Pranking the Bad Boy

Annie’s POV -

“I’m pregnant.”

That was definitely not how I planned on telling the man of my dreams I was going to bear his children. Maybe it would have involved candles or a romantic dinner, but certainly not this.

Cole looked up from where he was chopping vegetables to stare at me. His eyes widened marginally as he took in the pregnancy test in my hand. He seemed at an utter loss for words. “Um… what?”

“Cole,” I breathed, looking down at the thin white tube in my hand that blinked POSITIVE at me. “I’m going to have a baby.”

Cole’s eyes were upraised. We hadn’t actually even discussed babies yet. This was a total surprise.

He looked at me carefully. “Are you completely sure?”

I nodded and turned the screen towards him. “Yes.”

For one second he just stared at me, before his face broke into a full-fledged grin and he ran up to me, twining his arms around my waist, picking me up and spinning me around.

“We’re having a baby!” he screamed, elated. “I’m gonna be a dad. I’m gonna be a dad!”

I laughed. The truth was, I had always wanted children. I wanted to be a mother with a two-storey house, white picket fence and three kids running around the backyard with their dad, playing football. But I hadn’t mentioned it to Cole yet. I was delighted that he wanted children as well.

Suddenly his face grew serious, and he put me down on the ground. I rolled my eyes. He was gonna be one of those kinds of guys. Treating their pregnant wife like she was made of fragile China. Keeping her bed-ridden and making sure she had the right amounts of protein and nutrients. I could see it now.

“Cole, I’m still the exact same,” I said gently. “I’m not gonna break.”

He stepped back and looked at my stomach, which didn’t show any sign of a pregnancy yet. I still had another six to eight weeks before it really began to become noticeable.

“I just want to be safe,” he said. “I want to be careful.”

I quickly put the pregnancy test in the bin and washed my hands. As much as I would’ve loved to marvel at the POSITIVE written on the screen, I knew I was pregnant, and I was eager to dispose of it.

“We need to start planning!” Cole exclaimed suddenly, eyes bright. “We need to get you into some breathing classes, and doctor’s appointments, and start figuring out how much it’s gonna cost.”

“Cole,” I said, breaking him out of his pregnancy-induced rant. “We can focus on all that some other time. How about for now we just celebrate?”

He nodded. “You’re right.”

He leant forward to press his lips to mine, and I twined my hands around his neck, pulling him closer. He broke off the kiss and buried his head in the crook of my neck, whispering into my ear. “Congratulations, baby. You’re gonna be a mom.”

The thought was so overwhelming. I, Annette Louise Fisher, was about to have a child to my Prince Charming.

Once upon a time, I would’ve scoffed at the idea of having a happy ending, finding a Prince Charming who said all the right things and made me slowly but surely fall in love with him. I would’ve laughed if someone proposed that I would be his princess, that I would live a perfect life and have the life that I had always dreamed of.

I would’ve chortled if they had said that I would find my happy ending.

But now I realized how wrong I would’ve been.

Because I found my happy ending, my Prince Charming, the man who said and did all the right things and made me love him. Who treated me like a princess and gave me a perfect life; the life I always dreamed of.

The man who gave me my happy ending.