As she entered their home gym, her blue eyes caught her own image in the mirror, and she frowned. Her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her rounded curves covered by a pair of gray yoga pants and a matching t-shirt, Kara knew she looked frumpy. She’d never been anything more than acceptable in the looks department, but Simon had always salivated over her like she was a goddess – at least he had, before Ginny was born. She’d never understood what he saw in her that was so irresistible, but she’d loved it. Not that he treated her badly now—he spoiled her and Ginny rotten—and he was still the same bossy, ultra-possessive alpha male she’d fallen in love with, but sometimes he was….emotionally distant. Especially since she’d brought up having another child a few months ago.
Mounting the treadmill with determination, she started off slow, increasing the speed quickly as she warmed up, her sneakered feet pounding on the moving surface the only sound in the room.
She and Simon used to exercise together, but they couldn’t do that anymore. Usually they had to trade off, each watching Ginny for the other so they could do their daily workouts. Simon worked himself hard every single day, and he had a hot, muscular body as a result. Personally, she’d been slacking, working out sporadically when she wasn’t working at her job as a nurse in her best friend’s clinic or taking care of Ginny. Okay…Maddie wasn’t just her best friend anymore. Maddie was also her sister-in-law now, since she’d married Simon’s older brother, Sam. Kara had cut way down on her work hours since Ginny’s birth, only working one or two days a week. Since Maddie had given birth to twins, she’d become more of a medical director at the clinic rather than a practicing physician. The overprotective Sam made sure she had plenty of time at home with their babies.
Panting as she pushed her body harder, Kara tried not to remember all of the sexy times she and Simon had had in this gym. When she’d first gotten pregnant, Simon had wanted to move out of their penthouse, find a home outside the city somewhere. Eventually, she’d convinced him to stay—the last thing she had wanted to do when she was sick and pregnant had been to move. Besides, they’d made an adorable nursery for Ginny in a room close to the master bedroom, and the penthouse was so enormous that they could probably build an entire playground in one of the bonus rooms. Simon’s computer lab was on the second floor, taking up one of the extra spaces, but there were plenty more bedrooms and spaces that they weren’t even using.
Kara was startled out of her thoughts as the treadmill slowed down quickly, a large masculine hand slamming down on the controls to reduce her pace down to a walk. “What the hell are you doing?” Simon’s annoyed bellow echoed through the gym. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Coming out of her daze, her chest heaving, Kara glanced down and was surprised at the distance and speed she’d been doing. Unable to speak, she simply shook her head at Simon, struggling for air, her heart racing inside her chest wall. Grasping the bars on the treadmill, she walked slowly, her muscles screaming with pain.
“You weren’t doing those speeds and that distance even before you were pregnant and worked out every day. It’s too damn much. You’ll hurt yourself.” Simon’s voice held irritation.
She knew she’d been pushing too hard, determined to lose her baby weight.
“Five more minutes of that shit and you’d have keeled over,” he stated angrily, watching her carefully as he stopped the treadmill completely.
His muscular arm wrapped around her waist and bodily lifted her off the treadmill, and then scooped her up and strode toward the living room.
“I need to shower,” she told him, breathless, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Inhaling his intoxicating scent, she smiled as she realized it included a hint of baby powder, which she found incredibly appealing. Simon could change a diaper expertly, but he still hadn’t managed to not make the powder fly everywhere when he was using it.
“We need to talk.” Simon was unyielding. “You were starting to cry earlier. I don’t like it.” He dropped onto the sofa in the living room, taking her with him and situated her on his lap. “I want to know why.”
Simon never liked it when she cried—under any circumstances. Even if she cried happy tears, he didn’t like it.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, wanting to cry because of the way he cared about how she was feeling. She hated feeling even slightly disconnected from him, and since she’d started keeping her negative images of herself quiet, she’d thrown up a wall between them that was hurting her heart.
“If this is about having another baby—”
“It’s not.” She tried to wiggle off his lap because she knew she was heavy and she was stinky, but he wrapped his steely arms around her waist, keeping her exactly where she was. She relented with a sigh, knowing exactly how stubborn Simon could be. If he’d decided she was staying…she wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m beginning to realize how selfish I was being. My maternal instinct is satisfied. I don’t need another baby to make my life complete. I was already ecstatic because I had you, and Ginny is a miracle to me. I guess I worried because I was so alone after my parents died. But you’re right. It will never be like that for Ginny.” Kara’s parents had been dirt poor, but they’d been happy. Unfortunately, they’d been her only living relatives, and when they’d been killed so suddenly and traumatically, she had been lost without them.
“I’m being selfish, too,” Simon rasped. “But I can’t watch you go through that kind of pain again. I barely lived through Ginny’s birth. I was caught between the miracle of you struggling to bring our child into this world, and the fucking agony you were in. It has nothing to do with not wanting another child with you, but I can’t do it.” He released a masculine sigh. “And then there was the endless colic and teething. Jesus, you looked like you were going to drop over at any moment during those months. I don’t want to see you look that tired and worn out again.”
“You were just as tired, and you were always right there with me,” Kara argued, acknowledging that those had been difficult months, endless nights with little or no sleep for both of them.
“That’s different,” Simon said belligerently.
Kara pulled back, only to meet his ferocious expression. “That’s why you don’t want another child? Because you think it will be painful and difficult for me?” Her eyes filled with tears, the enormity of the reasons for Simon’s hesitance slapping her in the face.