The Seduction of Mrs. Valentine: Complete Series

by Laci Mitchell

  It was a small blessing that Bill hadn’t told me to get rid of it, because despite how much I wanted my marriage to work I didn’t think I could do that. I looked at this baby differently. It wasn’t James’ child, it was mine and while I wished that it was my husband who’d put it inside me, I wanted this baby with every part of me. I could only hope that the pain this child caused my husband would lessen with time and we could move forward together.

  The car door opened and I went through the major procedure that was trying to move my now ungainly body into any sort of position. I was a month away from having this baby and I was looking forward to the time when I could see my feet and sit down without it becoming an major operation.

  “Are you okay, darling? The trip to see your mother didn’t take too much out of you?” Bill reached in through the car door and he gently helped me to my feet. I’d been to see my mother out of state, and while I had fun during the week away from home, I’d missed my husband. We were rebuilding our marriage, brick by brick and while it was slow going I could see that we’d made progress since those first painful months after I’d revealed my affair.

  Bill was now more easy with me, more like the man I’d been married to for years. The only obstacle between us was the baby. Bill didn’t talk about it, didn’t speak of the future in terms that included the child that was going to be born in a short period of time.

  “It was wonderful to see my mom, but I’m glad to be home. I missed you.” I put my arms around my husband’s waist and got as close to him as my big belly would allow. He put his arms around me and held me in our driveway for a few moments, and I could tell that my husband had missed me too. It felt like a miracle, since there was a time when I’d feared that my husband would never be able to forgive me for what I’d done.

  “I missed you too, but I had to get you out of town for a week so I could get your surprise ready. Do you want to come in and see it?”

  He had a surprise for me? I looked up at his face, trying to guess what it could be but he only gave me a mysterious smile. “What is it?”

  “Come to the house and see.” He went to the back of the car and got my suitcase out of the trunk. He came back to me, put his hand on the small of my back and guided me into the house. He set the suitcase inside the door and led me though the kitchen and dining room, toward the stairs that went up to the second floor. What could my husband be surprising me with upstairs?

  We bypassed our bedroom, so I knew it wasn’t in there and we went down the hall toward the bedroom that had been James’ while he was here. I avoided that room, it was like a wound that festered and became a potent reminder for me of what I’d done to my husband. I couldn’t go in there without reliving my betrayal of him over again, and I noticed that Bill avoided that room as well. My steps slowed, and I looked up at him. What was waiting for me on the other side of the door?

  “It’s okay, darling. Come and see your surprise.” He put his arm around my shoulder and I snuggled close to him as he reached out and opened the bedroom door. A gasp came out of me when I saw what my husband had done to the room while I’d been away.

  I walked in and looked around, a lump rising in my throat when I looked at the walls painted in a soft yellow. There was a white crib with a little mobile hanging above it in t he exact spot where the bed had once been. There was a changing table, a toy box and everything that we would need to welcome a baby into our home.

  Bill came up behind me and put his arms around me. His hands stroked down my full belly, and I relaxed against him.

  "I did something else while you were away. I went to a different doctor, to get a second opinion about my sterility."

  Hope stirred inside me. Did this mean that there was a possibility that the baby inside me was my husband's after all?

  "And was his answer different from your doctor's diagnosis?"

  "No. He confirmed that I'm unable to make children." He didn't sound sad when he said it, and I turned to look at him.

  "I don't understand. Why do all this for a baby that's not yours?"

  My husband smiled down at me, and I could see in his eyes the man he was before I'd had my affair. There was no longer any recrimination in there, no more doubts. He put his hand on my belly and there was only happiness on his face.

  "The way I see it is, that while I may not be able to make a baby, I can raise one. I've been looking at this all wrong this whole time. I've been thinking about this baby in the context of it being another man's. I couldn't see it as anything else until I started to think that this baby is also yours."

  "What does this mean for us, Bill?" I hoped it meant that we were finally over the final hurdle that was preventing our marriage from fully healing. I knew that in order for us to get back what we had, my husband had to come to terms with the fact that I was having a baby.

  "It means that in all ways that matter, this is my baby too. I am going to be the best father I can be to this child. This is the only chance I'm going to have to be a father, and I realized the true test of being a man is not making a child, but raising one."

  A sob escaped me and the tears that were trembling at the edge of my lashes spilled over and down my cheeks. "Does this mean that you forgive me? I'm so sorry for how much I've hurt you. I just want us to go back to the way we were before."

  "We can't go back to how things were before." My husband brushed my tears away with his thumbs and he cradled my face. "There was something about the way we were before that wasn't working, because it if was, none of this would have happened. What we have has to be different. We both took each other for granted before, and that was where the danger was.”

  "I won’t take you for granted again." I could see that my husband was right. Our marriage had started to stagnate when James had come into our lives, and while I shouldn't have done it, it explain why I'd been so eager for something different in my life.

  "And I won't take you for granted. I love you and I will love this baby too. We'll go forward from this together, as a family."

  Bill pulled me in to his arms and I rested my head against the steady beat of his heart. It was a heart that I'd broken, and it was now finally healing. One thing was certain, I was going to cherish my marriage with this man for the rest of my life. He was right, we would go forward together. As a family.

  Also by Laci Mitchell

  Misbehaving Mia, Revenge of the Hot Wife 1

  Naughty Nina, Revenge of the Hot Wife 2