he was stoked when Barbara pointed out our boy’s teeny package. And, seriously, when I think about how strongly Jeremy felt about protecting his sister’s honor, I get a horrifying picture of him chaperoning a daughter until she’s thirty. So it’s good we’ll have a son.

  In fact, everything is good. In the last two months, I’ve completed the surfer romance and published it, and it’s selling well. More importantly, Jeremy’s career is back on track and running smoothly. He’s pounded out the first draft of his next novel, so he’s no longer brooding. I even heard him laughing during a phone conversation with his dad.

  Right now, Jeremy’s working on his second draft, and I’m snacking in the kitchen, so when I see the mailman stop at our box, I decide to do one of his chores and collect the mail. As I walk back toward the door, I’m casually shuffling through it when the logo on one envelope jolts me. WPM is the London law firm Williams Pearce Mayne—Jeremy’s old employer. I march straight to our office.

  “What is this?” I thrust the envelope at him. I’m pretty sure alarm flickers across his face before he can hide it.

  “Oh. Thanks.” He tosses it on his desk and puts his hands back on the keyboard. “I need that for my CV.”

  “Your CV?”

  “Curriculum vitae.”

  “I know what it stands for, dude. What I don’t know is why you need a CV.”

  He stares at his hands until I’m ready to scream, and then he sighs. “Sit down. We need to talk.”

  Crap. Not again. I plop down on the window ledge.

  He swivels his chair toward me.
“Firstly, you know why I need a CV. We’ve had that discussion.”

  “No, we—”

  “We have. You just refused to hear.” He leans toward me, resting his forearms on his thighs, and looks into my eyes. “I will not have my family living hand to mouth so I can indulge myself.”

  “But you hated law. You said it was soul-sucking.”

  His brows draw together. “I doubt I used that precise term. But that’s beside the point. Surely you’ve deduced that my disdain for law was fueled by conflict with my father. It had nothing to do with the actual work.”

  “So you’re just going to give up writing.” Why is my voice shaking?

  He stands. “I never said that.”

  “But it won’t be the same.” We’ve worked together for two years. We’ve spent practically every minute of that time together. I don’t want to give him up. “Don’t do this.”

  Not until he pulls me to him and cradles my head against his chest do I realize I’m crying.

  “Shh,” he says. “I love you.”

  “But … but it’s … it’s not …” Breathe. “It’s not part of the plan.”

  “This will be good for us. I promise.”

  I’m sitting on the floor of my closet sobbing. I’m twenty weeks pregnant (halfway there) and my belly bump is obvious now. But not to the point that it’s obvious a baby is the cause of that bump. I just look fat. Out of shape. Far too fond of ice cream and donuts and chips and pizza.

  Jeremy appears in the closet doorway. “What’s this?”

  “Nothing fits,” I wail.

  He picks up a pair of my skinny jeans from the clothes scattered around me. “Well, naturally these won’t fit. You’re pregnant.”

  I glare at him through my tears. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

  He shrugs. “Go shopping.”

  “I’m not ready for maternity clothes.”

  He sighs and then scans the mess on the closet floor. “Surely you have sweats or leggings that still fit. Stretchy knits.” He demonstrates the concept with his hands.

  “You just don’t get it.” I grab a shirt and rub my face dry.

  “Uh …” He points to his nose and then the shirt in my hands.

  When I look down at the red smeared shirt, more blood drips on it. I pinch my nose shut and jump to my feet. Jeremy jumps aside as I run for the bathroom sink. With a wad of tissues at my nose, I watch him in the mirror, slinking out of the bedroom. Big help there, dude.

  “I hate being pregnant!”

  He keeps walking.

  “It’s all your fault!”

  He raises a hand, acknowledging he’s heard me, and ducks into the office.

  After I staunch the nosebleed, I get dressed and join him. “I don’t hate being pregnant.”

  “I know.”

  “I just hate being fat. No, that’s not really it either. I’m worried my body will never be the same.”

  “If, after the birth, you have to buy jeans one size larger, so what?”

  Men are so clueless. “That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Perfect Bod. Gabi’s whole body changed after she had Marco.”

  “Gabi looked great.”

  “Seriously?”

  He grimaces. “Aww come on, Chelsea.” He swivels his chair away from his computer. “Gabi’s like a sist—” He draws back, looking me up and down. “Why are you wearing that?”

  I’m dressed in one of his highland shirts, even though it hangs to my knees, and I had to roll the cuffs four times just to get them to wrist length. “It’s comfortable.”

  “It’s like a nightgown on you.”

  “It covers my body. Which needs to be done.” I pull up the shirt to expose my belly. “Look at this.”

  “What?”

  I point below my navel. “This horrible dark stripe.”

  “You mean your barely darkened linea alba? Which, by the way, will lighten again after the baby’s born.”

  “It’s called a linea nigra, which, by the way, means black line.”

  “Actually, the linea alba, meaning white line, has always been there, you just never noticed until it darkened from hormones. Also sunbathing by the pool doesn’t help.”

  I let the shirt drop. Apparently, I’ve exhausted his compassion. And what about his intuition? He should know that what I really need is—

  “You are beautiful.” He stands and moves toward me. “You will always be beautiful.” He clasps my shoulders and looks into my eyes. “I love you. I will always love you. And if you bear any mark of having given birth to my son, that will only make you more beautiful, and I will love you more for it.”

