The Best Man's Baby(41)

She reached up and kissed him without giving it a second thought.

“Okay, so Greek it is,” he said, quickly rolling over and hopping off the bed. He had to walk across the room to get his jeans. Claire watched him, her breath in her throat at the sight of his sheer male beauty. Her brow furrowed though as he quickly called the restaurant and shrugged into his jeans at the same time. After telling them to just deliver the last order on file, he walked back to the bed. He looked bothered by something.

“Do you want something to eat before the food gets here?” he asked, shirt still off, sitting beside her. And then it hit her. The preoccupation with ordering food right away.

She tilted her head to the side, not peeling her eyes from his face. “You think I’m not eating?” For the first time in her life, Claire watched Jake blush.

“Claire—”

Did he actually think she was purposely not eating? That she wouldn’t eat because she was afraid of gaining weight while she was pregnant?

“You don’t have to worry about me not eating, Jake. I would never do anything to hurt our baby. All that was a long time ago.”

“I’m worried about you.”

She felt a warmth seep through her veins as he climbed onto the bed beside her, his hands cupping her face. His thumb stroked her cheekbone and she tried to stay focused. “You don’t have to worry about me. The girl Dr. Hopkins was talking about doesn’t exist anymore.”

He stared at her, his expression neutral.

She gave him a somber smile and scooted away from him, needing a little distance. He settled on the edge of the bed, not taking his eyes off her.

“I told you I was going to explain everything,” Claire said, drawing her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. “When I was growing up I was never skinny like those kids who are just naturally super-skinny. And it didn’t really ever bother me. When I was small I didn’t know that a lot of the things my mother did were abnormal. I’d catch the occasional whispered ‘fat,’ but I never associated it with myself. Then when I went through puberty, everything came crashing down around me. My parents started arguing constantly, and my mother became obsessed with my weight. Everything that passed my lips was measured for portion size, calories, and fat. Then she would start making comments about my body shape.” She paused for a moment, clearing her throat from the embarrassment that was starting to creep in.

“Things got worse at home. My dad hated the pressure she was putting on me. He found that her focus on the superficial went against all his beliefs. And then I’d feel guilty for causing their problems, so I kept gaining weight. My mother couldn’t figure it out. I started getting made fun of at school and had no friends. I had always been on the shy side, but once I became overweight I retreated into my shell completely. Then Holly moved to Red River, and thank God for her. If it weren’t for her, I don’t know where I’d be. High school was the worst time of my life.”

…

Jake watched quietly as Claire tucked the sheet around herself and grasped the edges until they were up to her chin. He fought the impulse to rip the sheet away and make love to her until the memories of the past were gone. He wanted to take her memories and wipe the slate clean and start over again. He didn’t take his eyes off her as she stared straight ahead, her flawless complexion pale. He waited for her to continue, not sure if there was more.

“High school went from bad to worse. You could never imagine all the names that rhyme with Claire,” she said, her mouth turning up into a half smile that made him feel sick.

“Oh, but the one that stuck, that was priceless, was Éclair,” she said with a laugh that sounded so damn sad he wanted to go back to high school and pulverize the bastard who had come up with that name.

“The worst part was I didn’t even like éclairs. But I had a best friend, and I just tried to survive. Then one day, when I was sixteen, I was in the girls’ locker room, gym class had just ended and…” She cleared her throat, frowned, and stared intently at the wall ahead. “Since the fall dance was that night, and my mother insisted I try to look thinner, I had been wearing this really frumpy, really embarrassing girdle-type thing. I had taken it off for gym class and when I got back to my locker it was gone. I started panicking. I knew someone had taken it. And sure enough, when Holly and I left the locker room, there it was in the hallway, being tossed around by some of the jocks and the popular girls in my class.”

“I need names,” Jake said harshly. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer. She stopped speaking. He pushed himself off the edge of the bed and paced up and down the room, flexing his hands, hoping the movement would help him burn off some of his anger.