SWNOVELS Fake Empire: Chapter 19
Crew watches me devour the cheeseburger with a wide smile on his face. “Hungry?”
I dip a fry in ketchup. “Your kid is a raging carnivore. All I want is fried food, preferably with meat.” I take another big bite. Swallow and chew.
“You took your vitamins this morning, right?”
I stick my tongue out at him. “Sounds like you’ll be a helicopter parent.”
“Teddy’s doggy daycare tells me how often you call to check on him, Red.”
“Whatever, Sport,” is the best retort I can come up with.
I drop a hand to my stomach, which has become an unconscious action as of late. I have to force myself to keep from doing it at work, since Crew is the only person who knows I’m pregnant. But I’m starting to show, so we’ll have to announce it soon.
“A baby feels like a lot of responsibility,” I tell him. “Before Teddy, I’d never even kept a cactus alive.”
He chuckles, and it’s become the laugh I compare all other laughs to. Just the right mixture of husk and rumble. “Is that why you got him? Some sort of parenting dry run?”
“No. I thought this was a ways off.” I play with a fry. “I just…I wanted something that felt like ours.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of marriage? The whole what’s mine is yours shtick?”
“The money? Cars? Planes? Property?” I shake my head. “I meant something I didn’t already have.”
Crew’s expression is serious. He’s studying me like I’m a riddle to decode. A puzzle to put together. A question without an answer. “What else is on that list?” he asks. “Aside from a dog?”
I shift uncomfortably under the weight of that question. “I don’t know. This baby.” He takes a sip of water, studying me the whole time. I try to bite the question back, but it spills out anyway. “Why?”
His answer comes instantly. “I want to give you everything you want.”
That blue gaze should come with a warning label. It sears into every inch of me, leaving a brand behind. I expected these feelings for him to reach limits. Instead, they seem to be spreading like a wildfire that can’t be contained.
The waitress chooses this moment to reappear, fussing over our empty plates and rambling on about dessert while checking out Crew. He doesn’t look at her. I’m the one who breaks eye contact to study the street.
What I want is…him. This life we’re building together with a dog and a baby and inside jokes. I want it so badly it scares me.
I’d rather get nothing than get everything…and then lose it.
It’s not until Crew climbs out of the car after me that I realize he’s not planning to head back to the office. He badgered me into admitting I could get everything I needed to get done today from the penthouse rather than my office, so we came straight here after finishing lunch.
“You can go back to work,” I tell him as I step inside the elevator.
“I’m good here,” he replies, following me.
His attentiveness makes me uneasy. A day will come when I can’t even reach him and I’ll remember this—him dropping everything for me—and it will be that much more painful as a result. “I thought you’re the bigshot at Kensington Consolidated? At the company party, everyone told me you’re the future of the company. Won’t they miss you?”
“Scarlett,” he says, with more patience than I’m expecting, “I imagine me telling you how to do your job would go down about as well as a nuclear attack. Do you still hate double standards?”
I have nothing to say to that, which pisses me off. He’s right—him telling me how to do anything, much less manage Haute, would not go over well.
When did he get so good at arguing with me?
The elevator doors open. “I’m going to take a bath.”
Without another word, I head up the stairs and into the bathroom that bears clear signs of his presence. We never discussed it, but we share all the same space now. Sleep in the same bed. His suits hang in my closet. There’s a second toothbrush by the sink.
I plug the drain and start the hot water running, perching on the rim of the tub and staring out the window as it slowly fills.
I own more bubble bath than one woman really needs, but I don’t bother looking through labels. I squeeze a little of each bottle into the water swirling with steam. A decision I regret when there is suddenly a thick layer of bubbles. I shed my clothes and sink through the fragrant suds into the scorching water, using my big toe to turn the tap off.
Despite my resistance earlier, this definitely beats walking around my office in high heels.
I relax in the tub until the bubbles disappear and the water turns cold. The tub drains as I wrap a fluffy robe around myself and shuffle into the bedroom. And stop.
Crew is sprawled out on the bed typing on his laptop. He’s changed out of the suit he was wearing earlier into gray sweatpants and a white undershirt.
Corporate Crew is sexy as hell. Casual Crew gives me butterflies.
“Hey,” he greets, glancing up as I walk toward him. His gaze lingers on the fact I didn’t knot the robe. It hangs open, flashing him just about everything.
I climb atop the comforter on my side of the bed. “I’m starting to show.”
“I noticed.” Pretty sure he’s staring at my boobs, not my baby bump.
“We should decide, you know, how we’ll tell people.” I rest a hand on the small bulge between my hips. We won’t have a choice for much longer, now that I’m almost five months along.
“Like who?”
“Our parents, for starters.”
“We always go to the Alps for Christmas. We can tell my family then, if you want. And we can spend New Year’s with your folks.”
“Will the Alps be like Thanksgiving was?” A huge, formal affair, in other words. If not for the food served, I would have had no idea it was a dinner party unlike any other.
“No. My dad doesn’t invite other people over when we’re there.”
“Why?”
Crew shrugs. “No idea. He just doesn’t.”
“So it’ll be me, you, your dad, Candace, and Oliver?”
“Well, I assume we’d bring Teddy.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. And to answer your question, yes, it will probably be awkward.”
“Okay.”
“You’re okay with going?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll let my dad know.” Crew is acting nonchalant, but I can tell this means something to him. He cares about his father and brother, despite their dysfunctionality. He looks at his laptop. “I’ve got a meeting to call in for. I’ll move downstairs.”
“You don’t have to. You can stay.”
His brow wrinkles. “I’ll have to talk for parts of it. I don’t want to disturb you.”
“I’m not a sleeping toddler. And I figured you’d have to talk, since you’re Mr. Future CEO.” It’s not a direct invitation, but it’s awfully close to one. I want him to stay. And so I just say that. “I want you to stay.”
“Okay,” Crew replies, his voice soft. “I’ll stay.”
I nod and close my eyes. I have proofs to approve, but they should only take me a few hours. My eyelids feel heavy, and I’m warm and comfortable. Full.
Crew’s phone beeps as he types in a conference code and waits for approval. “Crew Kensington, is anyone else on the line?” he asks, once the call connects.
“We’re all here, sir,” a male voice replies.
“Great. Go ahead and get started.”
The same male voice begins droning on about deliverables and staffing decisions. Inch by inch, I shift on the comforter until I’m close enough I can feel Crew’s body heat. He asks a question I’m too drowsy to comprehend, simultaneously pulling me against him so I’m nestled against his side.
I fall asleep to the sound of his voice talking through contracts as he plays with my hair.