poster thanks to Sooheelocker of sooheelocker poster request shop!!

Chapter 11

The three minutes they spent waiting for the results of the pregnancy test were the longest three minutes of his life. At least Dara put the test down in the bathroom and joined him outside of it so they could wait together. He knew it wasn't possible, but he thought he must have held his breath the whole time. Once his watch beeped that the time was up, Dara went in to retrieve the test. When she came out of the bathroom, she looked slightly disappointed. She showed it to him. There was a line in one window and a cross in the other.

"Doesn't the cross mean it's positive?" he asked her, unable to keep the frown off his face.

"Yup," she said with a grin. "I’m pregnant. Congratulations, you're going to be a dad."

Words escaped him, but then when it came to Dara, the words always escaped him. He picked her up in his arms and twirled her around. She laughed and laughed until she told him to put her down because she was going to be sick.

Jiyong had never been happier. He could hardly believe that it had happened so soon. The best part for him, other than the fact that he was expecting to be a father, was that Dara seemed happy about it. She was as excited as he was that they were becoming parents and he found her enthusiasm just added to his own. It was early days yet, and they had a long way to go but he was over the moon.

Over the next few weeks her morning sickness worsened.

"It should be called all-day sickness," he'd grumbled more than once, since it never seemed like it was just the mornings where she was feeling ill.

Whenever he said that she would just smile at him and tell him that it was all going to be worth it. He knew it was true but it really took its toll on him seeing her so sick. He did everything he could to help, but it was easy to feel useless. What was ridiculous to him was that she was the one reassuring him that she was okay and everything was going well with the pregnancy. His wife was like no-one else he'd ever met.

He'd finally figured out that he was in love with her. For him it wasn't like one of those moments in the movies where the guy has a sudden epiphany and finally knows it without a doubt; no, it was a gradual awareness of what he'd been feeling all this time. Ever since Dara had opened up and told him how she felt about him, he wasn't trying to repress his own feelings and he allowed himself a little bit more time to think about what it was he was feeling. If he had to guess he would actually say he had loved her for some time. His feelings had been very deep since the beginning, and they had kept growing. He knew now those feelings were love.

Things were perfect between them, and he really wanted to tell her he loved her. She deserved to hear it. She was so patient with him, so understanding and so considerate that he never felt any pressure from her, but there was an internal pressure that was driving him to distraction. It was like he knew what he wanted to say, but he couldn't get the words to come out of his mouth. There had been so many perfect opportunities in the last three weeks to confess his undying love, but something was still holding him back and he didn't know what it was. Why couldn't he just say it? Why did he get a lump in his throat every time he went to tell her?

He puzzled over these questions as the two of them dressed for the ball. Dara had had her makeup and hair done downstairs earlier and now he helped her into her dress. He liked the dress. It was a royal blue gown with silver embroidery under the bust line and down the middle of the corset as well as around the skirt itself. She had blue matching gloves and a matching jacket. The only problem with the dress was that once he had her zipped up in it, he wanted to get her straight out of it again.

"Jiyong," she breathed, as he nuzzled her neck, kissing just under her ear.

"You look far too good in this," he told her. "You know blue is my favorite color."

"I do," she said, "that's why I chose it."

"So you are trying to drive me out of my mind."

She gave him a rather wicked look. "I may have thought about it once or twice."

Her words excited him. "If we don't leave now, we may not make it out the door at all."

"I'm not opposed to enjoying you all night in bed."

He groaned. Her libido matched his perfectly.

"I have to go to this, so for the first part of tonight you're only going to get to enjoy my dancing," he told her, wishing it wasn't the case at all.

"I suppose that's okay. Just remember when we're out there dancing that we could have been doing something else instead," she said, with a saucy smile.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling as she walked out of the room. She'd said that deliberately to keep him all night. It worked. As he twirled her around the ballroom floor, all he could think about was how they could have been doing the horizontal tango in bed.

Dara laughed as she and Jiyong spun around the dance floor. She loved the fact that she had so much fun with him, and it helped that he was an exceptional dancer. Her man could move; in bed, out of bed, on the dance floor. She was also enjoying the fact that he wanted her. His lust for her was written all over his face, and as much as she wasn't proud to admit it, his need for her ually gave her a sense of security. She'd thought so many times over the past few weeks that he'd been going to tell her he loved her, but the words hadn't come and she was blaming the pregnancy hormones for making her feel a tad insecure. Keeping him interested ually was easing some of that insecurity and when they were intimate she felt as if he did love her.

