Page 200 of My Husband’s New Fiancée

I take his hand and place it against my stomach.

He frowns slightly, not understanding.

Then he realizes.

His entire body goes still.

Very slowly, he pulls back just enough to look at me.

“You’re pregnant?”

“Yes, Dante.”

His breathing falters.

A second passes.

“With our baby.”

Disbelief crosses his face first. Then hope. Then the realization truly reaches him.

I watch the emotion hit him in waves.

His arms close around me again with almost desperate force.

“We’re having a baby?”

He says it like a prayer.

“Yes.”

He holds me even tighter.

I hear him breathe carefully, as though he’s trying to contain something too vast for words.

“I’m going to be a father. With you. No one is taking this away from us.”

Then I feel tears against my temple.

“Your health isn’t getting worse, is it?” he whispers.

“When I saw how tired you’d been... the nausea... I was scared. Scared there was something you hadn’t told me.

Scared something was seriously wrong.”

His throat tightens.

“But it’s not that. You’re having a baby. Our baby.”

His voice breaks.

And suddenly I understand what is affecting him so deeply.

The future he thought he’d lost.

The family he believed was impossible.

I cup his face in my hands and rest my forehead against his.