by Leslie North
Nostrils flaring, she spun toward the front door and stalked away. Only when the door slammed shut did Brian heave the sigh of relief he’d been keeping in.
That felt like step one.
Now he just had to figure out what step two was.
Humming to himself, he went to the stove and turned it back on. He finished cooking the pancakes, poured himself a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, and checked his phone. Lunch with his family still seemed like a great idea. And without Felicia at his side, it sounded ideal.
Brian took his time getting ready and blasted music as he made the twenty-minute drive to his mom’s house in South Bay. When he pulled into the long, shaded driveway of the small mansion he’d purchased for her about six years back, he saw that his sister and brother had already arrived. He whistled to himself, tossing his keys in the air, as he strode to the front door. He grinned at the welcome mat. Welcome indeed.
Inside, the house was clamorous with the shouts of his brother reprimanding the kids while his sister Meghan egged them on. As a childless kids’ doctor, she loved the unique position it gave her to rile up her niece and nephew while claiming innocence through the biological need for play. Already, it put a smile on Brian’s face.
“Hey, guys,” Brian boomed when he stepped into the kitchen. To his left, the kids were racing through the living room. To his right, his mother and Meghan were organizing the fridge.
“Hello, honey,” his mother cooed, stopping what she was doing to grab his face with both hands so she could plant a big kiss on Brian’s forehead. “We’re just getting ready to set the table.”
“Yeah, how many place settings should I use?” Meghan asked, sending Brian a wink. She looked over his shoulder. “You know. Because of your…guest?”
Realization crashed through him. He’d told his family he’d be bringing a surprise visitor. Hadn’t mentioned that it would be Felicia, though he suspected his sister had assumed it would be Connie. Here began the awkwardness.
“It’s actually just me today.” Brian grimaced as a very concerned look passed between Meghan and their mom. A moment later, his younger brother Daniel came into the kitchen, face flushed from chasing his kids.
“Hey, Brian,” he said, hands poised on his hips as he tried to catch his breath. “So where is she?”
Brian sighed tersely. “There is no ‘she.’ I came alone.” When Meghan tsked, he added, “I didn’t think that would be such a disappointment.”
“You should have brought Goth Barbie,” Meghan said, stamping her foot.
“Excuse me?”
“You know who I mean. The one who came over to your apartment when I was there.” Meghan wouldn’t mention the pregnancy, since Brian still hadn’t told their extended family. And might never. “She’s the cutest alternative Barbie doll,” Meghan told their mom.
“Well, that sounds interesting.”
“She and I aren’t together,” Brian said.
“It sounds like you should be,” his mom cut in. “Especially if your sister thinks so.”
Brian frowned. Meghan had always been notoriously picky for both of her brothers. Daniel’s wife Tara was the first—and perhaps only—woman that Meghan had given the green light to. The fact that she was rooting for Connie would stand out to their mother.
“She wasn’t even supposed to come today,” Brian said. “Felicia is—”
“Is a twat,” Meghan finished.
“Hey, language,” Daniel cautioned, but he was grinning.
“What would you like me to help with, Mom?” Brian tried to divert the conversation, but it was hopeless. He knew his sister too well. “Plates?”
“Yes, dear. Go ahead and set the table. Now who is Felicia?”
“Typical love triangle of the rich and famous,” Daniel said quietly.
“Hey. Language,” Brian teased back at him.
“She’s some rich bitch Brian was seeing,” Meghan said as she removed a big casserole dish from the oven. Tuna noodle casserole—Brian’s favorite. Way better than the pity pancake he’d eaten that morning.
“She and I shared business interests,” Brian said, setting down seven plates at the big oak table in the dining room. “We were going to get married.”
“Going to? But no longer?” Meghan asked.
“I think so,” Brian said with a sigh. “It’s just doesn’t feel right.”
“Why’s that, honey?” their mom asked.
Brian was quiet as he thought it over, studiously arranging the forks and knives at each place. The shrieks of his niece and nephew filled the house—and his heart. They darted through the kitchen, chasing each other, their wild laughter contagious. Brian looked up to see Daniel shaking his head fondly.
“Well, if you don’t get married and have kids of your own, maybe you can adopt mine,” Daniel said.
“I’ll stick to uncle duty,” Brian mused, but his chest tightened. Meghan sent him a meaningful look. One that cut through to his core.
“Do you ever want kids someday?” Meghan asked loudly, sending Brian an extremely pointed look. She brought over the casserole dish, setting it on top of a trivet. “I mean, have you ever thought about being a father? You know, like getting someone pregnant and then being a dad?”
Brian worked his jaw back and forth. To the rest of her family, it just sounded like Meghan being Meghan. Only he knew the jabs beneath her words.
“Yes, actually.” Brian sniffed, straightening the last knife. Each place setting gleamed. Except…he’d forgotten the cloth napkins. He headed back into the kitchen to grab them.
“Why don’t you want to marry Felicia?” his mom asked.
“And why won’t you be with Connie?” Meghan asked, stepping between him and their mother, her hands on her hips.
He loved his family enough that the intense inquiry didn’t push him away. It was almost amusing, in a way.
