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What I didn’t mention—and would never mention—was that I’d woken up in a cold sweat after having one of the dirtiest dreams of my life about the random guy who’d come sniffing around my apartment Friday night. Remembering it only made my headache worse.

“I’m sorry.” Rick leaned over and brushed my hair behind my ear. The smell of his cologne, which I usually loved, made my stomach turn. “Are you okay enough to go on a little detour, or do you want to go straight home?”

“A detour? Where?”

He smiled. “I want to show you something.”

Truthfully, all I wanted was to go home, take some stomach meds, and nap, but I’d already put a bit of a damper on brunch and didn’t want to put Rick out any more than I already had. Swallowing my nausea, I put on my best fake smile.

“I like surprises. Sure. Why not?”

Rick chuckled and turned right when the light changed. “Awesome. It’ll take us a few minutes.”

I leaned back in the seat, pressing a hand to my stomach.

It didn’t feel like I was going to puke, more like a steady, unrelenting queasiness.

That was almost worse than full-blown sickness.

It would be a relief if I could vomit up whatever was making my stomach go crazy. Maybe I had caught a bug of some sort.

I rolled the window down a few inches, but the moment the wind rushed in, my hair fluttered off my neck. Shit . I quickly rolled it back up. Rick didn’t know the guy had bitten or cut me there. Unlike my other injuries, the wound wasn’t fully healed, and my hair was the only thing concealing it.

Rick gave me a quizzical smile. “What are you doing?”

“Just needed a little blast of fresh air,” I said, trying to conceal my embarrassment.

Sitting up straighter, I tried to compose myself.

If Rick and I were going to end up engaged and married at some point, I needed to act the part.

I couldn’t drag him down with all my issues.

Better to keep some things quiet rather than rock the boat and make things awkward.

Rick had enough to worry about without me adding to it.

Rick drove toward a more commercial area downtown, eventually pulling up in front of a fenced-off construction sight.

A huge banner hanging from the chain link fence read “Keeble and Jax Construction.” The area was mostly dirt except for the massive foundation.

The gray of the concrete stood out against the brown soil.

“Uh, it’s a building,” I said dumbly. “Or, I guess it will be a building?”

Rick laughed. “Well, yeah, it’s gonna be a building.

This is being financed by The Masters Foundation.

Keeble and Jax work for the foundation on construction projects like this.

This high-rise will have a combination of retail space and apartments.

One-bedrooms starting at ten thousand a month, all the way up to three-bedroom penthouse-style apartments that will go up for full purchase starting at a million dollars minimum. ”

The Masters Foundation? So, Rick’s parents were financing all this?

The sheer amount of money boggled my mind.

Paying ten grand a month for an apartment was unfathomable, much less paying over a million dollars for one.

The fact that there were enough people who could afford it to justify the construction of such a massive building showed me again just how low my family was on the financial ladder of the world.

“The bottom floor will have some high-end shops and restaurants. A boutique smoothie place has already expressed interest,” Rick went on.

“Are you getting into real estate?” I couldn’t see how this had anything to do with being a lawyer.

“Sort of,” Rick said. “It’s part of what that trip to Montreal was for.

Like I said, my dad’s firm wants to branch out.

We’re the financiers of this build, plus he’s letting me take the lead on the legal aspects.

We’ve hired an expert real-estate paralegal to join my team since I’m not fully versed in that yet, but I’ve been studying.

I’ll be in charge of this project. This is a huge get for our firm, and me in particular. ”

“Oh, wow.” I forced excitement into my voice. “That’s amazing, babe.”

“I know.” His hands twisted around the steering wheel with barely suppressed energy

Rick leaned across the center console to kiss me. The scent of his cologne sent another wave of nausea over me. I choked back a retch. Rick, seeing the look on my face, jerked away from me.

“Not in the car!” The look of terror on his face would have been hilarious if I wasn’t fighting for my life to keep myself from puking in his new Jag.

Swallowing hard twice, I took a steadying breath and patted his knee. “I’m all right. I’ll be fine,” I said, even as the nausea continued to roil in my stomach.

“Here, have a drink,” he said, grabbing a bottle of water from his cup holder.

As he handed it to me, I caught the overpowering scent of his cologne again. This time, it was worse.

