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I suppose if I had favorites when I was little, I definitely have favorites now when it comes to the new babies. Andra and Abby are more friends now than just nieces with them being teenagers. I love Tessa, Emma, Elsee, and Everlee to pieces, but Johnnie and Carly’s little Ruthie has an extra special place in my heart.
She’ll only be twenty-two months when the new baby arrives, but her personality is so adorable already. If you wake that poor girl from her nap, be prepared is all I can say.
It’s not really that surprising that Ruthie’s my favorite though, not with Carly being her mom. She was a year behind me in school, but we took English Lit together and she helped me power my way through it. I wasn’t a rock star in school by far, but I did okay in everything except for English.
When we came home to meet Johnnie’s new girlfriend, I was shocked to find Carly there, but so happy and glad that Johnnie helped keep her safe. I met her dad a couple times when I went over to her place to work on our term papers together, and he seemed slimy to me. Especially since Carly told me that he didn’t like her going to other people’s houses, which was why we always went to hers.
Seeing them together, it was clear that the Cartwrights definitely fell hard and fast. I really want to experience that for myself. I just feel like it’ll never happen and it’s making me hate being a romantic.
I turn the corner, my feet faltering a step finding the hottest man I’ve ever seen heading my way, his hand is wrapped around a little girl’s, while my heart runs away from me.
Holy shit…not like this, I groan silently as my entire body tingles. I so do not need to be attracted to a married man—a married father no less.
I love kids, want them, will take them however they come into my life, but really…this? I’m not a homewrecker—no matter how much I want to slip my hand into his free one and never let go suddenly.
Chapter 2
Adam
Based on reviews, this place is the best at putting together parties, and that’s what I desperately need. Cleo’s tenth birthday is in a few weeks, and with everything’s that’s happened the last two years, I need to do something to make her happy.
I’m nowhere near to being a perfect parent. Shit, until five years ago, I barely even knew Cleo. She’s my sister’s daughter and we didn’t have the best relationship. She lived out of town when she had Cleo. I was busy with the company here, so we didn’t socialize much—at all really. I got the occasional photo or FaceTime, but that was really it.
Then I got a call from Marcy that changed everything. She was diagnosed with stomach cancer and our mother wasn’t being helpful when it came to watching Cleo while she was having treatments. I offered for them to come stay with me, hired a nanny to also help out, which was a huge mistake.
After going through five in less than two years, we decided to just get a housekeeper who was older but could keep an eye on Cleo when she got home from school if Marcy wasn’t feeling well or was at the hospital.
Two years ago in January, she passed away, leaving guardianship of Cleo to me. Her father ran for the hills the second Marcy told him she was pregnant, so there was no one else to take her. Our mother wasn’t the warm and caring sort, so her taking in a heartbroken seven-year-old was not going to happen.
I haven’t spoken to or seen the woman since I came back to town almost sixteen years ago, taking over Thompson Manufacturing when my father passed away. I’d just finished college, hadn’t intended to even take a job at the company, but when my father died, I was worried what would happen to everyone else that worked there.
My parents had an awful relationship. They were both cold, with each other, with me and Marcy, and I never wanted that type of relationship.
I was thirteen when they divorced after my father’s umpteenth affair. It wasn’t his first by a longshot, but it was the first that my mother cared enough about to leave him over. I understood it back then. He did cheat on her with the woman she thought was her best friend, the woman that’d been our godmother.
We left town and I rarely saw my father unless he came out to visit. Coming back here to his company, well, my mother felt that was a betrayal and cut off contact with me.
I said the hell with it and dove headfirst into the job, determined to do better than my father if I ever met a woman I could see myself with at balancing work and family. Coming up on sixteen years later now and I’m still single, haven’t met a single woman that I’d want to take out more than once, let alone bring into Cleo’s life.
I love that little girl more than anything, would love to be able to be the parent she needs, but I don’t have a clue how to do it. I’m failing epically hence us coming to Celebrations by Jas.
My sweet niece has been moping around ever since she learnt she wasn’t invited to any of the birthday parties for the girls in her class. I guess they were talking about one that just happened while having indoor recess because of the rain on Monday, and she overheard all of the girls going on and on about how fun it was. Which prompted one of the others to say her party this coming weekend was going to be even better.
I hate that Cleo’s being left out, especially being the only one that’s left out. I guess that’s what I get for not showing up to any of their class events, letting the other parents know I’m the Thompson of Thompson Manufacturing and Cleo is mine now.
I’m sure a lot of them would gravitate towards her if I pulled that card, but I know how fake those people can be, and don’t want Cleo to deal with that either. At this point, I’m wondering if sending her to another private school would be better for next year.
I paid for her to attend a private preschool and grade school up until the end of last year. There was an issue with a woman there that the staff wasn’t doing anything to resolve, making Cleo scared to even go to school.
How they could let that woman continue to volunteer when she was scaring Cleo I can’t begin to understand. And the police…they were no help whatsoever. One of them threatened me with a restraining order if I spoke to the nut again even.
I sat Cleo down at the end of the year, asking if she wanted to go to a different school for fourth grade. She threw herself into my arms, hugging my neck so tight I thought she was going to hurt her arms. Her yes and the tears were all it took, and I had the ball rolling to get her into the public school when she said she didn’t want to wear another uniform.
It was Marcy that’d wanted her to go to a private school, so I did what a good uncle who could afford it would do and paid for it to comfort my sister. Cleo’s safety and wellbeing are more important than Marcy’s desires for a private education, and in this instance, the public school was safer than the private with that woman freely walking around it.
Cleo’s eyes widen as I push open the door, a smile I haven’t seen in a while on her face as she looks around what at first glance, looks like a furniture showroom. Upon closer inspection, I can see the spaces are set up to resemble rooms decorated for parties, and I’m honestly impressed.
I glance around, looking for someone, then head towards the sign that says office when no one immediately comes out to meet us. A woman turns the corner, a smile on her face as she sees Cleo, and my heart nearly pounds out of my chest when she turns her attention over to me. She’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and all of me wants to get to know her better.
