Wife by Wednesday (21 page)

Blake stepped beside her, hands on his hips. “You shouldn’t be lifting furniture.” His eyes swept the room. “Have you cleared everything in here?”

All that remained was the big dresser, the bed, and tables. “Yeah, so? We talked about this being the baby’s room,” she whispered, careful not to let her voice carry to Louise who was in their room cleaning.

“This is not okay,” he said under his breath. “Louise, Mary?” he hollered.

“What are you doing?”

Louise made it to the room at a run. Her eyes wide in alarm. “Is everything okay?”

“Go get Neil,” Blake demanded.

Samantha grasped onto Blake’s arm, her confusion muffled with alarm. No matter how much she nagged him to tell her what was wrong, he waited until Louise, Mary, and Neil stood before the two of them before he opened his mouth.

When he did, Samantha was shocked silent.

“Samantha’s pregnant.”

Her jaw dropped. They weren’t going to say a thing to anyone until her next appointment with the doctor in a week. Within seconds, she understood his motivations.

“I knew it,” Louise said, glancing at Mary.

Mary shrugged her shoulders and offered a motherly smile. “Of course she is.”

“You knew?” Samantha asked.

“Dear, we live here. Of course we knew.”

Blake’s face shifted to Neil.

“Don’t look at me. I was in the dark.”

“If you ladies knew Samantha was pregnant then why would you allow her to move all this furniture up here?”

Neil’s gaze darted around the room.

“She didn’t want our help.”

“I didn’t need their help,” Samantha defended herself and them. “What’s the big deal?”

Neil stepped forward. “Pregnant women shouldn’t life heavy stuff.”

Blake smiled and patted Neil’s back. “Someone who understands.”

“Is that what this is about? You don’t think I’m capable of clearing out this room?” Oh, now she was just getting pissed. Of all the sexist things…

“From now on I don’t want Samantha lifting anything other than a dinner plate or shopping bag… and if the shopping bag is heavy not even that.” Blake wasn’t talking to her, but over her to the staff.

“Now you wait just a minute—”

Mary backed up and motioned to Louise “I think we need to leave.”

“Blake is right,” Neil voiced his opinion. “Let me help with this stuff. No need for you to hurt yourself or the baby.”

Samantha shot out an arm when Neil moved around them to pick up the table she’d been struggling with. “Hold on. I’m pregnant, not an invalid. The doctor didn’t say anything about restrictions.”

“Neil,” Mary barked. “I think we should leave Samantha and Blake to work this out without our help.”

The three of them quietly slipped away, leaving Samantha holding her lips with tightly controlled anger and Blake squaring his jaw with determination.

“I thought we agreed to hold off telling anyone about the baby.”

He glanced around the room. “I think we missed the mark on that one. Damn, Samantha, you could have gotten hurt up here moving this stuff around.”

“It’s just stuff.”

“Heavy stuff that you shouldn’t be lifting.”

“Oh, please—”

Blake lifted his hand, silencing her protest. “What if you lifted this table,” Blake kicked the wood at his feet. “And started to have stomach pains?”

A shiver of worry caught her unaware. “That probably wouldn’t happen.”

“But what if it did?”

Samantha shifted her eyes around the room, noticed the size of the queen bed for the first time, the bulky weight of the dresser she was determined to scoot out of the room before Blake had interrupted her.

Maybe… maybe Blake had a point. “I can lift shopping bags,” she said under her breath.

Blake stepped into her personal space and pulled her into his arms. His hands felt cold as they rubbed up and down her back, and she could hear the rapid thump of his heart in his chest. He’d been worried, really taken back by her actions. The emotional woman in her sighed in contentment that he cared. The independent woman in her shook a tiny fist in the air.

“Please promise me you’ll ask for help in the future.”

Promises weren’t something she offered unless she could deliver, so she didn’t rush the words he wanted to hear from her lips.

Blake eased back and took her head in his hands. “Promise me.”

“I was feeling so good today. I think the morning sickness is behind me.”

“Promise me.” Blake didn’t let up his plea.

“Okay, fine. I won’t lift anything heavy. Satisfied?” Her clipped words came out a bit harsher than she wanted, but Blake didn’t seem to mind. His smile reached his eyes.

“You promise?”

“I promise!” She pushed against his chest. “Geeze, do you always get your way?”

Nodding, Blake offered, “I promise to jump on anything you need lifted. You won’t have to nag me to get stuff done.”

“Okay, buster, put your muscles where your mouth is. I want this room clear so I can prep the walls… paint…”

Blake’s eyes shot up and a frown fell on his lips.

“Paint fumes?” he questioned.

Already she knew there would be more promises made before night fell.

In the end, she promised to leave the heavy work to Blake and anyone he hired to make it happen, and Samantha had rein to point, spend, and dictate as many changes as she deemed necessary.

****

Instead of announcing the coming heir to his father’s lawyers with written correspondence, Blake opted for a much grander delivery. As soon as Samantha felt well enough to travel, they planned their trip to his ancestral home to tell the rest of the family.

The small dinner party rumbled with excitement until Blake finally hushed the family and took Samantha by the hand. “I think by now most of you have guessed why we asked you here tonight,” he began.

“You know how much I adore assumptions,” his mother called from the far end of the table.

Those around laughed and waited for his next words.

“Samantha and I are expecting a child in late January.”

“I knew it.” Gwen hopped to her feet and circled the table to hug Samantha and then him.

Congratulations and a chorus of well wishes rose. If anyone in the room questioned when Samantha had become pregnant, none said a word.

