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Chapter 77: Brett
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The Bound Collection Chapter 78: Annie
I'd gotten so caught up with Lissa and talking about surrogates I'd slowly stepped back from Gray. When I heard from him, I tried to respond to his messages but kept my distance. The guilt weighed heavily on me knowing he needed a shoulder to lean on and had reached out because we had history, but I couldn't engage in his issues. For the first time in my adult life, I'd chosen myself over someone else, someone I cared deeply for. I was selfish and went after what I wanted. It was terribly uncharacteristic of me, but there was no guarantee this would work, and there sure as hell wasn't a guarantee Lissa would go through this again. So I'd chosen us.I hadn't expected to have to make another choice in the middle of the night, but when my phone rang at two, I ignored it. The noise started over again, Brett reached over me to grab it and answer the incoming call. The sound of the fan overhead was the only noise in the room until Brett barked out a groggy "hello."I had no doubt who was o
The Bound Collection Chapter 79: Annie
I'd been poked and prodded more than any one human being should be in the last few weeks. Lissa had been a trooper, never once complaining, and I'd vowed if she could tough it out, I would as well. But at that point, I was tired and cranky, and overly emotional as it was from all the hormones and crap I'd been injected with to make my ovaries work on overdrive. Gray's shit last night wasn't necessary and only served to sour my mood even further. Brett's silence was not what I had expected, but he'd gotten up this morning and acted like it was another day. Well, not another day. He was ecstatic we were making progress with the baby, but he didn't mention the incident with Gray. This was the one portion of the process Brett and I were doing alone. We hadn't seen a need for Dan and Lissa to be here and promised to update them when we left. Now I wished Lissa was here to gossip with. Anything to calm my nerves.My leg jumped, the nervous anticipation starting to get to me. Brett simply
The Bound Collection Chapter 80: Annie
I was supposed to be on Lissa duty for the next few days, but I'll be damned if Dan wasn't acting like an overprotective, overbearing, ass. We didn't even have confirmation of a pregnancy, we'd only done the embryo transfer, but her being put on bed rest to give them the best chance at implanting had sent him into overdrive-and I was over him. "Lissa, I'm going to get out of here and leave you with Hovering Harry over there. If he goes home, call me, and I'll gladly come back." I winked at her, so she knew I was playing but didn't give Dan the satisfaction.Lissa groaned, but I knew she was eating up the attention from Dan. This was exactly how I'd always envisioned Brett being had I been able to get pregnant. There was a part of me that was envious, but the excitement far superseded it. I called out my goodbyes over my shoulder as I left Lissa's house. The two of us had been together non-stop since the embryo transfer. I was looking forward to getting home to Brett, and a night a
The Bound Collection Chapter 81: Brett
I couldn't stand being at odds with Annie, especially when it was about our relationship. If we disagreed about some trivial subject, fine, but fighting about Gray wasn't worth the energy. There wasn't a valid reason for my outburst, but I couldn't bring myself to apologize. The thought of that man's hands on any part of her skin was more than I could handle. He'd been a poison in her life for far too long, and I refused to let that toxin seep into our marriage. But fighting with her had the exact same effect. She was right; he got to me. He played the game, and I willingly offered myself up as a pawn.I'd sent her flowers, but she knew they were to pacify her, not to apologize. For that very reason, they'd had the opposite effect I'd intended. My hope was for her to soften enough to explain my ignorance without directly saying I was sorry. That hadn't happened. Instead, I'd found them left as a centerpiece on the patio furniture. Her quiet way of saying, "Man up." This had gone on to
The Bound Collection Chapter 82: Brett
Annie's optimism had been spot on. At four o'clock, the four of us sat huddled around Lissa's dining room table with Annie's phone on speaker between us. We were anxious for HCG levels. Without them, there was no pregnancy, fifty indicated one baby, two hundred or higher, and we were having multiples. All four of us had prayed for multiples.Holding hands in a circle, we waited for the nurse to pick up the line. "Hey, guys." Her voice was chipper when it finally replaced the hold music. "Do we have everyone on the line?"I took the lead. Annie was squeezing the circulation from my hand, and I wasn't sure she'd be able to speak. "Yeah, all four of us are here.""Let me pull up Lissa's file. Give me just a second." I had hoped her tone was an indication of her good news, but it didn't seem she'd even looked at the labs."Everything looks good, guys. Labs are great."Annie took a deep breath beside me but hadn't let it back out. "HCG levels?" I asked."Looks like fifty-two. Co
The Bound Collection Chapter 83: Brett
"Brett, you have got to calm the fuck down. You can't fight with him at work. You're going to get your ass fired." Dan had me backed up against the cement wall in the back of the DC. His forearm pressed into my chest painfully as my lungs struggled to fill with air fast enough.I glared at the smug bastard walking away with his buddies. "So, I'm just supposed to let him keep fucking with Annie?""No, you're supposed to deal with it off the clock. What the fuck is going on? And why haven't you told me about it?"Gray had been diligent in his pursuit of my wife. And he wasn't trying to be discreet anymore either. Her phone went off at all hours of the day and night, text messages, phone calls, drunk voicemails. Graphic drunk messages about what he wanted to do to her sexually. It made me cringe he had that level of knowledge, but I couldn't change her past and wouldn't crucify her for it. When she finally blocked his number, the letters and flowers started arriving at her office and t
The Bound Collection Chapter 84: Annie
Brett hadn't wanted to admit he'd gotten into a fight with Gray at work, but it came out when he told me Dan was going to ask Lissa to move in with him. I didn't think she'd go for it until he said he wanted to buy the house next door. As thrilled as I was, stress and anxiety had me on edge. The issues with Gray left me uncomfortable and worried that he'd show up at random times, and I'd be alone. I couldn't stand he was doing this crap to me, but Brett being involved escalated it to a level no one wanted to experience. I was in this weird state of hovering between the life that was, the life that is, and the life that was coming. Maybe it would have been different if I had actually been carrying the child, but as it was, Lissa's pregnancy was like an anticipated holiday. I was excited, but it wasn't my reality. I'd gone with her to every appointment, made sure she had everything she needed and never had to ask, took her shopping for maternity clothes, and tried to make this fun for
The Bound Collection Chapter 85: Annie
With the discussion of a frat party at Hooters to welcome our child, I thought I had managed to escape Brett's attention. But when he pulled in to the CVS parking lot, I knew I hadn't been so lucky."Do you want me to go in, or do you want to go?"I didn't know why I was mad. Probably because Brett was a man, and they weren't supposed to notice anything, much less when a woman ate wings. I didn't have my purse with me so I held out my hand for cash and unbuckled my seat belt. I didn't even pretend to be happy trekking my ass into the drug store. When I got to the family planning aisle, I grabbed the first box I saw and stalked up to the cash register. Here I was married, but somehow embarrassed to be buying a pregnancy test. This was sheer torture. Just because I had suggested chicken didn't mean he'd knocked me up. Next thing I knew, he'd tell me I was having an affair with an Asian man because I picked up Chinese takeout. The whole thing was preposterous. So was my acting like a
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