Rock Wedding (Rock Kiss #4) - Nalini Singh Page 0,79
so badly you left yourself wide open to a bastard like Jeremy.” Lola curled her lip.
“I have to take responsibility for my own choices, Lola.” It was the only way she’d grow, the only way she’d keep becoming stronger.
“No, you don’t,” Lola said with a scowl. “Because that would mean so do I—and I’d rather blame my exes for everything, from global warming to the bad dye job I had at thirty-two.”
Laughing, Sarah put down her half-empty glass of lemonade. “And, like I said, I’ve changed as much, if not more, than Abe.”
Lola’s gaze was piercing. “Yes,” she said at last. “You’re much stronger these days. Even after the hurt of losing Aaron, you didn’t bow to Jeremy and hand him the kind of control over your life and business that he wanted.”
A stab of grief inside Sarah’s heart, but she was learning to bear it now. Had to learn, because wallowing in sadness couldn’t be good for her pregnancy. Breathing through the grief, she kissed Aaron in her mind, then imagined another baby in her arms less than eight months into the future.
A healthy, breathing baby with Abe’s heartbreaker smile and his dark, dark eyes.
Her heart melted, sorrow buried under hopeful joy… but she wasn’t a foolish girl this time. She was a woman. And she intended to demand everything from the rock star who was her lover.
ABE RETURNED IN TIME TO MEET SARAH’S FRIEND, Lola. Predictably, the redhead gave him the stink eye and, when Sarah was distracted by Flossie, promised to beat him bloody if he hurt Sarah again. Since Lola was five-foot-nothing with no hard edges except those in her eyes, the threat held zero weight—it was the fiercely protective love in her gaze that mattered most.
“I cherish her,” he said quietly.
Lips pursing, Lola said, “Hmm,” and he knew he’d have to earn her trust.
Fair enough.
After Lola left to do some shopping for her son’s upcoming birthday, Abe and Sarah headed off to the beach with Flossie. The dog raced off ahead but always returned after fifty meters or so, at which point she’d dart into the waves for a couple of seconds before shaking off the water and racing out and along the sand.
Holding a shawl loosely around her upper body, Sarah laughed at Flossie’s antics as strands of hair that had escaped the knot at the back of her head kissed her cheeks. “You’d think she was a puppy instead of a very respectable middle-aged dog.”
Abe, however, wasn’t thinking about Flossie except to keep an eye on the dog so she didn’t inadvertently scare any of the children on the beach—not that they seemed the least terrified of her tail-wagging friendliness. “We need to tell my mom,” he said. “About the peanut.”
“The peanut?” Sarah’s eyes almost swallowed her face. “Oh.”
Abe’s gaze landed on where she’d spread her hand over her belly. His lips kicked up, his heart doing that crazy thing it did every time he thought about holding his kid. “Someone’s going to get a photograph of you doing that and then it’s all over, and Mom’s going to be pissed we didn’t tell her first.”
FLUSHING, SARAH DROPPED HER HAND WHILE SCANNING THE BEACH for any signs of a photographer lurking in the distance. Nothing. Phew. Because Abe was right. Diane would not be pleased to find out about the existence of her future grandchild from the tabloids—and Sarah was already the ex-wife who’d walked out on her son.
“Call her,” she said. “Right now.”
“She’s in town tomorrow night.”
“What?” Coming to a standstill on the sand, she glared at Abe. “Don’t try to tell me that’s a coincidence, Abe Bellamy.”
“I swear to God it is.” He held up his hands, palms out. “She’s on some cruise deal with her best friend, and they stop in LA tomorrow. I’m supposed to have dinner with her—we set it up weeks ago.”
Sarah was nowhere near ready to face Abe’s mother, but she knew it was inevitable; at least if they did it tomorrow, they’d be ahead of the media. Perhaps that would make Diane a little more kindly disposed toward Sarah. Not that Sarah’s ex-mother-in-law hadn’t always been lovely and kind—but that was before a bitter and messy divorce fueled by anger on Sarah’s part, the same on Abe’s.
No mother was going to look on such an ex-wife with a kind eye.
Sarah inhaled deeply of the salt-laced air, exhaled as slowly. Then did it again.
“Okay,” she said on the second exhale, “let’s do it—but please warn her