Method for Matrimony – Jupiter Tides Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Suspense Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement1

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“You fucked me into a miscarriage.”

Yeah, that’d do it.

I shouldn’t even want sex with everything I was expecting. The other times, I hadn’t let him touch me—something he was furious about. I had absolutely no desire for sex and did not want to be touched.

With Kip, it was different. I wasn’t in control of my desire. The second our eyes met, our lips touched, everything else melted away. It was the one time I got to escape my body.

Suffice it to say, we had a lot of sex.

But I was… distant. In my own head. On edge. Skittish Kip noticed it, but he didn’t say anything. Why would he? We might’ve been married on paper, but in reality, we were fuck buddies.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

My bestie, on the other hand, noticed.

Luckily for me, she’d just had a baby, so she was kind of busy. It wasn’t weird that I wasn’t getting wine drunk at her house every night because she had a newborn. And because I had a husband who I apparently needed to spend time with in order to make our marriage believable. Hence the month-long grace period.

But now she was out of the newborn fog.

“Something’s going on,” she said the second we finished the morning rush.

Fuck.

I busied myself with arranging a cupcake display.

Tina was banging away at the coffee machine, but I saw the knowing smirk on her face. She was not in a newborn fog. In her mid-fifties, she was past her childbearing years and sharp as a tack.

Tina noticed everything, so I knew she’d noticed I was off. But Tina was not one to pry. She would listen as you spilled your guts to her, offer sage, no-bullshit wisdom without judgment. But she would wait for you to come to her.

“Nothing is going on,” I told Nora, focusing on the cupcakes, even though the sickly sweet smell of frosting and chocolate was making my stomach turn.

Normally I loved the scents of the bakery, Nora being a fucking magician with a wooden spoon and a mixer. It took enormous willpower not to stuff my face daily. Not that I minded wearing a few extra pounds here and there—women were meant to have some meat on their bones.

“Bullshit,” Nora shot back, putting her hand on her hip.

Double fuck.

I couldn’t keep toying with the cupcakes unless I wanted to vomit all over them.

Reluctantly, I turned to face my best friend.

Unfortunately, I had her full attention.

Rowan was on baby duty today, having taken paternity leave as soon as Ana was born. It had made even my ovaries pulse to see the gruff, muscled man absolutely melt with a baby in his arms.

Apparently, it kick-started the fucking things.

Nora was a natural mother, despite her fears that her anxieties might get the best of her. She glowed with motherhood, not showing any dark circles or general signs of exhaustion. I guessed life with a newborn was different when you had a man who really stepped up and took care of their kid.

Not to mention Rowan’s entire family, who were back and forth from the birth.

Nora had lucked out in the mother-in-law department.

I was glad for her.

I knew better than anyone what a fucking nightmare it could be. The mere thought of it made me shiver. Technically, the second time around, I had lucked out in the mother-in-law department, too, but it wasn’t permanent, so it didn’t count.

“Is it something with Kip?” Nora demanded. “Has he done something?” Her normally placid and sweet voice had a bite to it now. Rowan had lifted up various parts of my normally shy and timid best friend, including some impressive new claws.

I had to snort at that.

“Yeah, he did something,” I said. “Or his sperm did something,” I corrected.

Nora’s eyes bugged out, getting my meaning immediately. Whatever she had been imagining, this was not it.

“What?” she shrieked. “You’re pregnant?”

I gaped around the bakery. Nora had yelled loud enough for the whole place to hear. And we lived in a small town full of people who fucking loved to gossip. Luckily there were only a handful of customers, most of whom were tourists. Our one local had headphones on and was tapping away at a keyboard.

Tina didn’t say anything at the coffee machine, merely raised an eyebrow. The bitch had probably already guessed it. I normally went to her and Tiffany’s place and got shit-faced with them at least once a month, and I’d made excuses this month.

“Say it louder, why don’t you?” I snapped, grabbing Nora’s arm and dragging her out the back to the kitchen.

“You’re really pregnant?” she asked once we had somewhat of a sound buffer.

Unfortunately, Nora had just baked cookies.

My stomach turned again.

Working in a bakery apparently wasn’t so great if you were discovering you had morning sickness.

“Apparently,” I said with a shrug, incredibly uncomfortable with this conversation.


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