Baby for My Stepbrother

Chapter 6

“What do you want to do about this, Luna? I need you to tell me what you want, so I can decide what we need to do abou this.”

“Do about what?” I asked, not quite sure what he was talking about.

He smiled sardonically, his expression making it obvious that it amused him I had no clue what was going on.

Stepping forward slowly, he stopped when he was directly in front of me. With his voice lowered, he said, “You’re pregnant, remember? What do we do? Do we tell them? Or do we let them disappear again without knowing they have a grandchild on the way?”

His body was visibly shaking with his anger, and I knew that something else was wrong. His level of anger wasn’t caused solely by the fact that our parents left us.

“Why are you so angry, Dane? I know you’ve been mad at them for taking off onus so much, but I know it’s not something that can affect you like this.”

The air left his lungs on aloud sigh, his head sagging down as his shoulders withered in front of me. Hesitantly, I reached up and cupped his cheeks with my palms, softly lifting his face so that I could look into his eyes.

“Why are you so upset?”

Pain rolled behind the sapphire blue of his eyes when he admitted, “I’ve been angry at my mother for leaving since the day she decided to workout of the country. And I’ve been angry with your dad for going along with it and taking her out of my life.

That was all fine and good. I didn’t give a shit that they’d hurt me so much. But as soon as I saw them today – as soon as I saw him in the driveway – I realized that he’d hurt you too. I’m not okay with that. It makes me hate him even more.”

It took a few seconds for his words to sink in, but when they did, they slammed against me like a runaway train. “You’re this angry because you think he hurt me?” I asked.

He nodded, reaching up with his hands to squeeze my shoulders. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against mine and confessed, “I used to resent you because I was forced to take care of you. I felt like my life – my youth – ended when our parents took off to save the world. But now, after everything that’s happened between us, and everything I want to happen between us, all I want to do is take care of you. I want to protect you and our daughter. That’s why what he did to you makes me this angry. I love you, Luna.”

Another train - this one hitting harder than the first. Not only had he said something tome that I never thought I would hear, he’d given away a secret that caused my heart to swell even tighter in my chest.

“I love you, too.” The words shook me to the core, the heavy truth that I’d fallen for Dane. A smile tilted my lips. “And you just told me what Bean is.”

He grinned, the dimples in his cheeks indenting and creating a pinpoint shadow on his beautiful face. “Dammit,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to tell you that.”

Soft laughter shook my shoulders as a thought occurred tome. “You know Bean is just ours, right? We don’t have to share her with anybody that we don’t want to.”

My eyes locked to his and I shivered beneath the weight of his stare. “They’ll be gone in a week. We don’t have to tell them.”

Another smile creased his lips. “I’ll control myself with them for the next week, Luna, but I want to be living somewhere else by the time they comeback again. I want it to be Bean, you and me. That’sit.”

Nodding my head softly, I answered, “Me too.”

One more week and school would end. Five days that I had to endure the staring eyes and whispered words of my peers and classmates.

I was thankful for the daily end-of-year exams we were taking in our classes because the silence in those classrooms gave me a reprieve from the pointing fingers and quiet laughter ofthe senior class.

I’d blown up over the past twelve weeks. I’m not sure how it happened, but I went to bedone night looking slightly heavier, but not noticeably pregnant, and I’d woken up the following morning to discover that I was the size ofa small house.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that quick and drastic of a change, but it felt that way. I was hoping to hide the pregnancy until I graduated, at least. Guess it was silly of me to think that Bean would make my life that easy.

“Hey girl. Are you ready to take the long way again? I think these past few weeks have really given my legs a workout. I mean, look at my calves! And my thighs don’t jiggle anymore.”