AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Amara was a good woman, and I knew if I pressed, if I asked, she’d give me time with my child.
But I didn’t wanttime. I wantedherand the baby and the family I’d dreamed of having for as long as I could remember. I wanted to introduce her to the man and woman sitting here with me, proud to call them my parents, proud to call Amara my everything,proud that they would soon have a grandchild. I wanted Amara’s entire crazy family to become mine.
I wanted a life with her—the entire thing, from now until we took our last breaths.
I just had to find a way to make that dream a reality.
The emergency board meetinghad been exactly the shit show I’d anticipated. After having my showdown with Cal, I expected to feel better. I expected the anxious weight that had settled on my chest over keeping my pregnancy secret from him to be lifted now that he knew.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.
The meeting had been a week and a half ago, and I was still struggling to come to terms with all I’d lost.
I loved the man, so sue me. I may not like him right now, but that didn’t magically turn off my feelings. It would take a while to stop caring about him, especially since the baby growing in my womb was half him.
Every time I settled a hand on my abdomen—which remained flat for the moment—I was reminded that Cal and I weren’t over. At the very least, we’d have to come to some sort of co-parenting agreement, and I dreaded the day I’d have to see him again.
Not because I didn’t want to see him, but because I was afraid when I did, I’d throw myself at his feet and beg him to forgive me for acting crazy.
But there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. What was done, was done, and I had a company to run. I could think of nothing I wanted more than to bury myself in work, and when Owen texted asking if he could come in for a meeting, I jumped at the opportunity, equal parts curious about what he wanted and desperate to pick his brain about how Cal was doing.
Owen arrived twenty minutes later, and I welcomed him into my office with a hug and kiss on the cheek.
“It’s good to see you, kid,” he said as he dropped onto my cushy leather couch.
I groaned as I padded across the room. “I hate when you call me that.”
“I know you do,” he said with a wide grin. “Why do you think I do it?”
“You’re not that old, you know.”
“Please,” he said with a snort. “I’m pushing forty.”
“Thirty-seven isnotforty,” I said. “And let’s be real, you look damn good for your age.”
“You hitting on me?”
I grinned as I approached the drink cart. “Just stating fact.”
It was so easy to fall back into this banter with him. The reason we’d managed to stay friends after our physical relationship ended was because we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company—even if, that summer, we hadn’t enjoyed it muchbeyondthe sex. But once the sex had fizzled, once I’d moved away and he’d continued to expand his empire here, we’d kept in touch. He’d text me occasionally, checking in and picking my brain about his random business ventures. I’d send him pictures of soccer matches I’d attend, teasing him about it being “real football.”
Being friends with Owen was easy because, when we took sex out of the equation, we learned we actually had a lot in common and made far more sense as friends than we ever did as lovers.
“You want a drink?” I asked.
“Bourbon,” he said. “Whatever you’ve got.”
I poured him two fingers of Four Roses and filled a glass of water for myself.
He raised a brow. “You’re not drinking?”
“I can’t,” I said as I handed him his tumbler and took a seat across from him.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” I settled a hand on my belly. “Great, actually.”
“Ho-ly shit. You’re not…”
