SEALed With A Kiss
Chapter One
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Ophelia Price stared in disbelief at the plus sign on the plastic pregnancy test strip. Oh, my God. She could not have been more astounded if the bathroom ceiling suddenly collapsed on top of her head. She’d taken this same test twice before in the past ten years, and they’d both shown up negative. That plus sign was not supposed to be there, not when she’d taken the pill more or less regularly for over a decade and her periods had come like clockwork, at least until this month. With her period three weeks late, she’d decided to take the test, but only as a precautionary measure, never dreaming that the results would be what they were.
It had to be a mistake. Only it said right there on the box: 98% accurate. And she had been feeling a teeny bit sick every morning for the past two weeks.
I’m pregnant.
Her heart beat a tattoo of denial. An icy numbness filled her heart. The timing could not be worse. In the past five years, her job in journalism had taken off, elevating her to the position of lead investigative reporter. WTKR had stolen her away from WAVY television by offering her an obscene salary to go after every dirty cop, corporation, or politician she could find. For a girl who’d once wasted her degree in journalism by waitressing at Hooters, she’d sure come a long way. And she owed a lot of her success—most of it, in fact—to her new husband, Vinny, and his faith in her. Now she made the big bucks exposing fraud and corruption, and she loved what she did for a living.
I can’t have a baby.
It would ruin everything. The fabulous run on her career would come to a screeching halt the moment she shared her news with anyone. Vinny, she had no doubt, would use her pregnancy as a reason for her to spend more time at home. And then there was her boss who would pull her off the set the minute she started showing—pregnant news reporters weren’t sexy. Maternity leave would be the final nail in her coffin. She’d be relegated to small-time reporting—no more national scandals or multi-corporate shakedowns. And then who would she be? Just a mother, a job she was totally unfit for.
The light knock on the door startled the tester out of Ophelia’s hand. It clattered to the tiled floor, skidding toward the toilet.
“You okay in there, cara mia?” Vinny asked with concern in his deep voice.
Locks had never been a deterrent to her husband. Snatching up the evidence lest he catch sight of it, Ophelia offered up a lie. “Just doing my makeup, hon. I’ll be out in a sec.”
She and Vinny had eloped while on vacation in Bermuda the previous spring. The spur-of-the-moment ceremony performed under a moon gate was just one more reason why his mother had come to resent her. It had taken Ophelia five years to marry her son, and then she’d gone and done it without his mother there to bear witness.
At times Ophelia regretted not having shared that special moment the way they should have, with Vinny’s family and his fellow Navy SEALs present, along with her older sister Penny. But it had felt so right, so romantic, pledging her future to Vinny under the round stone arch overlooking the tourmaline sea. Besides, who had time to plan an elaborate wedding?
Vinny was her soul mate. She’d belonged to him even before she’d been ready to admit it. He knew her better than anyone. He also knew she was lying right then because she always put on her makeup in the car. He had to be rolling his eyes at her lame attempt to deceive him.
“Listen,” he said, making her hold her breath, “how about we go to Mama’s for Thanksgiving instead of her coming down this year? She says her washing machine doesn’t work, and she needs me to fix it. Plus, I’m worried about her health.”
He wanted to go to Philly for Thanksgiving? A spurt of excitement replaced her shock and self-doubt. Wait, could Vinny have guessed her plans to interview the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania next month? No way. He wouldn’t want them going anywhere near Philly if he had an inkling of what she intended.
“Ah, sure,” she said, swinging a thoughtful look at her reflection in the mirror. “That sounds okay.” She wasn’t going to tell him either, or he’d change his mind about visiting his mother.
“Did you just say okay?” he responded, sounding incredulous. “I said, we need to go to Mama’s for Thanksgiving,” he repeated, enunciating each word.
“Yeah, why not?” Ophelia took one last look at the tester before stuffing it inside the tampon box under the sink.
A subtle click of the lock had her slamming the cabinet shut and straightening guiltily as the door swung slowly open. There stood Vinny peering around the door, his chocolate brown eyes locking on her guilty expression.