"Maybe." She sniffed. "A little."
"What's wrong, honey?" Randi approached her with a tissue. "And you have to stop because if you cry, I'm going to cry. All I do is cry and pee and I haven't even gotten into the hard part of being pregnant." She rolled her eyes.
"What's with the zipper?" She dabbed the blood away from her eyes. Belle hated that about crying. She didn't cry tears, she cried blood. Messy. Ugly. And harder to hide.
"The thirty-four chocolates I ate from the truffle tower this morning." She sighed. "They were just really so good. Can you eat chocolate?"
"I can eat most anything. Chocolate actually helps clean my system if I eat too much that doesn't agree with me. I prefer to stick with the beef liver and bloody marys, though."
"If there is any chocolate left over from that tower, I expect you to jump on that grenade. My ass can't take any more and I'm really having a problem with impulse control. Apparently, it's a wolf thing. I don't know." She shrugged. "I'm new to all of this."
"You're doing fine, Randi. Here, let me help."
"God, I don't know if that's the best idea. I feel like two Holsteins have been shoved in a lace tube and they're fighting for freedom."
Belle laughed. "Oh my god, you do not look like that at all. You look beautiful. I feel terrible I'm crashing your day."
Randi waved a hand and popped one of the wedding chocolates that had been left on the dressing table in her mouth. "Look, I can't stop myself." Her eyes rolled in the back of her head. "Oh, so good. Take those away from me. Please?"
"Not a chance. You'd bite me," Belle cackled.
"You're right." She ate another one. "Fuck the dress. Fuck this whole stupid mess." She ate two more. "I just get everything shoveled in where it needs to go and then I have to pee and start all over again. " She finished chewing. "And don't worry about 'my day." She snorted. "I didn't want to do this dog and pony show to start with, but you know, it's good for the bottom line."
"Is it really?" Belle asked. "It seems like all of this expense would be counter intuitive to the bottom line."
"Woolven Industries stock has not only evened out, but it's climbing. It was up another five points this morning. It's exactly what we needed. So thank you."
"Be careful," she blurted. "I know everyone has said now that I'm Parker's wife, I'm pack. And please don't be insulted." She did know that wolves were easy to offend if you impugned their strength or their loyalty.
Randi's head cocked to the side in a very canine manner, as if she were scenting the air. Randi had seemed very much human when Belle had first met her, but now, all of her primal instincts had started to surface. "Why would I be offended?"
"I'm not impugning your ability to defend yourself, I just know my father. You've all been so... honest and straightforward. Wolves are like that. Vampires are not."
"Wolves are cunning, too. We use our honesty as a weapon."
"Honesty will do nothing to save that babe in your belly." She swallowed hard and those tears welled again. The bastards. "If someone who was after me hurt you..." She couldn't bring herself to speak the rest of the words.
"You've said this before, Belle." Randi nodded slowly. "And we appreciate where you're coming from, but you've said yourself you haven't spent much time with other supes."
"Not since my father Turned Evgeni Kumarin."
"It wasn't only the government SWAT team that dealt with Kumarin. I fought his pet berserker wolves to rescue my father. I came through that just fine, with this babe still intact." Her hand went to her belly. "I fought Kumarin's best. They lost."
"Just promise me you'll be careful."
Randi took her hands. "Only if you promise me the same. Blake tells me he's never seen Parker like this. If something happened to you, he'd never forgive himself." She gave Belle's cool hands a squeeze. "I don't think he'd survive it, if we're being honest."
Something tightened around her heart. She didn't know emotions could feel like a fist. No, that was a lie, she knew it, she'd just chosen to forget.
"This isn't a real marriage, Randi," she said, gently.
"Maybe not to you, but it is to him."
"That's not what we agreed."
"When does the heart ever go along with the plan? I'd planned to bring down Woolven Industries. I considered killing Blake. Now, here I am marrying him and pregnant with his child. And I'm a fucking werewolf. Where was that in the plan? Nowhere, I'll tell you."
She ate another piece of chocolate and growled low in her throat, her eyes amber.