Page 23 of Make it a Double

I did it, anyway.

Just as I expected, the first few pages of results were old white men smiling in boardrooms or shaking hands. It wasn’t until I was about to move on to page four that something caught my eye.

The image was grainy, but I recognized the man in the photo without question. His eyes were recognizable, even if he looked a lot less happy than I recalled, but I was probably just imagining things. Goosebumps cropped up along my skin as I remembered the way he made me feel. How he touched me.

But all of that was quickly washed away by the fact that he had his arm wrapped around the waist of a petite blonde who looked like she could’ve been an actress. I bet she was. The image looked like it was from social media, so I clicked on the link and waited for the profile to load. It didn’t belong to him, and after a little bit of digging, I realized he wasn’t tagged.

It didn’t matter because I got what I needed in the caption. Going back to the browser, I typed in the name Beckett Montgomery, and voila. There he was.

The man I saw in the pictures was familiar, but so different. His smile wasn’t as full. That megawatt grin that I’d been a sucker for was nowhere to be seen. And the skin around his eyes wasn’t crinkled from laughter. It was so at odds with how he had stared down at me with such tenderness weeks ago.

This side of him was all business. His suit was clearly expensive and immaculately tailored. There was a Rolex on his wrist, and his leather loafers were polished. Not a single hair out of place or a wrinkle to be seen. In these photos, he rarely smiled, and if he did, it looked forced.

Even though I spent an entire night with the person on the screen, I still had no clue who Beckett Montgomery was. We obviously came from different worlds, but I hadn’t realized how different they truly were. I shared a beat-up 2005 Toyota Camry with my grams while he was shaking hands with the actual owner of Lamborghini.

His dad owned one of the biggest property development companies in the world. If the company biography on his website was to be believed, Beckett had been working for his dad since he graduated from college.

There was an irrational part of my brain that told me this could solve all my problems. If I could get ahold of him, I could tell him about the baby. I could ask for help. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but I was sure he wouldn’t want word to get out that he’d gotten someone like me pregnant. His family might’ve even paid me off to keep silent. They probably wouldn’t want some small town nobody showing up to ruin their son’s life. I was the kind of woman people like that kept a secret.

But the problem with people like that wasn’t what happened in the aftermath; it was getting in touch with them in the first place. From what I could tell, Beckett had no social media presence. The email listed on the website was likely monitored by one or more assistants who’d hit the delete button faster than I could blink.

The man came from money. And not just in a way that meant he was well off. No, Beckett came from a family of billionaires with a capital B. I was sure it wasn’t the first time a random woman tried to trap them in some kind of pregnancy scheme. I’d be willing to bet his family had a whole horde of lawyers at their disposal, ready to tear me apart for even suggesting the baby was Beckett’s.

Which meant I was right back where I started.

Completely and totally shit out of luck.

SAWYER

I walked into work on Monday morning bleary-eyed and worse for wear. My day off was a total waste. I’d only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep before my nausea kicked in. Then I had to pull myself from bed and trudge into Gram’s room to tell her that I needed to take her up on her offer to go to the store with Harold.

Not that she minded. She was there for a solid hour before his car ever left the driveway.

By the time I was finally able to keep some food down and finish the laundry, night had fallen, and I was ready to cry myself to sleep. It seemed much more productive than sending the email I’d typed out to Beckett, composed on a whim in-between a torrent of angry tears and violent hurling.

I wasn’t sure why I did it. I was never going to send it in the first place. Maybe I wanted to make myself feel better. By getting all my rage-fueled, pity-me thoughts down on paper—or email, rather—hopefully they wouldn’t haunt me anymore.

So far, it hadn’t worked, but I hadn’t completely given up hope yet.

Duke and Olivia smiled at one another, talking quietly, as I stepped inside the bar. I was woman enough to admit I was a little jealous of what they had. They looked so content. So in love. But they fought so hard for their happily-ever-after, and no one deserved it more than they did.

But I was about to fuck it all up.

“Hey,” Olivia called, looking up from her laptop. Her smile dropped as she took in my appearance for the first time. I tried my best to cover up the dark circles under my eyes with concealer. Clearly, I had not done a great job. “Oh, Sawyer. You look⁠—”

“Awful,” Duke finished for her. “Are you sick?”

“Didn’t sleep well,” I said sheepishly, putting my purse in the cubby. “I’m fine, though. I promise.”

Duke opened his mouth, but Olivia placed her hand on his. With pursed lips, he gave her a nod and cleared his throat. “I’m gonna head outside,” he announced. “To…work, or whatever.”

I watched as he awkwardly hurried past and out the back door. The moment he was gone, the tap of Olivia’s nails against the bartop brought my attention back to her. “Wanna sit with me?”

“Not really,” I mumbled, but went toward her anyway. I pulled out the stool next to her, sat down, and waited for her to tell me she was disappointed or worse… I was fired. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to check in with you,” she said. Her tone was soft. Understanding laced every word, making me want to break down right here and now. “See how you were feeling after the weekend.”

“Do I not look fully rested?” I tried to joke. To smile and pretend like I wasn’t absolutely dying on the inside while being put in the hot seat. It would all be so much easier that way if I could pull it off.