The Beauty and the Brawler by Nikki Winter Read Free Book Online Page B

people are now well aware of the fact.” He glanced over one shoulder to Trip, who simply raised his hands then turned back to her. “But Sammie, people were going to know whether you said something now or later.” Paz tucked a braid behind her ear. “You’re happy, aren’t you? About the pregnancy?”
              Three pairs of eyes watched her closely, and her belly flipped. Automatically, her hand moved there, and she realize in her panic, her questions, her consideration of how the news would be told that she never stopped to ask herself that, too afraid of the answer. What if she wasn’t happy? What if she’d been dragging her feet on telling Luciano because she was terrified he wouldn’t be happy? What if all the calls, the comments, the flirting were just that? What if all he wanted was a repeat of seeing her naked and nothing more? What if he’d moved on already because she’d been screening his calls over the last week?
              Samara looked to Trip. “Can you get my bag, please?”
              He was gone and back in the blink of an eye. She took the shoulder tote from him and rummaged through it until she found what she was looking for—her first ultrasound. Samara stared down at the small, three-dimensional image of the person who’d unceremoniously taken up residence in her womb and waited to feel regret or nausea or a combination of both. But...she didn’t.
              For the past week since her little discovery, she’d been going through the motions, making preparations, looking for new apartments and even hiring a maid to help keep her place clean, but she’d never allowed herself a moment of peace, of stillness, to sit and really think about the fact she was going to be a mother. Why? Because the gnawing feeling she might not be able to handle it, that she might fail, had haunted her. So instead of taking everything one day at a time, she’d been robotic, almost mechanical with every decision.
    But at the moment, all she could hear in her head was the voice of Dr. Balcomb explaining to her that while most physicians stated pregnancy lasted forty weeks it was really only thirty-eight for the majority of women. The first two weeks were actually the days the body spent preparing itself for conception. She also explained that this meant Samara was only technically nearing her sixth week, and that at her next appointment she’d be able to hear the baby’s heartbeat. In twelve more weeks, they’d know the sex.
    At the moment, all she could think about was the way her own heart skipped a beat in excitement when she wondered if she’d have a boy or a girl. If they’d have her eyes or Luciano’s. If they’d...love her the way she already loved them.
    Samara had never thought herself the maternal type. She babied Manfred, but that didn’t really count since he was a cat. She’d always been too busy with her journalism to have a truly stable relationship let alone a marriage; her secret dream was to own a magazine someday. Yet, at the moment, all those thoughts seemed so small compared to her child. Her child.
    In a few short months she’d have one small, needy, whiny, grumpy, moody, silly human being completely dependent on her, expecting her to be at their beck and call. And she’d love every. Fucking. Minute. Of. It. Because they were hers. Trip’s slip of the tongue was the exact bitch slap she’d needed to revisit the land of reality and realize she had everything she could ever need or want zapping every ounce of energy out of her. Samara was pregnant. And fucking well proud of it.
    She raised her eyes to Paz’s. “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my goddamn life. The first person to turn my kid’s conception into a media circus will be the first person back home in the basement of their geriatric parents; the only joy in their life lusting after old high school crushes and potluck night down at the bingo hall in between masturbating to