Amara Villafuerte POV “You look pretty today.” Manfred stares at me as he does up the cuffs of his shirt. It’s amazing what a compliment from him can do. It puts an instant smile on my face and makes my stomach flip, especially when he sits on the mattress next to where I’m laid and rests his hand on the other side of my body. “Your period is due,” he whispers, leaning over my body, so his breath tickles my ear. “How do you…?” I give up asking. I would say I’m surprised but nothing about this man shocks me, anymore. “I have an app on my phone.” Manfred kisses my cheek before standing back up and lifting his suit jacket from the end of the bed. “You shouldn’t get your hopes up. Women are late on their periods all the time. I’ve never really kept track of mine.” I shrug, starting to feel a little pressured. I know how disappointed Manfred was last month when I came on my period, he didn’t speak, touch or look at me for five days. I don’t know how I’ll cope if he does that to me, agai
Manfred Valderrama POV I find Amara in her room, sitting in the chair that's placed in the corner, with her arms folded and a scowl on her face. She looks pretty when she’s angry, and that makes me want to punish her even more. “Come.” I go straight to her, taking her hand and dragging her up on her feet. Then, leading her into the bathroom, I take the pregnancy testing kit from my back pocket and start opening the box. I can see the confused way she’s looking at me from the corner of my eye when I neatly unfold the instruction leaflet and lay them out on the basin unit. “You want to do that, now?” She doesn’t look angry anymore. She looks nervous instead. “Yes,” I answer, taking the plastic stick in my hand and removing the cap from the part she has to pee on. My eyes gesture to the toilet and she makes that sarcastic, little laugh that sends me fucking crazy. “While you're in the room?” Her eyes stretch in disbelief when she realizes I’m not going anywhere. “Manfred, I’m not gon
TWO MONTHS LATER Manfred Valderrama POV “Why are you so tense? Today's supposed to be exciting.” Amara swallows the last of her pancake from the fork, I’m holding to her mouth. I have to be really strict with her at meal times, if she had her way she wouldn’t eat, at all. Since she’s been pregnant, the baby’s only been making her feel sick, luckily she keeps whatever I can get into her, down. “I am excited.” I stroke my hand across her tummy, there's still no sign of her condition from the outside, but it won’t be long before she starts to show. “Are you scared there might be something wrong? I’ve done everything your doctor friend told me to. I’ve eaten the right food, taken that folic, whatever, tablet. Apart from the nausea, I feel great.” She tries to reassure me, but that's not why I’m anxious about today. I have kept Amara in my protective bubble for the past four months. Today we are having to step out of it, and that concerns me. “Not at all, our child’s going to be perfe
ONE MONTH LATER Amara Villafuerte POV “Do you think she’s going to notice?” I study my figure in the mirror. Over the past few weeks, my stomach has become noticeably rounder, and it now sticks out over the waistline of my panties. “I don’t care if she does.” Manfred steps up beside me, placing his hand over my tiny bump. He can't seem to get enough of it, which I guess is a good thing since I’m only going to get bigger. Since seeing our baby on the screen for real, Manfred has barely left my side. I’ve come to learn a lot more about him, and the more of this side I see of him, the easier it becomes to forget how I got here. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I look up at him warily, the last time I met Manfred’s mother I was a nervous wreck. Her coming here for lunch, today, isn’t something I’ve been looking forward to. “Now's as good a time as any, to tell her she’s going to be a grandma.” He shrugs. “Wait, you're going to tell her about this?” I stare back at him in shock.
Manfred Valderrama POV “Today must have been tough for you.” I pull back the covers when Amara starts walking toward the bed. She’s wearing just her panties and seeing that tiny bump of hers sticking over the waistline of them has my cock steel, fucking, hard. “It was awful.” She slides in beside me, snuggling into my chest and looking up at me through her lashes. “Talking about varicose veins and piles over a Caesar salad was not my idea of a fun afternoon. I swear she managed to cram every pregnancy horror story, she’s ever heard, into that hour,” she points out, but soon eases up when I slide my hand into the front of her panties and start rubbing my finger against her clit, she mewls like a satisfied, little kitten. I love the way she gets turned on so easily, and when I start to slowly tease her entrance, she grabs my wrist to hold it steady. “I won’t let you distract me from the conversation we need to have.” She moves quickly, shifting her body so it’s straddling mine.“Now,
ONE MONTH LATER Amara Villafuerte POV “Your son grows strong.” Manfred’s housekeeper, Anna, smiles at me as she places the sandwich, she’s made me, on the coffee table. She’s never really spoken to me before, so it comes as a surprise, it's an even bigger shock when she takes a seat beside me and places her palm, flat beside where mine rests on my stomach. “Do you feel him wriggle yet, Miss Amara?” She smiles. “No, the books said it could be any time now, but I don’t feel him yet.” I’m starting to get a little anxious about it. This past month my stomach has gotten much bigger, there is no hiding the fact I’m pregnant, now. We had an appointment with Dr. Jonathan Ferrero last week and heard his heartbeat again, and now I’m desperate to feel him move. “Soon enough.” She taps my bump, lightly, before she gets back up and heads into the kitchen. I look at the sandwich she’s left behind and sigh when I think about eating it. Despite what Dr. Jonathan Ferrero, and the books, have said
Amara Villafuerte POV I notice the bowl of lasagne that I figure is what I left at the dinner table, earlier. I’d managed to persuade Manfred that the salad and four new potatoes, I’d eaten, had filled me, and as tasty as Anna’s home cooking is, it’s not what I’m looking for, now. I find the punnet of strawberries and pull them out, popping one in my mouth as I place them on the counter, and search for more things that appeal to me. I figure whipped cream will come in useful and I check the coast is clear before I take that out, shake it, and spray it directly into my mouth. The satisfaction it brings makes me smile, and after I’ve gotten myself a little collection of random things to experiment with, I hoist my ass up onto the kitchen counter and start to tuck in, using the glow from the open refrigerator door. Strange ideas for the food in front of me start to combine themselves in my head, and I can’t resist dipping my fingers into the pickle jar and pulling one out. The smell do
Manfred Valderrama POV I watch Amara in the reflection of my gym mirror, while I lift the dumbbells in my hands. Since I looked more into the article she was reading, the other day, about the benefits of yoga during pregnancy, I’ve had a mat brought up here so we can do our morning workout together. She looks hot as shit in the training bra and yoga shorts she’s wearing and the bigger her stomach grows, the more I seem to become obsessed with it. I feel a lot more relaxed, now that the list of people Villafuerte’s investigator thought could be a threat to her is dead; even more so now that she seems to have found her appetite, again. I swear that girl finds something new to dip a pickle into every day. “You look real sexy when you're working out.” She stares at me from the other side of the room like a vixen, then abandoning her mat she moves to sit on the weight bench beside me. I love how happy she looks when she leans back on one arm and the hand from her other strokes over her