Around an hour after they'd arrived, Sohee entered the ballroom. Dara felt apprehensive about how Jiyong would handle it, but to his credit, Jiyong barely did more than look up briefly as she made her entrance. Dara thought Sohee's date looked a little old for her, but he was still handsome. Grudgingly she admitted that Sohee herself looked stunning in a black gown. The gown looked a little short for this type of event, but Jiyong's ex-girlfriend made it look classy.

Luckily Sohee and her date stayed on the other side of the floor to them and eventually Dara relaxed enough to stop checking on their location, and started to enjoy herself again. After much dancing, and socializing in which she met many of Jiyong's acquaintances, she excused herself to go to the ladies.

As she washed her hands at the basin, she was joined by Jiyong's ex-girlfriend. Luckily, it wasn't Sohee.

"Hi Dara," Park Bom said. Both the smile and the voice were friendly, so Dara decided she might just be okay.

"Hi Bom." Dara was hoping to avoid one of those awkward conversations that people have when they don't know each other very well, but Bom chatted away easily and soon the two girls found themselves laughing away together.

"I was so mad when he broke up with me," Bom told her.

"I'm sorry,' Dara said.

"That's okay. Jiyong loves you."

Dara didn't want to correct her.

"I see the way he looks at you. Jiyong never looked at me like that, but then Jiyong never loved me. Sohee, that total stuck-up , really screwed him up. I wanted him to love me, but he never could. Then I dated Jaejoong for a month. Can you believe that bastard cheated on me?"

"Yes," Dara said. "Yes, I can believe that."

"Seung Hyun though, he's a real sweetie. In fact I think he might even love me. I think I might love him."

Bom had a far away look in her eye and a large grin on her face that had Dara grinning back at her.

"You know, we should go and get some champagne and introduce Seung Hyun and Jiyong to each other," she suggested, her voice full of excitement.

While Bom was nice, Dara thought it might be a bit too soon for that sort of thing.

"I can't drink champagne," Dara told her, trying to politely decline.

"Why not?"

Dara was searching for an excuse when Bom guessed.

"Oh my God, you're pregnant aren't you?" she practically squealed.

Dara didn't bother to deny it because she couldn't stop her own answering grin. Bom jumped up and down and hugged her. The girl was so excited one might have thought she was the one who was pregnant.

"You two are going to have such cute babies. Have you thought of any names yet? Are you hoping for a boy or a girl? Are you going to find out the ?"

Dara laughed at her enthusiasm. "It's still early days, Bom. We're just taking it one day at a time."

"I know, it's just…"

When Bom broke off mid sentence and stared past her, Dara turned around to see who she was looking at.

"Hello, Bom," Sohee said as she sauntered towards both of them.

"Hi," Bom mumbled.

Had Sohee been listening to their entire conversation? Dara hadn't seen her enter the bathroom, so she must have. Had she heard Bom call her a ? She kind of hoped so.

This was Dara's moment to tell Sohee exactly what she thought of her and the atrocious way she'd treated her husband, but faced with the enemy, she found herself completely speechless.

"I don't think we've met," Sohee said to her, as she washed her hands.

"This is Kwon Sandara," Bom told her proudly.

"Jiyong's wife," Sohee said with an eyebrow raised. She stepped back a little and very blatantly examined Dara from head to toe. "Did I hear you're pregnant, Sandara?" Sohee asked her now.

She couldn't very well deny it if Sohee had heard everything. "Yes," she told her.

"Well congratulations. Jiyong has wanted a child for a very long time. It's nice to know he found himself a breeding cow."

"Excuse me," Bom said, outraged on Dara's behalf. "She'd kick your if she wasn't pregnant."

Sohee laughed. "I'd like to see her try."

Dara was very tempted to try, but instead settled for using her favorite weapon of choice; words.

"I'm not a breeding cow, as you so delightfully put it, Sohee; and having a baby is something very special. Not that I'd expect you to understand. Taking care of someone else is beyond your comprehension and abilities."

"Snap," Bom said, clicking her fingers at the same time.

Sohee did not look amused. She walked right up to Dara.

"You think you're better than me? Hmm. Is that it?"

Dara took a step back. "I think Jiyong deserved better than what you did to him."

"Double snap," Bom said, clicking her fingers twice.

Both Dara and Sohee glared at her. "Sorry," Bom mumbled.

"Well," Sohee said, "I'm sure Jiyong appreciates you standing up for him, bu