Je Suis a Toi (Monsters in the Dark #3.5)(49)

“Thanks.”

Her eyes drifted to the test. Her face tightened as a smile lifted her lips. “Mrs. Mercer…I have some news for you.”

“Already?” I strained my neck, trying to see what she did. “What is it? Am I sterile? It’s me, isn’t it? I’m missing something. Well, at least Q can stop beating himself up about it.” And start beating me again. “I’m so sorry for wasting your time. Thanks for your help.”

Standing, I trembled with a mixture of relief to finally have an answer and terrible sadness that I would never be a mother. I would never be able to give Q what he suddenly desperately wanted.

Dr. Fellows laughed. “Don’t jump to conclusions. I hadn’t finished.” Pointing at the chair, she commanded, “Please, sit. You might need to when I tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

She cocked her chin at the chair, waiting until I sank back down again. “It gives me great pleasure to be the first to tell you this, Mrs. Mercer.”

Anticipation scraped along my skin as Dr. Fellows held up a stick with two blue lines. “You’re pregnant.”

*

“So? How did it go?” Suzette asked after we’d walked the streets of Paris in silence for half an hour.

How did it go?

I was pregnant.

I’m pregnant.

Q was right. It was our violent lovemaking stopping us.

No, that’s wrong.

Once Dr. Fellows recorded the positive test, she reexamined me, doing a vaginal ultrasound and taking educated guesses.

Five to six weeks.

Not four weeks or one week.

And what had we done five weeks ago?

Q had come home obliterated and gone rogue. He’d strangled me, bit me, f*cked me like the animal he was. And I’d adored every delicious debased second.

He’d knocked me up while doing the one thing he thought was stopping me from getting pregnant. The past few weeks of tame vanilla had been for nothing. He’d ruined our happy coexistence all because of some pigheaded idiocy.

Damn man.

My heart growled all while it bubbled with happiness.

Suzette pinched my forearm. “Are you going to tell me? Either you’re dying, and that’s why you can’t tell me or…” Her face lit up. “Oh, my God. Are you?” She yanked me to a stop on the streets of Paris. “You’re pregnant?”

Tears swam in my eyes, making her dance. “I—I—”

“Oh, you are. You are!” She grabbed me in a massive hug. “Wow, this is…wait until Q knows. Oh my God, Tess, he was right. What he’s done the past few weeks.” Her face fell. She knew how tame my love life had become. And I understood her conclusion. “This will kill him. He’ll never touch you how you want again. He’ll think everything he needs is even more wrong.” She squeezed my hand in consolation. “I’m sorry, mon amie.”

My face split into a large smile. “I’m not. He had it wrong.”

He was wrong when he said it was his fault. Wrong that his savage love meant he wasn’t a worthy father.

I’d proven him otherwise and couldn’t wait to tell him.

And this time, I’d win and get my beast back.

She frowned. “What?”

“Five weeks, Suzette. I’m five or six weeks pregnant. I’m going to say five because it fits better with my story.” I laughed. “What happened five weeks ago?”

Her forehead furrowed, doing her best to think back that far. “Um…” She shrugged. “No idea.”

“Q came home drunk…”

Realisation entered her gaze. “Oh…you guys left the pool room in a mess. Clothes everywhere…your sliced-up yoga band. When I went in the next day, it looked like a water polo fight had happened in there.”

“Exactly.” Smugness filled me. “The one night he thought he was hurting me so he could protect me from himself was the night he got exactly what he wanted.”

Happiness blossomed on her face. “So… the past few weeks of boringness are over?”

I took her hand; full of ideas of how I would tell Q and what I would make him do to me to make up for the past few weeks. “They are. And thank God for that.”

Happiness I’d never felt before blossomed.

I’m pregnant!

With Q’s child.

We’re a family.

I’d been pregnant for weeks and not known.

According to Dr. Fellows, my system had become fertile far sooner than most women who’d been on the injection. She said the blood-work would give an exact conception date but anywhere from seven to five weeks was a good guestimate. It was great news all around. For me, Q, and our marriage.

There wouldn’t have to be tests or consultations. We’d conceived naturally, and Q could finally have something of his very own.

Including me, of course.

The healthy meals Mrs. Sucre had plied us with had given my body a great foundation to form our little monster. And I no longer had to bore myself stupid with vanilla.

I was surprised Q hadn’t noticed anything different about me.

Then again, I hadn’t noticed, and I was the one changing. Q wasn’t that observant when it came to my time of the month. He wasn’t a husband to count my days and inform me that any second now I could start bleeding. So my secret would be all the more precious to share.