“Yes, sir.” He nodded, turning and walking off.
I eyed the food. Everything looked good and my mouth watered. “Why did you order so much?”
“You need to keep my baby fed.”
I pressed my lips together tightly. Nazai was a helicopter dad already and I was still in the beginning stages. He made sure I ate three times a day and didn’t allow me to do anything strenuous. We even argued about me going to the gun range. Some might have seen it as sweet, but I found it worrisome most days.
Rolling my eyes, I reached for my water and took a sip. I set the glass down and grabbed a shrimp, already tasting it before I bit into it.
We didn’t speak at first. By the time the server came back, I had finished the shrimp and was working on a potato skin. I ended up ordering the garlic NY strip with loaded mashed potatoes and steamed lemon broccoli. Nazai got the T-bone steak and lobster mac and cheese with a loaded sweet potato.
“This is nice, huh? Just the two of us together. I don’t think we’ve had a moment like this since our wedding night,” Nazai said once it was just the two of us.
“I don’t get why we’re here though.”
“Can’t a man just take his wife on a date. Since we’ve been married, our lives have constantly been on the go. Now we can enjoy married life.” He lifted his glass of liquor and took a sip.
A date?My brows scrunched. It was the first time I had ever been on one. When it came to Nazai, I was learning to trust him more, but I wasn’t raised to be domestic. So all of this was foreign.
“I’ve never been on a date before.” I shifted in my seat.
“I know. My mom informed me that since you’re carrying my child, I should be more accommodating to you and show you that I appreciate the changes your body is about to go through.” He paused and laughed to himself while shaking his head. “So consider this my appreciation.”
My heart did an erratic dance inside me and my stomach flooded with heat. It still took me some time to accept when Nazai spit nice things my way.
“Thanks,” I muttered, tugging on the corner of my bottom lip with my teeth. “Me and the baby appreciate it.”
Sometimes I still resented Nazai for forcing me to get pregnant when I made my stance on it clear, other times I pictured myself as a mother and how my baby would look. I was starting to come to terms with things. Carson now knew about the baby and was excited to become an uncle. Nazai’s parents were on board, as well as his brothers, including Emmet. He still rarely spoke to me but he did congratulate us.
“You look to be deep in thought. What’s going through that wicked little mind?” Nazai asked. Another thing about him was he watched me a lot. Sometimes it felt like I never had a thought to myself when he was around. Oddly, I didn’t mind it. No one had ever paid this much attention to me before without having ill intentions.
“Just thinking about how different the baby will grow up compared to how I did. Your family already seems to be in love with it and I’m still early on.”
For a second, my stomach knotted. I didn’t have anyone but Carson in my corner to celebrate this with and it was bittersweet at times. Nazai’s family was so close and I’d never experienced that before.
“Ourfamily,” he stressed. “Our family is excited about this baby. You’re carrying the next generation of greatness, Wildfire. A legacy is growing within you and that’s something to be excited about.” When I didn’t respond, he continued. “Are you excited too?”
My head snapped back as if I had been struck. “What?”
“When you first learned about the pregnancy you weren’t happy.”
“I wonder why?” My eyes narrowed, but he smiled.
“It needed to be done.” He shrugged. “But do you still feel the same?”
I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking about his question. “It’s starting to grow on me,” I started. “Knowing I’m about to be a mom is still unsettling, but I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there?”
“Damn right about that. Once that positive word popped on the screen, your fate was sealed.” I frowned and this time reached for the apple juice.
“I never saw myself as a mother. My only goal was to take care of my brother and keep him safe. Knowing I’m about to have to do that again, but this time with someone I birthed, scares me and that’s not easy to do, but I’m terrified I’m going to fuck this up.” Maybe the baby was causing me to be more open than I was used to, but for the past few weeks I’d been internally battling whether or not I was meant for this.
“You didn’t run when Neil and Maddox were taken care of, why?”
I balled my face up. “Because you threatened to track me down and kill my brother.”
“I believed that was the case at first, but now I think it’s more than that.”
Something appeared on Nazai’s face that made the knot in my stomach grow. Casting my eyes down at my plate, I poked the half-eaten potato skin with my fork. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