“Oh, fuck,” I grunted, shoving his hand away and fumbling for the door.

Lurching from the car, I stumbled toward a ditch beside the construction parking lot and vomited. What little I’d eaten at brunch came up in a gush. I panted, tears leaking from my eyes, and retched again, though this time it was only dry-heaving.

“Jesus, Cam,” Rick said as he hurried toward me from the car.

He offered the water bottle again, and this time I took it. Spinning the lid off, I sucked in a mouthful of the tepid liquid. Instead of swallowing, I swished it around with my tongue to rinse the sour taste out of my mouth. I spat, then repeated it again. Rick rubbed my back reassuringly.

“I’m sorry.” I stayed bent over, worried I might throw up again.

“Do you have a stomach virus or something?” Then, in a horrified voice, Rick added, “Oh shit, it’s not food poisoning, is it? I swear to God, I’ll have that place shut down.”

“No. It was just your cologne. For some reason, it set me off.”

Rick’s eyes narrowed, and a faint smile spread across his lips. The look on his face was one I’d never seen before: a combination of surprise and shock. He wrapped his hand protectively around my shoulders, kneeling down to be close to me. I choked back another retch as his smell hit me again.

“You’re nauseous and tired. Food and smells make it worse,” he said, almost under his breath. “Cameron, is there a chance you could be pregnant?”

My shock drove back my nausea. “Excuse me?” I gaped at him.

“The symptoms line up. When was your last period? Are you late?” The surprised frown on his face slowly morphed into a smile. Strange, almost greedy in its intensity.

The possibility was extremely remote. I’d taken the pill religiously since I was fourteen.

My mother had been a cautionary tale about the dangers of not being safe.

I’d decided long ago to never leave it up to the man to be in charge of birth control.

Even then, more than half the times Rick and I had sex, I insisted on him wearing a condom to be double safe.

“No, Rick, I don’t think that’s it,” I said.

“Well, what else could it be? With these symptoms?” The worried yet hopeful smile on his face made me uneasy.

I opened my mouth to answer but paused. The symptoms did sort of line up with pregnancy, and it had been a while since my last period. I’d been on the pill the whole time, though. I never missed a dose. A baby would seriously screw up the timeline I had planned for my life.

“I’m not pregnant,” I said more forcefully.

“If you say so,” Rick said, but the glint in his eye and the excited grin told me he didn’t believe me.

Straightening, I swatted his chest. “Listen, lover boy, if you’re all gung ho about a kid, then maybe you should finally introduce me to your parents. We’ve been together for a while, and I still haven’t met them.”

The smile on Rick’s face vanished. He shrugged uncomfortably. “I know, I know. The timing never works out. Either I’m out of town, or they are, or you have plans. It’s tough to get us all pinned down in one place.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, unconvinced, though he was probably right.

Rick’s parents were rich and influential.

They were very busy, that much was true, and Rick did travel a lot for work.

Deep down, however, I worried he didn’t want to introduce me to his parents because of my station in life.

When we met, I’d only just become an actual reporter after finally getting promoted out of the mail room.

I’d had to hound Brent for eighteen months for the promotion.

I felt better about where I was professionally because it was one step closer to where I wanted to be in the end.

Maybe Rick was holding off until I worked my way up the ladder a little more.

A star front-page reporter had a bit more panache than a leisure and lifestyle reporter.

Could that be the reason he was dragging his heels?

I hoped not, but that explanation was more likely than our schedules not lining up for almost a year.

His parents were probably the snobbish types who wouldn’t approve of their baby boy dating anyone who wasn’t a CEO, pop star, or billionaire heiress.

It was the way the world worked—and deep down, I knew that—but it still irked me. I’d worked my ass off for what I had. Why should I be looked down upon because I managed to get born to a poor woman from Zamora rather than a rich white lady in New York City or something?

It was silly. Then again, much of society was.

“I’m serious,” Rick said as we walked back to his car. “They’re really busy, but I’m going to call them as soon as I drop you off and nail down a date. I promise.”

He sounded more eager than he had when I brought it up in the past. Maybe I was right that my new opportunity at The Chronicle had made me a bit more presentable to his parents.

“Oh, hell,” Rick said, slapping his hand to his forehead. “I almost forgot. I know the perfect place for you to meet them.”