Page 73 of Bad Wolf's Nanny

His body went still.

There, beneath the layers of warm cotton and herbal shampoo, under the familiar scent of Lola and home and comfort…

Something new.

Something subtle, but unmistakable.

A whisper of hormones, earthy and sharp.

A shift in her chemistry.

No. Not just a shift.

Change.

His heart slammed into his ribs. He blinked once, then twice, staring at her with renewed intensity. She was turned slightly away, rocking Sam absently on her hip, murmuring soft nonsense words to soothe him.

She didn’t know.

She doesn’t know.

Dane’s chest tightened, primal instincts roaring to the surface like a tide he couldn’t hold back.

Pregnant.

Lola was pregnant.

Withhischild.

And she didn’t even know it yet.

He was speaking before he could think better of it.

“You’re pregnant.”

The words landed like thunder between them, even though he’d said them softly.

Lola blinked once. Then again. Her lips parted like she was going to speak, but nothing came out.

Dane barely breathed.

She stared at him as if he’d just announced something completely absurd. Like he’d told her, the moon was made of silver or that she was secretly royalty.

“What?” she said faintly.

“You’re pregnant,” he repeated, quieter this time, like he could soften the blow with repetition. “I can smell it. You’re only a few weeks in, but it’s there. I’d stake my life on it.”

Still, she didn’t move.

Her face was blank, scrubbed clean of expression in that way she did when emotions were too big to manage. When things slipped out of her carefully built internal filing system.

He watched her blinking, watched her wrap her arms tighter around Sam, watched her breathing shallow, as if the air had thickened.

“No,” she finally whispered.

“Lola—”

“No,” she said again, shaking her head, voice rising in pitch, “that’s not…you must be wrong.”