Page 77 of Afterglow

“There’s no pressure, and even if you’d rather not stay the weekend, I do have something to show you at the house.” His eyes are earnest, open, and hopeful.

Maybe this will be what I need to figure out what the hell I want. At the very least, it can’t hurt… right? I nod, absorbing the warmth from his fingers against my cheek and lean into it. “Okay. Let me tell Vivian I’m taking off a little early and we can go get lunch.”

His smile grows and he crushes me in another hug. This one feels like more, and I hope I can withstand the desire for exactly that while I’m cooped up with him in his cozy house all weekend—long enough to figure out what I want and what he wants anyway.

“So, where to?” Bryce asks as we walk out the front of my building. We’ve had a dry week, so the sidewalks are clear of snow, but the temperature is frigid… or it would be if I weren’t essentially an oven.

I’m always hot and having to layer on sweaters and jackets is making me crazy with these late-January temperatures. I have my jacket hanging open, my baby bump on full display under my tight sweater, and am enjoying the cool air swirling through the fabric.

“What if we did something other than Whiskey Ditch for a change?” I ask, and he raises his eyebrows in feigned shock.

“And ruin our streak of having grilled cheese almost every week?” he asks, chuckling. He’s not wrong, we have an absurdly long streak going with Whiskey Ditch. They know us both on sight now.

I reach for his gloved hand, twining my fingers through his. “I was thinking we could get Italian instead. There’s a place down the street, so we don’t have to drive.”

“Sounds good to me,” he says, then pulls me into his side with a kiss to the top of my head.

There’s a quiet peace between us as we walk down the street, heads down against the biting chill of the breeze. The tranquil moment is broken when we approach the doors of the restaurant, however, and a couple barrels out, colliding with us at full speed.

I get knocked sideways, the heel of my boot turning under my foot so I have to cling to Bryce’s arm to keep from falling. He grabs for me, pulling me flush against him, and for a split second, I get lost in his coffee brown eyes. At least until I hear my name—but it’s not from Bryce’s lips.

“Leanne?”

My head whips to the side, drawn by a voice I’m familiar with in the worst way.

Craig stands there, hand in hand with a woman I know used to be his secretary—or maybe she still is, considering he releases hers like it burned him.

“What are you—” he begins, but when I step back from Bryce, his eyes travel over my body in a way I used to love but now makes me queasy—until they stop on my stomach and nearly bulge out of his head. “Are you…? Are you pregnant?”

His tone is incredulous, and I pick out a sliver of anger.

Where the hell does he get off being mad?

Bryce wraps his arm more tightly around my shoulder and pulls me in against his side in response. “Who’s this?” he asks, tone level but lethal in its preciseness.

“I’m Craig. And who the hell are you?” Craig spits back, assessing Bryce with a look of revulsion. What an asshole.

“This”—Bryce jerks his head in Craig’s direction, brows raised in question—“is Craig?” There’s almost a hint of laughter under his words, like he finds Craig funny… comical even.

And to be honest, Craig is such a different man compared to Bryce that I’m not surprised he finds their lack of similarities amusing. Bryce is tall and broad—dark, brooding, and imposing. Craig is… well, Craig looks very much like a man made to sit in a corner office. His tailored suit is pressed to perfection, his short, light brown hair is matted in place with pomade, there’s barely a five-o’clock shadow on his face, and his nails are manicured.

“Mhm. This is Craig,” I say, giving nothing else away as I refrain from grimacing at having to say his name. His secretary, or whatever she is to him now, is standing awkwardly, watching our interaction with her hands pushed into her pockets.

“But…” Craig looks at my protruding stomach again, which prompts Bryce to drop his arm to my waist, wrapping his hand around to splay across it possessively. “You can’t get pregnant.”

My spine stiffens. Those words in his voice bring back memories I want to leave in the past. I won’t go back there. “Turns out I can.” A glare forms, along with white-hot anger bubbling under my skin, and Bryce’s hand flexes against me. “Looks like I wasn’t the faulty one.” There’s a smug smirk on Bryce’s lips when I glance up and he’s not even attempting to hide it.

“Excuse me?” Craig’s outrage has color rising in his cheeks and his hands fisting at his sides. “And again I ask, who the hell are you?” Craig snarls at Bryce, whose small snicker didn’t go unnoticed, before turning his ire on me. “What did you do, Leanne? Go out and fuck the first guy you could find?”

My mouth drops open and my emotions—always so close to the surface these days—betray me when angry tears well in my eyes. I’ve never heard Craig talk like this. Even the night he ended things and called me faulty, his words didn’t carry the same cruel edge they do now.

“How dare you,” I seethe, pulling against Bryce’s hold with a desire to lunge at him, but Bryce makes his move first.

He steps forward, putting himself between me and Craig, and squares his shoulders. Standing at his fullest height, he speaks with a fierce calmness that would make a lesser man cower. And Craig is definitely a lesser man. “You’ll watch the way you speak to the mother of my child.”

Craig has the common sense to take a hefty step back. Bryce has at least five inches on him and a solid fifty pounds of muscle too.

“And to clear things up,” Bryce states with perfect control, “I’m the boyfriend and the father.”