Page 1 of The Sweetest Mistake

Chapter One

Julia loved babies. She loved everything about them—their sweet little faces, tiny fingers and toes, soft skin, and toothless grins. In fact, she wouldn’t mind having a house full of kids someday or at the very least two. But for now, she’d have to be satisfied interacting with babies at her father’s pediatric practice, or so she thought.

As she stood on Connor’s front porch, she swore she heard a baby crying inside. But it couldn’t have been. Connor had just returned from a short trip to Denver, and Julia had come over to surprise him. He must have had company, but there weren’t any cars parked in his driveway except for his Jeep Wrangler. Strange.

She hesitated to ring the doorbell but decided she was being silly. He’d been gone for three days, and she’d missed him even though he’d left under mysterious circumstances. He’d been cagey about the trip, telling her he just needed to get away for a few days and clear his head. Clear his head of what, she’d wondered, and why Denver? When she’d asked him, he’d said that he wanted to be in the mountains, and knowing his propensity for privacy, she’d tried not to question it too much.

Connor was the middle of three brothers who co-owned a successful landscaping design business in Brandon, a mostly rural community in southeast Michigan. Julia had met him through her best friend, Harper Davies, who was currently dating Connor’s older brother, Finn.

At first, Julia hadn’t wanted anything to do with the flirtatious, enigmatic O’Brien brother, but he’d slowly worn down her defenses, and now they’d been dating for almost five months. After a rocky start, their relationship had been starting to smooth out when Connor had suddenly taken off to Denver, leaving her to wonder what secret he was keeping this time.

Connor was good at keeping secrets, as she’d discovered early on. At first, he hadn’t wanted to tell anyone they were dating, not even his brothers, and it had driven her crazy. She couldn’t understand why he’d been so guarded, especially with the people he loved. She’d felt relieved when he’d finally agreed to share the news with their families and friends, only to encounter another obstacle.

When she’d taken him to meet her parents, they’d had a less-than-enthusiastic reaction. Especially her father, who’d had his heart set on her marrying his protégé, Alec, whom she’d dated prior to Connor. To her father, Dr. James Lee, a landscaper was nowhere near good enough for his only daughter. Her mom, Debra, had been less obvious, but Julia had sensed her disappointment too. It hadn’t seemed to matter that Connor was a successful business owner. In their minds, she was supposed to have married Alec, and that was that.

So far, nothing about dating Connor had been easy, and they were different in so many ways that it was a miracle they were still together. Yet she was drawn to him in ways she didn’t fully understand. Some might have called it chemistry, something she hadn’t experienced with Alec but felt in spades with Connor. Others might have labeled it a physical attraction, and that’s what it had been at first. She smiled as she remembered one of their early encounters…

Connor hopped out of his work truck and swaggered toward Capture the Moment Studio, where Julia worked with her best friend, Harper. She tried to ignore the outline of his sleek, toned body in his tight black T-shirt and ripped blue jeans. Tried not to wonder about the tattoo that peeked out from the right sleeve of his T-shirt. Instead, she returned her attention to the stack of invoices she’d been reviewing and acted like she hadn’t seen him coming.

And then the studio door creaked open, and he came in and stood right next to her, casually leaning his hip against her desk. But still, she had enough willpower not to look up right away, even when she heard his deep, gravelly voice say, “Mornin’, beautiful.”

Next came the seriously difficult part. Connor had propped up his aviators in his cropped dark-brown hair and looked down at her through his dazzling slate-blue eyes with the laugh lines at the corners. On women, those lines would have been called wrinkles, but on Connor, they just added to his sex appeal. Not that she’d stared at them for long, because gazing into Connor’s eyes was like looking directly at the sun—dangerous and potentially life-threatening.

“Harper’s not here,” Julia said.

“I didn’t stop by to see Harper.”

“Oh? Well then, you might as well get to work because, as you can, see I’m busy.”

“Hmmm. Can I ask you a question?”

Realizing that she wasn’t getting rid of him that easily, she set down her pen and sighed. “What is it?”

“Why don’t you like me?”

Julia’s eyes widened at the unexpected question, but the answer was simple. “Because you’re too cocky.”

Crossing his muscular arms over his equally muscular chest, he smiled. Smiled! See, cocky—just like she’d said.

“Some might call it confident.”

“Some might, but in your case, it’s cockiness.”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that when someone pretends not to like you, it’s because, deep down, they actually do?”

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s not polite to look at women like they’re a piece of chocolate?”

And then he laughed, his smile spreading out to encompass his gorgeous face. Damn it.

“What’s wrong with telling a woman she’s beautiful?”

“Nothing as long as you really mean it and you’re not just saying it to try and get the woman to sleep with you.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“Aren’t you?”

Connor shook his head, that amused gleam still in his eyes. “I never said anything about sleeping together. That’s all you, sweetheart.”