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“Beast?” Mia said softly, her hand grasping my arm.
Swallowing with difficulty, I tore my gaze away from the baby to shift to her.
“It’s time to hold our daughter, Barrick.”
“Wh-what if I break her?” I rasped, voicing my fear. “She looks so tiny. I might hurt her.”
“Momma,” Mia said without taking her eyes off me.
Suddenly, a chair was beside me, and Nik was pushing me into it. I hadn’t even realized he’d transferred the baby to his wife until she was standing beside me, rocking the little bundle like an expert. Watching her, I began to sweat again. My hands swung up, ready to catch the baby in case Emmie dropped her.
“Take a deep breath, son,” Nik instructed. “The first time is always scary as hell, but you’ll become a pro in no time, I promise.”
Emmie slowly lowered her arms, ready to place the baby in my hands, and a whimper escaped me. “W-wait,” I pleaded, but she was already extracting her hands out from under mine. Awkwardly, I shifted, trying not to jostle the baby.
What if I held her too tight and broke her in half?
I couldn’t do this.
I was too big, too destructive, to hold something as precious as this baby, and then Emerson made a cooing noise and yawned. Her eyes opened—eyes that took up most of her face. Just like her momma’s. The rest of the world slipped away, and all I saw were those eyes. They pulled me in, and I felt myself drowning in them. Love squeezed at my chest, choking me.
“Hello, Little Em,” I murmured, adjusting my hold without realizing it. The fear was there, just beneath the surface, but it was hard to focus on something as trivial as that when I was looking into the face of the most beautiful creature I’d ever set eyes on in my life. “I’m your daddy.”
She yawned again and slowly closed her eyes, but the damage was done. I was already hooked, my entire being wrapped around this little girl’s finger so tight that nothing could ever untangle me.
The world as I knew it was never going to be the same again.
~The End~
Book 2
Chapter 1
Nevaeh
I tugged nervously at the hem of my skirt while Braxton opened the restaurant door. I’d been to plenty of charity and red-carpet events, had had far too many cameras and microphones shoved in my face to count. A lifetime exposed to the elements that came with being a celebrity’s offspring made it close to impossible to experience the feeling of nervousness in front of a crowd.
Yet there I was, so nervous I couldn’t keep from trembling as we entered the noisy 3-star Michelin restaurant in downtown DC. I’d graduated from college the previous weekend, and Braxton had proposed right after the ceremony. We were only in the area for a few more days, finishing up with packing and getting everything else sorted. But since Mom was already in wedding planning mode with Aunt Emmie, we still had one major thing that we needed to do before we made the move to California.
In all the years I’d known Brax, and the months since we’d started dating, not a single time had I met either of his parents. Mostly because he was estranged from them. They hadn’t condoned his enlisting in the Marines and were even more upset when he’d lost his leg while on deployment. Then there had been the whole diabolical incident of the Collinses announcing their son was marrying Darcy Hamilton, his high school girlfriend.
That shit had nearly cost us our relationship, but thankfully, my dad had made me see things from a different perspective and give Braxton another chance. It was only later that we found out Darcy really was pregnant, and Braxton’s father was the baby’s daddy. That the older Collins had attempted to push his child with his mistress off on his son was beyond mind-blowing.
After it was confirmed from the tail Brax had put on Darcy, he’d allowed his cousin Lyla to do whatever she wanted with the information and pictures. She had yet to do anything with them, however, and Braxton seemed to have forgotten all about it.
At least until Mom and Daddy had mentioned all of us having dinner together so that we could officially be introduced. What with Braxton and me getting married in August, it seemed only right for the two sets of parents to meet. I’d wanted to argue—not only did I not want to put my fiancé through having to see his parents again, but I wasn’t all too thrilled to meet them either. The last I’d heard about the supposed wedding plans Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Hamilton had been arranging for their children, they had both been enraged.
According to Lyla, who got the details from a rare phone call from her own mother, her sister—Braxton’s mother—was furious. To them, I was the other woman and the sole reason why Braxton had “turned his back on Darcy and their unborn child.” Not only had I ruined a wedding, but apparently I was keeping a father from his own child.
My parents knew a little about what had happened before my dad’s life-saving liver transplant, but I hadn’t told them the full extent of the Collinses’ dislike of me. I was hoping Belinda Collins would have seen reason in the months since Braxton had called and told her straight up that there wasn’t going to be a wedding between him and Darcy. As for Miles Collins, I had little doubt he knew that we were aware of his secret life and his impending second fatherhood.
As far as I knew, there hadn’t been any announcements in the society pages regarding the canceled wedding plans. Which made me think everyone was simply waiting for Braxton to come to his senses and dump me before moving forward with the wedding.
The news that Braxton and I were not only getting married, but he was also moving to California with me, was probably not going to go over well at all.
My parents had texted to let me know they were already seated, so we bypassed the hostess stand. Braxton kept his hand at the small of my back, guiding me past full tables and busy waitstaff. It wasn’t hard to miss which table was intended for us, especially when nearly every eye in the place was on the man kissing his wife like his life depended on it.
Groaning, I stopped beside the table. My embarrassed sound didn’t deter the make-out session between the older couple. Sighing, I looked up at Braxton imploringly. Grinning, he cleared his throat, loudly. That only had Daddy gently grasping the back of Mom’s head and deepening the kiss.