  So yeah. There are definite advantages to having a husband who used to write romance novels.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  It’s officially fall, but the temp this afternoon is in the eighties, so we’re having a pool party with Gabi and Matt. Jeremy’s in the pool with Marco, Matt’s checking the grill, and Gabi and I are lying on the lounges, dressed in our most modest bikinis, getting a little sun. A beached whale, she calls herself. My baby bump hardly registers next to hers. Seriously, it’s scary to think how big she’ll be at full term.

  Gabi holds up her cran-raspberry La Croix. “Here’s to getting my house back.”

  “For a while,” I say and then, when she kicks my foot, “Ow.” We’re celebrating because Matt’s mom has gone home until the babies are born.

  Gabi takes a sip of her water. “God, I wish this was a margarita.” Scowling, she rubs her bare belly. “Look at all these new stretch marks already. It looks like I’ve been flayed by a flock of fairies.”

  “Pixies,” I say. “Jeremy says pixies are the teeny ones; fairies are bigger.”

  She gives me a look. “You and Jeremy discuss pixies and fairies often?”

  “One time I was telling him about a story I read where this guy kept a dead fairy in an empty spaghetti jar, and he said a fairy wouldn’t fit, it must have been a pixie.”

  She turns her head toward the pool and calls out, “Hey, Jeremy, you’ve seen a lot of fairies and pixies and probably leprechauns too, huh?”

  His look of complete bewilderment cracks us up.

  “I’d better check that water they’re drinking,” Matt says.

  “Too right,” Jeremy says and turns his attention back to teaching Marco to float.

  Matt closes the grill and jumps back into the pool.

  “Your mom really likes living in England, doesn’t she?” Gabi says.

  “She doesn’t live there.” I slap my magazine on the deck and stand. “I’ve had enough sun.” I toss my sunglasses on the lounge and jump into the pool. I swim until I’m breathless, and by that time Matt’s back at the grill, and Jeremy’s handing off Marco to Gabi. But I’m still irritated at Gabi’s insensitivity. Her mother drives up from San Diego once a week. I haven’t seen mine in a month—thirty-five days, to be exact.

  I’m standing at the far edge of the pool, my back to everyone, when Jeremy swims up underwater and lifts me. Not being in a mood to play, I snap at him. “Put me down.” He turns and launches me into the water. I come up sputtering and swinging. “Jerk.”

  He holds up his hands and backs away. “Easy now. I come in peace.”

  “Hey,” Matt calls, “time to eat.”

  Jeremy grabs my hand and pulls me close. “What’s got you in a snit, wife?”

  “I miss my mom.”

  “When I talked to Uncle this morning, he mentioned coming for a visit soon.”

  “Really?” I kiss him. “Will you still think I’m beautiful if I get covered with stretch marks?”

  “Despite your tendency to speak in non sequitur, yes, I will think you beautiful no matter how hideously you’re marked up.”

  “Aww, that’s sweet. Okay, then, I’ll ignore the crow’s feet and gray hair you’re already getting.” When his mouth drops open and his hands reach for his head, I swim for the steps, laughing to myself. He suspects I was joking, but just to be sure, he’ll examine himsel
f in my magnifying mirror at first chance.

  After we eat, Gabi puts Marco down for a nap, and the guys start playing some new video game Matt brought over. Gabi and I take our iced tea out to the patio where it’s quieter.

  She lays a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry for upsetting you earlier, Chels.”

  “No biggie.” I squeeze her hand. “I know you didn’t mean anything. I was just hormonal.”

  “God bless the hormones.” She sighs and moves her hand to her stomach. “Imagine having a double shot to deal with. I don’t know how Matt hasn’t moved out by now.”

  “Jeremy’s very patient with me.”

  “Of course. He’s British. Though I heard through the grapevine that he was pretty worried about how you’d react when he told you about going back to law practice.”

  “The grapevine?”

  She ticks her head toward the house. “Matt.”

  “Well, I know Jeremy says he’s going to do that, but we’ll see.”

  “Chels he’s—”

  “We don’t even know how well Hostage is going to do—it could be a bestseller. Plus, once the baby is here, he’s not going to want to spend all day in an office away from us. You see how much he loves being with Marco.”

  For a couple of minutes, we sit looking at the pool and sipping our tea, not speaking. Then Gabi heaves a sigh. “At the risk of pissing you off twice today, I’m telling you that you’re crazy if you think Jeremy made that decision lightly. He’s talked about it with Ethan, his uncle, his dad, and even his brother … hell, even with Matt who knows zip about being a lawyer. He needs your support, Chels.”

  I chew my lip and stare into my glass as shame and fear and anger fight it out inside me. “How long have you known?”

  “I just found out last week … after Jeremy told you. Honest. I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up, but now I know why you didn’t.”

  “It scares me.”

  “I know. He told us what you said. But he seems excited when he talks about it. And, girl, you must be more than hormonal if you’d rather keep struggling financially than live on a frigging lawyer’s income.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m being selfish.” Actually, I’m still hoping he’ll come to his senses. “But he won’t be starting out here with the same salary he had in London.”