Page 109 of The Arrangement

Prenatal vitamin?

Again, he couldn’t wrap his mind around those words.

Chances are slim, she’d said.

And he’d been de-fucking-lighted.

Yeah, Anton would have let her wade through the next couple of years of their life until she was ready for kids. Whenever that was, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t already ready and revving for one … or two. Especially with her.

Now his hands needed something to do because his lungs were taking in air too fast and his heart was racing. He wasn’t any less excited, but suddenly the weight of just what it meant for her to be in that state while she was recovering kind of snuck up on him.

Reality sucked.

They had so much crap to wade through.

It certainly didn’t help that he needed to wake her up and talk about Rocco, either.

Ivan’s late night message about Viviana’s wishes for the pup hadn’t been expected, but maybe it should have. Her love for the dog went deeper than he thought if she was willing to watch him go through all the pain and suffering on the possible chance he might eventually be okay. Anton wasn’t going to say no, but he wasn’t going to sugar-coat that for her either.

Oh God, she was pregnant.

Pregnant.

With his child.

All over again, his heart kick-started with love.

Like he’d been lifted, wrapped, and suffocated in it.

His.

He’d waited so long to be able to safely say that. Now, it overwhelmed in the best kind of way. The feeling was so similar to the way he felt with her in that car on his birthday, all slow and muddied up, rolling over his skin like velvet and dripping over nerves like gold.

It took and took and took more than he had to give and Anton didn’t even care.

Nothing compared to that.

Nothing at all.

So he stood there and grinned, letting that love she made him have soak all in.

• • •

“Wake up, baby.”

Anton moved the chair a little closer, trying not to let the legs scratch too loudly against the tiled floor. Once the morning meal had been brought in, he decided it was finally time to get her brown eyes opening. The doctor had managed to come around as well with a dozen and one questions for him that Anton wasn’t quite comfortable answering but succeeded well enough.

The man said she could be out within a couple of days, too. Best news ever.

Next to hers, of course.

Anton wanted to get her awake so she could fucking say it.

There was also a worried call from his mother that he ended up having to take out in the hallway, given Sasha’s voice rose to an octave not even sleeping beauty could have ignored. Daniil eventually took the phone away from her, thank God. Despite his father’s sickness and him needing rest, they’d be around later in the day. Anton nearly told his parents right then.

Proud was maybe an understatement. The excitement had more than taken over again.

“Come on, Viviana, open those pretty eyes of yours.”