Howard caught his eyes from the far end of the table, his lips fell into a straight line. Blake blamed his father for the strain on his relationship with his cousin. If the man hadn’t named him as the second in the will, perhaps Blake and Howard could have been closer. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Paul leaned forward and whispered something to his son and Blake turned his attention back to his wife.

Samantha radiated pride and a special glow that many people spoke of when they talked of pregnant women.

She wore a summer dress with short sleeves and belt around her still small waist. He noticed a swell in her breasts, which responded with more sensitivity when they made love. Each day he woke to a new wonder. Prior to their trip over the pond, at the last doctor’s appointment, they heard the tiny fluttering beat of their child’s heart. Tears had welled in Samantha’s eyes and his throat clenched in a painful grip. An instant attachment to the child not yet born felt more solid than anything had in his life. Well, nearly anything, he mused.

His gaze fell to his wife in the sea of people pulling her in for a hug. Identifying his love for their child collided with another reality.

The love for Samantha.

Instead of scrambling away from potentially devastating emotions, Blake held them close to his chest like a good hand in a game of poker. He had plenty of time to decipher Samantha’s feelings before he opened himself wide. It wasn’t routine for Blake to play any cards until he knew he’d win the game.

Parker sequestered himself with Blake for a few moments before leaving the party at the end of the night. “I see you’ve secured all your father’s requests.”

Put like that, Blake felt a slimy film of dirt slide over his consciousness. Although he hadn’t done anything deviant in obtaining his ultimate goal, the fact that he’d never told Samantha about the need for an heir weighed on him.

“So it seems,” Blake said.

Parker held out his hand for Blake. “We’ll meet again after the birth and sign papers. Congratulations again.”

“Thank you.”

As Blake watched Parker leave his home, he felt eyes of someone on him. When he turned, he found Samantha standing in the hall. “Your father’s lawyer… right?”

Blake gave a curt nod. “They were close friends.”

Samantha moved to his side and placed a hand around his waist before leaning into him. “I guess he has no need to doubt your intentions now.”

Her gaze drifted toward the door.

“He will doubt until our baby’s born, I’m afraid.”

Samantha leaned her head on his shoulder and stifled a yawn behind her hand.

“You’re tired,” Blake announced. “We should get you to bed.”

“But there’s still a lot of people here on our behalf.”

“People who will just have to do without us.”

When Samantha didn’t offer any more resistance, he knew the extent of her exhaustion and ushered her to bed.

****

Blake and Samantha stopped over in
New York
for a couple of days on their way back to
California
. While Blake met with his lawyer, Sam braved the sweltering heat of
Manhattan
and did a round of completely unnecessary shopping.

As much as she tried to focus on the need for maternity clothes, the baby section of the department stores sang to her in a way she hadn’t expected. Maybe it was the fact that everyone who needed to know she was pregnant now did, but Sam had the strange urge to buy one of everything.

Not knowing the sex of the baby made some things more difficult, but a green baby outfit here, a yellow one there worked. She found a hand-knitted, white blanket in which they could bring the baby home from the hospital. With several bags in hand, Samantha was shuffling through tiny socks and plush toys when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

Cooing over a musical rattle, she twisted to whoever was searching for her attention.

The Viper stood before her, all blonde and bombshell. “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” Vanessa all but hissed between her pink lips.

Samantha really didn’t care what the other woman thought, and certainly didn’t want to engage in a conversation with her. What were the chances of seeing the woman in a city the size of
New York
anyway? Sam knew she lived there, but what were the odds?

“Vanessa.”

Vanessa tipped a finger at the elephant rattle Samantha held. “Isn’t this cute. So when are you expecting your bundle of joy?”

“It’s really none of your business.” Samantha put the toy down and turned to walk away.

“Let me guess.” Vanessa blocked her exit, leaving Samantha between a bookcase full of baby paraphernalia and a venomous snake. “Before Blake’s birthday?”

Easy guess. Not that it mattered. “Are you so envious, Vanessa? So jaded that Blake didn’t marry you?”

Vanessa tossed her head back with a laugh. “Oh, please. That manipulating bastard. It’s easier to see his true nature when you’re not close to him. Too bad you didn’t notice before,” Vanessa let her voice drift off as her eyes settled to Samantha’s stomach.

Sam placed a hand over her waist as if protecting her child from the woman’s stare.

“Blake is one of the most caring people I’ve known.”

“Blake cares only for himself. I wonder though, did he ask you to have his baby, or did he ‘accidently’ forget to cover up one night?” Vanessa used her fingers in air quotes.

Their conversation was toppling off weird and plunging toward bizarre. “I don’t have time for you, Vanessa. If you’ll excuse me.”

Samantha edged away but Vanessa grasped onto her arm.

“My God, you really have no idea, do you?”

Sam tugged her arm, but the other woman didn’t let go. A strange wave of panic hit her. Much like the feeling a dog must get before an earthquake happens, everything in Samantha went silent.

“You know Blake needs an heir for his inheritance, don’t you?”

What?

Vanessa’s smile lifted high on her face and her hand drifted back to her side. “Poor girl. How did he do it I wonder? Did he hide your pills? Or poke holes in the condoms?”

Sam’s jaw started to ache. She held so tight to her control she felt the muscles in her neck ready to snap. What the hell was Vanessa talking about?

Then the words of Parker returned to her ears.
I see you’ve secured all your father’s requests.

Not giving Vanessa anything more, Samantha turned on her heel and fled the store.

The furnace heat of
New York
plastered her hair to her head as she put distance between herself and the viper.