Page 126 of Rebellious Hearts

To have and to hold and to start a family with. All that jazz.

My stomach twisted in knots.

“Hey,” Ben said, putting his hand on mine to quiet them. He glanced at me, momentarily taking his eyes off the road. “It’s going to be okay.”

I was relieved that we were going together, just the two of us. When we were driven by chauffeur in one of the over-the-top Blackwood cars it was all well and good, but it felt very impersonal. Like there was always someone else a part of the party.

Like this, it was just me and Ben.

Maybe he understood that because he hadn’t even asked, and I hadn’t needed to tell him. He’d arrived in his own car to pick me up this morning.

“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” I admitted. “I mean, this is just a standard scan, a normal visit, nothing to be worried about. Right?”

“Right.”

“But still, I’m freaking out. Why are you so calm?”

Ben turned his amber eyes to me. “I’m nervous, too.”

“You hide it really well.”

He grinned that lopsided smile at me that made me feel unbalanced in all the right ways. “Tricks of the trade, I guess, babe. A poker face was what got me through all these years.”

I sighed with a shudder. “Yeah.”

“It’s going to be okay,” he said again, squeezing my hands. “I’m right there with you, so no matter what comes our way, we’re dealing with this together.”

I nodded.

Together.

It wasn’t a concept I’d allowed myself to think about when Ben and I had slowly—or not so slowly—started falling for each other. He’d always been this off-limits Adonis, and even when we pretended to be together, there had always been this divide between us, the truth of who we were to each other.

Or rather, who weweren’t.

But all that was behind us now. Ben and I were officially dating. He’d come after me, told me that he loved me. He’d told me that he wanted it all with me. Love. Family. The whole nine yards.

Some mornings I still had to pinch myself to know that this was real. It felt like a dream… until I arrived at the offices and he waited in my office to give me a cup of coffee—decaf for the baby—and a kiss, telling me to have a good day.

He really was the sweetest guy once I’d managed to break through the layers upon layers of protection he’d managed to wrap around himself.

Ben parked the car in front of the medical center, and we climbed out.

He took my hand when we walked through the doors—another thing I was pretty sure I would never get used to. The way his fingers wrapped around mine, his hand large, his grip sure… it made my heart flutter every time.

“We’re here for Blackwood,” Ben said at the reception desk when we reached the obstetrician’s office.

“You can wait right over there,” she said with a smile. I didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on his face a little longer before she glanced at me and glanced down again. “Dr. Richards will be with you in a sec. She’s running just a little behind.”

Ben nodded, and we walked to the waiting room, sitting down in the comfortable chairs. No plastic chairs and sodium lights in this place—Ben had insisted on only the best doctors, the best treatments for me and Blackwood Junior, and everything here was expensive. He covered everything. He wouldn’t even let me argue with him about it.

And the truth was, it was nice to be taken care of for a change. I never thought I would have said that, but Ben didn’t do it in a way like he was taking over, like I was losing control over my own life. He did it in a way that made me feel loved and safe.

That’s what it always should have been like.

In the waiting room, two other women paged through magazines. One was heavily pregnant and shifted in the seat like she was uncomfortable despite how good the seats were. The other woman was thin and tall and paged through a parenting magazine like she wasn’t really paying attention. Both of them kept sneaking glances at us.

But I was going to have to get used to that if I was dating a Blackwood. Ben wasn’t only insanely attractive, he was also someone whose face had been in magazines, tabloids, newspaper articles… He was recognized often, wherever he went. Or if he wasn’t recognized, people glanced at him, sure that they must have seen his face somewhere.