The Girl Next Door - Emma Hart Page 0,25
Ivy.”
“So you’ve said, but I didn’t expect that it would go this far. God.” I groaned, bending over. “This is a nightmare.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Kai, my grandmother thinks we’re married. Shit, the entire town thinks we’re married. How is this not bad?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but quickly shut it again.
Uh-huh.
“Well, I guess we have to get married.”
“Be realistic!” I snapped, putting my hands on my hips.
“Date for real?”
“I said realistic, Kai!”
“That is realistic! Everyone thinks we’re married, is actually dating that wild?”
I stared at him. I had no idea if he was being serious or not, but I wasn’t going to date him just to make this all easier. That wasn’t the right reason—just like I wasn’t going to let myself get carried away with how good it felt to sleep next to him.
The only reason he’d spent the night a couple of days ago was because I was pregnant.
If I weren’t, I doubted we’d spend this much time together in a month.
“Yes,” I said after a long month. “We’d be doing it because I’m pregnant. No other reason. We wouldn’t even be in the same room right now if I weren’t pregnant, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong.”
He raised his shoulders before dropping them in a defeated shrug, complete with a heavy sigh. “I guess you’re right.”
“I am, and you know it. Until… that night… we didn’t actually spend time together outside of stupid apartment building parties and—”
I was cut off by a knock on my door.
I shared a look with Kai. Who the hell was that?
He walked over to the door and opened it. “Mrs. Valentino. What a surprise.”
“I’ll say!” Isabella Valentino said. “I’ve heard you’re married and having a baby! My, you kept that a secret!”
Oh, Jesus, no.
“They’re relatively recent developments,” Kai replied slowly.
“Well, congratulations! I baked you a cake!” She held up a big, square cake in a silver foil tray. It was covered in pink, white, and blue icing, and there was both a bride and groom statue and various baby things in pink and blue like booties and pacifiers and—was that a diaper?
I stared at Kai with my eyes wide.
“Thank you, Mrs. Valentino,” Kai said, taking the cake from her. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Oh, it’s nothing!” She rushed past him and over to me where she cupped my face in a grandmotherly way. “Ivy! How are you? When is the baby due? Do you need anything? I can help!”
“I, uh—”
“Does this mean you’re moving in together? Oh, silly me, of course you are! We should throw you a party! Oh, yes! A joint wedding and baby shower! How lovely! Vincent will be delighted. Amanda not so much, but it’ll be fun!”
“Actually, Mrs. Valentino,” Kai said, moving into my apartment and putting the cake down. “We’ve had a long day so far, and Ivy was just telling me how she was going to take a lie down.”
I yawned to prove his point.
“Oh, of course!” The elderly woman flapped her hands and turned, heading back for the door. “I’m sorry. We’ll talk soon. Have a nice nap, Ivy!”
Like the whirlwind she was, she disappeared as quickly as she came, and Kai locked the door behind her.
The cake smelled divine.
Like sugar and candy and vanilla and—
“You’re drooling over the cake.”
I wasn’t, technically, but whatever. “It smells so good.”
“It smells like cake,” Kai said, approaching the island. “Just cake.”
“It’s vanilla,” I said. “With strawberry jam and fresh cream.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“I can smell it.”
“What are you, a police dog?”
I grabbed a fork from the drawer and dug into the cake. I pulled out a huge chunk of the cake and held it up so he could see. “Fresh cream and strawberry jam,” I said triumphantly.
Then shoved the entire bite in my mouth.
“For someone who doesn’t want to be fake married, you have no issue eating our fake wedding cake.”
“As it turns out, yes,” I said around a mouthful of said cake. “It’s good cake.”
“You’re so weird,” Kai mumbled, walking over to the island. He stole the fork from me and scooped up a big bite from the tray. His eyes closed the second he put the cake into his mouth, and he moaned. “That’s so good.”
“Told you.” I snagged the fork back. “Get your own.”
“I thought you were gonna take a nap.”
“You made that up.” I pulled another forkful from the tray. “And I was actually considering it, but a sugar coma seems like a far better use of my time.”
Kai