“Donovan!” Layla didn’t hide her surprise, didn’t keep her voice low or even. “He’s not serious,” she told the Marlows, but she saw the realization, the confirmation of the truth in their expressions.
“It’s okay, Layla, really,” Michelle said, standing from the table with her purse in her hand. “It’s a big, big decision to make and clearly it’s not just yours.” She moved her head, nodding at Donovan. “Seems to me you’ve got a few things to work out with him before you can really let that baby go. If you’ll be able to let the baby go.”
Michelle followed Darren out of the room and neither one of them looked back. Layla barely noticed her parents following behind the couple or that loud click of the door closing. All she felt was Donovan standing behind her and the slow, comfortable span of his breath moving her hair against her back.
“Baby…”
Layla knew she should be disappointed. She wanted to be elated, but those emotions she’d been ignoring for months were looped and uneven, spinning in her thoughts like a top, consumed by the highs and lows of disappointment and excitement. She didn’t know how to settle them. She only knew that once again, Donovan the Demon had fractured her plans and she was left trying to grab onto a response, something that would clear her thoughts and fill the emptiness that had taken the warmth from the room.
So, Layla relied on her baser instincts, the one that had also told her to attack first and ask for forgiveness later.
“You unbelievable prick!” She whirled around, pushing Donovan once, slapping his hands away when he tried calming her. “Do you realize what you just did?” The expression on the Marlows’ faces had been blank, but beneath those stony exteriors, Layla knew there was a wave of anguish and pain waiting to be released. “Those poor people, Donovan! And, why? Why the hell would you do that? You don’t want this.”
“Of course I do.” He wouldn’t let her slap his hands back and Donovan grabbed her as she squirmed away from him, finally stopping her fight with his hands on her face and his forehead against hers. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but his tone was confident, sure. “I want this baby.” He touched her stomach and Layla noticed how his fingers trembled, how his large palm looked small against her belly. “I want you and this baby and me and forever, Layla.”
“What…” She pulled her head back, looking up at him, waiting for a punchline that never came. He couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t possibly want her. He didn’t love her. “But you never… never wanted to go to the appointments. You never wanted to talk about the baby or touch my stomach.”
The crease between his brows, the one that had stuck there for months, finally relaxed. “Because it broke my heart. Because the second I saw her on that sonogram I wanted her. Layla, I wanted her so badly but I’d done all this to you.” Donovan moved his hand from her stomach and grabbed her fingers, staring down at her palm, rubbing his thumb against her wrist. “I’d bullied you into this… this whatever it was with me. I’d teased you and tortured you and then as if that wasn’t enough, I got you pregnant.” Layla had seen Donovan angry, upset. She’d seen him devastated and shocked, but she’d never seen him cry, not like this, not with the open emotion making his eyes water or the raw need pinching his eyelids tight. “How could I ask you for more? How could I ask you to keep her?”
“Donovan, if this is just about the baby, I mean, I understand you not wanting to let her go, but you and me, we aren’t… we can’t…”
“Yes,” he said, pulling her close. “We so can.”
“No.” She didn’t want more lies. She remembered their rules, they’d been set for a reason and Donovan couldn’t have disregarded them so quickly. His heartache had been deep, cut through him. Layla couldn’t believe that he’d let all that pain go, that he’d replaced it with love for her. “We said no emotion. You said you didn’t love me. Besides, Donovan,” she said, trying not to look at the tears that were now heavy on his face. “We are a disaster. It won’t work and being with someone just because you got them pregnant isn’t a reason to…
“Shut up,” Donovan said, kissing her hard, stealing away her argument with his mouth over hers, his hands on her lower back pushing her closer. When he pulled away, Layla was struck too dumb with sensation to bother speaking. “Layla, I want this baby but that’s because she’s me and you and perfect and real and I wouldn’t want this with anybody else in the world.” When she opened her mouth, Donovan grunted, shutting her up with a frustrated sigh. “I love you, brat. I’ve loved you forever, I realize that now. I love you irritating me and pissing me off and driving me insane.” He moved his hands up her back, growling when her breasts flattened against his chest. “I love how you make me laugh and how I smell you everywhere even when you’re not around.”