“I’m working on it,” he said to Meghan. “And Mom, it’s just taken me some time to realize some things.”
“Like what, dear?” His mom tugged off her apron, grabbing for a plate of deviled eggs.
His entire body prickled, desperate to share his news. He didn’t think he’d be so eager to share it. But being here, surrounded by his family, the happy voices of his niece and nephew echoing through the halls…it was hard not to be excited. Even if there was still so much left to be resolved, he knew one thing: he wanted to be a father. To this baby. Not to Felicia’s. Not sometime in the future. Now.
He already knew Felicia wouldn’t have any of it. That this decision would nullify all the others they’d made together. But now…after the morning he’d had…to hell with it.
“I’m going to be a father,” Brian said simply, offering a smile to his mother. Meghan tilted her head to the side, letting out a dreamy sigh.
“Oh, Branny,” she murmured, pulling Brian into a hug. Into his ear, she whispered, “You did the right thing.”
“Are you kidding?” shrieked their mother.
“Shut the heck up,” Daniel chided.
“Let me guess—it’s not Felicia’s,” their mother went on.
“You dirty dog,” Daniel said, grabbing at his shoulders.
“It’s the goth Barbie’s,” Meghan gushed, balling her hands in front of her face. She jumped up and down. “I’m already the pediatrician. Right, Brian?” She pushed at his shoulder, which prompted a laugh. If being open about the pregnancy felt this good…he wished he had told them at the beginning. “Right?”
“Right,” he confirmed, unable to fight the cheek-hurting grin. “You’re the pediatrician.”
“Well, you better bring around Little Miss Knocked Up,” their mother said, sashaying into the dining room with the cloth napkins. “Because we have some old pictures to look at.”
16
Connie jolted when a knock sounded on her front door. Urgent, and loud. Like the apartment building was burning down and she hadn’t noticed yet.
She pushed up from the couch where she’d
been watching a Doctor Who episode. She paused it before waddling over to the door. Her jaw dropped after she peered through the peephole.
It was freaking Brian.
She pulled the door open, mind swirling with confusion and relief. The relief was the most frustrating part of it all, though. Like her body physically relaxed when he was near. “Brian? What are you doing here?”
“May I come in?” His dark blue eyes swirled with emotions she didn’t recognize. He didn’t look happy. This was probably bad news.
“Sure.” She stepped aside, and he came in. Once she shut the door behind him and turned, he was right there. He grabbed the sides of her arms, the heat from his hands practically scorching her.
“What’s the big—”
“Connie, please forgive me. For everything. But especially for choosing Felicia over you.”
Her mouth flapped lamely for a few moments as she struggled to make sense of his words. It was what she’d dreamt of hearing from him. But somehow, now that the words had arrived, they didn’t piece together. “What—”
“I’ve been a shithead. I want to be the father of our baby. I do. And I’m going to make sure that I’m here for you. For our baby. Even if it means giving up the rest of it.”
She blinked rapidly, her heart processing his words faster than her mind. Tears pressed at the corners of her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m backing out of the agreement with Felicia. I’ve already told her. It’s in process.”
Connie pressed two fingers to her lips. “So is this why Felicia texted me the other day, offering to pay me off to just get the hell out of dodge?”
Brian’s face tightened. “Are you serious?”
Connie nodded. At first she’d thought the incoming text had been one of those spam offers for low priced health care, but it had been Felicia. Offering a very high sum of money to just disappear and start over somewhere else. “She said she wanted to make a clean start with you but couldn’t if I was in the picture.”
Brian sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “Yeah, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about my decision. But then again, I’ve never been exactly thrilled about her.”
“Me neither,” Connie said. “With what she did to that code before your acquisition, you could probably sue her, you know.”
Brian shook his head. “That would put her in my orbit for even longer. I’d much rather pay to make her go away. Then I can focus on the things that matter.”
Connie couldn’t fight the grin. “So you mean you won’t just come to my birth classes and then ditch after the baby is born?”
A dark looked crossed his face, as though her words had hurt him. “No. I would never. I couldn’t have gone through with it.” He looked up toward the ceiling, as though pleading with the heavens. “I barely recognize who I’ve been recently. And I promise, that will change.”
Giddiness burbled up inside her. The money-obsessed multi-millionaire could also have morals.
“Well, I don’t know anyone else but who you are now,” Connie said simply. And it was true. He’d been her boss first; then lover; then estranged, distantly interested baby daddy. This was whole new territory for both of them.
“I’d like to be someone else to you, too,” he said, jerking his gaze up to meet hers. Uncertainty swirled there. “If you’ll let me.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” She fought the grin threatening to split her face in two. He pulled her into a hug and they started a slow sway. “My landlord? Or maybe my housekeeper?”
“Nope. Cold. Keep guessing.”
“You’d like to be my accountant?”
He laughed. “Still cold.”
“My friend?”
“Getting warmer.”
“My confidante.”
Brian’s breath appeared at the tip of her ear. “Warmer.”
“My…bedfellow?”
He laughed in the way that she loved. The way that Felicia had probably never elicited from him. And then he dragged his lips down to her earlobe. “Hot.”
“My lover.”
