No Turning Back (Breaking the Rules #4) - A.M. Madden Page 0,87
a bit to face me. “Before you were put on bedrest, I had planned to take you home on one of our weekend getaways. I thought it would be good for you to get back to your favorite beach in Jersey. We could go into the city to see a play and have dinner. It was then I planned to tell them everything. But as you know, our situation changed, and I knew once I called them there was a lot to say. I was waiting for them to get back from their trip to make that call.” I felt bad for assuming his reluctance to tell them was for negative reasons. “The only reason I told Bryce was because he shared that he met someone.”
“I think that’s fantastic.” He nodded with a small smile. “It was great talking to your mom. I missed her.”
“I do too. They’ll be thrilled to see you after…”
His pause had me adding, “The babies come.”
“Right,” he confirmed. He traced the pucker in my forehead before skimming the back of his bent fingers over my cheek. “Baby, please don’t read into this. They don’t even know about Wes and me going out on our own. Things have been strained between us all, mainly because of Bryce and the way we walked on eggshells with him. It has nothing to do with us.”
“I get it.” The bigger issue was what I still needed to share. “But there’s a problem. She, um… invited us for Thanksgiving.”
“Of course she did,” he said wryly. “We’ll call them in a bit… tell them everything.” I nodded apprehensively. It was doubtful they’d be upset we’d jumped into an engagement, but I had no idea how they would take news I was a surrogate. Especially knowing what their son had dealt with in response to their other son’s tragedy. Picking up on my nerves, he moved over me, spread my legs, and positioned his hips between them.
“Enough talking about my parents.” He slowly slid inside me, stealing my breath… and any argument vanished with each piston of his body into mine.
Sex led to a joint shower, which led to us ordering a ton of takeout due to starvation. Hours later, and finally sated in every way we could be, Ryder and I settling on the couch with his laptop prompted a video chat with his parents. He had sent them a text earlier to be sure they were available. They anxiously answered ten seconds after the call began ringing, both their smiling faces excitedly staring back at us. “Hi, kids!” Michelle shouted into the screen.
“Hi, Mom, Dad.”
“Hi,” I repeated.
“We are so happy to see you two!”
“Mom, you don’t have to yell. Settle down… I have a lot to tell you.” Ryder looked at me, winked, and began telling his parents everything that had gone on since the night he’d run into me in Miami. “Seeing Ree that night felt like a dream,” he admitted, squeezing my knee. “I pushed pretty hard to take her out. She played hard to get, but a few weeks later I learned why.”
He then explained my surrogacy and the reason I decided to do it. They listened intently, nodding along and offering sweet words of praise. “Twins?” Michelle asked in awe.
“Yes… girls.”
“Riana, that’s so very gracious of you.”
“They’re really great people and deserve to have their family.”
“Well, God bless you, dear. How are you feeling?” I ran through my experience with morning sickness, and at hearing it was meat that seemed to be the cure, they both laughed on their end. “Oh dear. That’s quite the irony.”
“It sure is,” I said with a grin.
Ryder then told the tale of our engagement, the helicopter ride, and Bahamas trip. He even explained why he’d proposed after just a few weeks. “I wasn’t going to lose her again. I’d do anything for her.”
Michelle and Richard shared a look, and I wondered if they knew the guilt Ryder carried over moving away when we were together. “And guess what?” He flipped the screen to reveal their granddog sleeping a few feet away. “Meet Kayla.” Her head lifted on command, and she trotted over to lick Ryder’s face. “She loves me too.”
“She’s a beauty,” Richard said, leaning closer to admire our sweet dog.
“You sure gave us a lot to digest,” Michelle said with a reprimanding smirk.
“There’s one more thing you need to know.” He cut his gaze my way before saying, “I left Morton.”