Free The Marriage Clause by Dahlia Rose Page A

are.”
    “She’s healthy and exactly where she should be at this time of your pregnancy.” The technician helped her wipe the gel off with a towel and Mikael helped her sit up.
    They left with more print-outs of the baby’s face for themselves and their grandparents. True to his word, as they drove through the city, India happily drank her Frappuccino. His telephone rang and he pressed the bluetooth on his earpiece to answer it.
    “Hello?” He listened for a moment before speaking again. “Yes sir, I can come back immediately after I take my fiancée home. Can I ask what this is about?”
    India looked at him curiously and watched his face become a hard line of anger.
    “Yes sir, I’ll be there immediately.”  He hung up the phone and stared at the traffic in front of him intently. She noticed his hands were clenched around the steering wheel.
    “What’s wrong?” India asked fearfully. Did he have to be deployed again? Would he even be home for the baby’s birth?
    “It seems Celeste filed a complaint against me for physical abuse and some breach of contract nonsense.” Mikael’s voice was hard.
    “What?” India said outraged. “You never touched her, and what contract did you sign?”
    “Nothing, and now I need to head back to Fort Hamilton to see my commanding officer,” he explained.
    “I’m going with you,” India said with determination.
    “You can’t, Honey. They won’t let you in the meeting and it could run for a while. Those chairs aren’t comfortable for a soldier, let alone my pregnant fiancée.” Mikael put on his left hand signal and merged into traffic. “I’ll come home as soon as it’s done. Tearing down a few walls may make me feel tons better after this.”
    “I need to be there for you.” India put her hand over his as he drove. “We’re in this together no matter what.”
    “It won’t be long. I know for a fact I never touched that woman in anger or hit her, and you can’t bring some kind of bullshit  ‘I was supposed to marry you but didn’t claim’ in front of the Judge Advocate General,” Mikael said. “It’s going to be a piece of cake to defend myself and prove her for the liar she is. She broke into my lockbox for goodness sake.”
    “Did you report it?” India asked.
    He shook his head. “No, of course not. I told her get out of my apartment and my life. I didn’t expect she was going to be a malicious bitch and try this shit.”
    “It’s Celeste. We should have never put anything above her, she’s a snake, everything is below her,” India replied. “Oh, I want to smack her in the mouth for her lies.”
    “Let’s talk about something else. This won’t be an issue for long, it will be taken care of,” Mikael said. “What do you think for baby names, since we’re having a girl?”
    India smiled. “I have the perfect one if you want to hear it.”
    Mikael glanced at her before putting his eyes back on the stop and go traffic in front of him. “Of course I want to hear the name, hit me.”
    “Isabella Bronwyn-Etta Nolan,” India said. ‘I always loved the name Isabella and now the Grans can’t think we love one more than the other because their names are a hyphenated middle name for her.”
    “I love it, they would never fuss to each other or us but they’d wonder why we picked one over the other,” Mikael agreed. “Isabella is a beautiful name, she’ll have a name fit for a princess.”
    “Oh no, we will not be spoiling this little princess, boundaries daddy. You can’t let her win you over when she bats her eyes at you,” India teased him with the warning.
    “You’re a fine one to talk, you’ll spoil her rotten too.” Mikael laughed.
    “We’ll monitor each other, how does that sound?” India said.
    “What we’ll do is love our baby girl and treasure her,” Mikael said huskily. “We never got that from our parents and we’re going to be better than them.”
    “Gran said the same thing and damn straight we will,”