“Yes.” His voice came out a hiss at her ear, then he placed a soft kiss on her neck. “But that’s not all.”
“Okay, so you want to be my lover and my accountant.”
He cupped the sides of her face in his hands. She’d never seen him so open. So honest. Like he’d been cracked open from head to toe and the real Brian could spill out.
“Please be with me, Connie,” he whispered, the honesty in his words threatening to undo her. “I knew it from the second we hooked up. You are unlike any other woman I’ve ever met. And you’re the only woman I want to be with.”
She swallowed a knot of emotion, tears clouding her eyes as she searched his face. “Even though I don’t have a billion dollars?”
“Especially because you don’t have a billion dollars.” His warm hand smoothed over her hair. “My sister called you Goth Barbie. I want to be with Goth Barbie.”
“Ginger Ken and Goth Barbie,” she said, suddenly shaking with laughter. “Oh, it’s too good. What will you do about Felicia’s business? I thought you’d already signed. That’s what she texted, at least.”
“There was an escape clause,” he said, dragging his thumb over her bottom lip. “It cost a lot, but I’m paying it. My lawyers are drawing up everything now.”
Connie drew a shaky breath, more relieved than she could admit, but also astonished that she could have wanted Brian so much. Suddenly, all the pieces of her life fit together perfectly. Maybe getting knocked up had been the best thing ever. The baby had recognized before the parents that they were meant to be together. That they just fit, however absurd or random it might be.
“Well, I’m gonna need my lawyers to look into everything too,” she whispered teasingly. “Because I have lawyers.”
Brian cocked a grin, wrapping his hand gently around her neck. “You do not.”
“I’m getting one,” she said, feigning seriousness. “A lawyer of love.”
The word escaped her before she’d even thought about the implications, and she snapped her mouth shut. Brian looked amused.
“It’s okay. You can say the L word.”
“I didn’t say it,” she stammered. “I mean, about you. I didn’t actually say I love you. Because I—”
“Connie, I love you.”
The admission made her eyes widen. She stared up at him. Now he really was the man of her dreams: impossibly sexy, rich, successful, and the first to drop the L word.
“I love you, too,” she squeaked, meaning it. Meaning it so much more intensely than she could have imagined.
“I hardly know how,” he said, running his palms back and forth over her belly. “With how much of a jerk I’ve been the last few months.”
“Luckily you weren’t always a jerk,” Connie said. “But honestly, I feel like I fell in love with you the minute you hired me.”
“So we were doomed from the start.”
“Absolutely.” She watched as his big, pale hands made laps over her belly. “But luckily, Goth Barbie can’t deny the charms of Ginger Ken.”
“Nope. Absolutely impossible.” He leaned in for a kiss. When they broke apart, he guided her toward the bedroom, a heart-stopping grin on his face. One that made her whole body warm. One that brought on another wave of tears. “Let’s work on getting you double pregnant. What do you think?”
She thought she couldn’t be happier than she was in this instant. “I think we won’t know unless we try. As many times as we can.”
Epilogue
ONE MONTH LATER
Connie rubbed at her belly, smiling out over her new backyard.
Two days overdue. Maybe her little peanut had specifically waited for his or her parents to get settled into their new house. Or estate, as she sometimes jokingly called it. A sprawling lawn, an official gated entrance, and an entire brick house that she could now call hers. As soon as they’d decided to be together, Brian wanted to revamp everything�
�at Connie’s discretion.
They’d settled on a new home. Their home. Things had moved quickly, but it felt right. That was the most important part. Besides, the clock was ticking. Connie was more than ready to abandon her modest apartment, even with all the improvements they’d made to the nursery. And when Brian promised to personally oversee the completion of the new nursery in the new home, she’d agreed to hiring help to move their things and make certain aspects of the moving process a lot easier.
And when the hired help involved the majority of both of their families, Connie knew they wouldn’t be missing that loving touch.
A yellow balloon floated by. One of her nieces had spent hours bopping the balloon around, trying to get it to land squarely on one of the thorns on the rose bush lining the back patio. Connie grinned, readjusting herself on the lawn chair. Filling the back yard was her family. Both sides of it, now. Brian’s sister and brother, plus his brother’s kids and wife. And then the entirety of Connie’s family had shown up as well—including her mom, who was feeling back to normal.
It was a combination housewarming and baby shower. The mishmash of banners and balloons proved that they were truly celebrating everything.
Connie squeezed Meghan’s hand as she sauntered by. The two had grown close since Brian stepped up to the plate.
“You need anything, Mama?” Meghan asked.
“Shot of whiskey would be nice,” Connie cracked.
“In a few more weeks.”
“Okay. So that’s doctor’s orders, right?” Connie shifted again on the lawn chair. It was hard to get—and stay—comfortable anymore. She heaved a sigh. “Good lord, I’m ready for this baby to come out.”
“The baby is actually going to come out?” Brian appeared at her side, looking ultra-cool in a pair of sunglasses and dressed down black shorts. It was the most casual she’d ever seen him. And it looked good on him. “I thought it would just stay in there forever.”
“At this rate, that might be the game plan,” Connie groaned. She turned onto her side, sighing. “I feel hot.”
