Page 17 of A Bossy Surprise

“Shhhh! Lower your voice. I don’t want to wake Brady up again.”

Adam bites down hard and his jaw flexes as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Kayla, I need you to explain to me why you would do something so incredibly cruel. Why would you keep my son from me? Did you hate me that much?”

“I didn’t hate you.” I walk into the kitchen and he follows me. I get both of us glasses of water, just to give myself something to do. “It was more complicated than that.”

“Can you please at least attempt to explain how so?”

I sigh and pull the claw clip from my hair and put it back up in a tighter bun. “It was many things. First, after that night, you seemed embarrassed and disgusted to have had sex with me. You ran away. So when I found out I was pregnant I didn’t want to force any kind of a relationship with someone who was so repulsed by me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He throws his hands up. “I wasn’t disgusted by you, and if there was any embarrassment, it was about how I felt towards myself for sleeping with my best friend’s kid sister. None of that had anything to do with you.”

“Well, you could’ve fooled me. I tried to talk to you a couple times after that night, but you practically blew me off every time. So when I found out about Brady, I figured it was for the best that you didn’t know anything.”

“Like I just told you, that’s not what was going on, and even if it was, you still should’ve told me. I had a right to know.”

“Perhaps…but when you add that to the fact that Lucas told me your father had basically kidnapped you to remake you into his image, I knew you wouldn’t be any help to me anyway.”

“I can’t fucking believe this.” He buries his face in his hands.

“At the time it just seemed like the smarter thing to do.”

“How is any of this smart? You didn’t tell me I had a son. I’ve missed six years of his life, and he has missed six years with me. Do you think that’s fair to him?”

“I don’t know about whether it’s fair or not, but I know it’s what was best for him.”

“Kayla, you’re infuriating. How can you be defending this?”

“Because I am his mother and it’s my duty to protect him. Which is exactly what I did.”

Adam is looking at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Who exactly where you’re protecting him from? Me?”

“Yes.”

He huffs. “You know what? I can’t talk to you right now. You’re being unreasonable, but know that this isn’t the end of this conversation.”

He slams the glass in his hand on my kitchen island so hard that I’m surprised the thing doesn’t shatter into a gazillion pieces. Then he storms out of my apartment, slamming the door behind him.

Noodle bounds into the room from somewhere within the apartment and I sigh.

I guess that’s it then. The cat’s out of the bag. I don’t know how Adam is going to react to this. He could sue for custody. Normally, I wouldn’t be too worried about that, but considering the financial resources he has at his disposal, he can hire a team of lawyers to make me look like an unfit mother and get custody of my son.

This is just one of the worries I’ve had over the years

There isn’t a lot that I am sure of right now, but one thing I know is that my life is about to blow up, and to be fair, I deserve it.

If I’m being honest with myself, Adam is kind of right. Whatever I was feeling, I should have told him about Brady. I should’ve told everyone, but back then it felt like something I needed to do on my own.

Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. I can’t go back in time and change what I did. All I can do is deal with the fall out as best as I can.

Tomorrow doesn’t look like it’s going to be any easier than today, so I make the most of my last few moments of calm by collapsing on the couch and finishing my episode ofSex and the City.

6

ADAM

“Have you guys sorted out an office for me?” I ask as I walk into Arthur’s office.

“Most people offer a greeting first thing in the morning before they start talking to people,” Arthur says as he gets up, walks around his desk and comes to stop in front of me.