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“No worries. I’m always available.” Angie rolled her eyes, taking aim at her lackluster social life.
“Yeah, well, you might bemoan not having a boyfriend but it works out pretty well for me,” Abby said with a small smile.
“Ha. Just you wait. One of these days Prince Charming is going to sweep in and take me away from all this.”
“And I’ll be thrilled for you.” She pressed a kiss to her friend’s cheek. “See you soon.”
Ordinarily, Abby would have offered Angie a glass of wine or cup of tea, but she couldn’t stand the thought of company. She was genuinely worried that spending time with her friend would lead to disclosures she wasn’t willing to make. Nobody knew who Charlotte’s father was; that was for the best. He was one of the richest men in the world, which made him a figure of celebrity-level interest – not to mention being thirty and hot – so the second she told a single soul that he’d fathered a child, she feared splashy revelations in the tabloids. It was best to keep it to herself.
She double locked her door then sat down on the sofa, staring straight ahead, her mind spinning.
Keeping Charlotte a secret had been one thing before. He’d dumped her out of the blue and made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want any future with her. She’d gone back and forth on her moral obligations though, naturally angsting over whether or not he deserved to know about the baby they’d made together. She’d even called him up to sound him out, but he’d only reiterated everything he’d told her the night they’d broken up. He didn’t want her. He was a loner. His life was one he didn’t plan on sharing with anyone. He wished her well, but told her he’d moved on, that she should too. So many platitudes she’d felt queasy – and not just from the morning sickness that was hammering her from all sides, at every hour of the day.
The answer had gotten a lot easier after that. He’d begladshe’d kept the baby from him. Grateful, even.
But now?
Seeing him again had been an epic jolt of reality. He wasn’t just some abstract character – a villain, in her mind. He was a flesh and blood man, and together they’d made a baby. Charlotte wasn’t an abstract character either. Not like she had been when Abby had fallen pregnant. Now she was a perfect, beautiful little girl with Gray’s eyes and smile, and even though Charlotte was only fifteen months old, it wasn’t hard to imagine a time when she would ask about her father. What would Abby say? Outright lie? Make something up?
She crept into Charlotte’s tiny room – not much bigger than a broom closet, really. Just space enough for a crib, some drawers and a fluffy mat Angie had bought on sale. Charlotte was fast asleep, her sweet little lips parted, one arm thrown above her head, her silky curls rioting over the creamy crib sheets. Abby gripped the edge of the crib railing, biting into her lower lip. She’d always known how alike they were, but seeing Gray tonight had burned him into her mind. She couldn’t separate her daughter from Gray. She was a part of him, and he had no idea. Abby pressed a kiss to Charlotte’s forehead then left the room, quickly.
A sob was wrenched from her throat as she collapsed into the sofa cushions, closing her eyes and giving into the wave of sadness and tiredness that washed over her. She cried until she fell asleep, and then her mind was filled with him, flooded with memories and feelings, her dreamlife tormented by memories that she was too disciplined to enjoy in daylight.
The banging wasslow at first, so she ignored it, rolling over and brushing her nose against the back of the sofa. She opened her eyes, frowning as the events of the night before came back to her, then sitting bolt upright as she replayed the details one by one, and some of them more than once.
More banging.
This time, she was conscious enough to recognize it was a knock at the door and she stood quickly, checking her watch. It wasn’t yet seven – too early to wake Charlotte, who habitually slept until eight. That blessed morning peace was a godsend for Abby, and she relished the opportunity to have a coffee in silence, before switching into full blown mommy mode.
Her thoughts immediately flew to Angie, who lived in the downstairs apartment and would be the only person who’d call this early.
She wrenched the door open, only to find Gray-sex-in-the-alley-Fortescue standing on her doorstop.
“Oh, crap. It’s you.”
His grin was sardonic, adding an unnecessary layer of sex appeal to what was already a devastating visage. He wore suit pants and a shirt, but there was no jacket, and the look was so sexy and disheveled she had to take a second to slow her breathing.
“Good morning.”
“Barely,” she mumbled, her heart screeching in her chest, her blood pumping in her ears, guilt a force that was overtaking her entire body. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.”
“How do you know where I live?”
Something dark crossed his features. “It wasn’t hard to find out.”
“Jesus,” she let out a low whistle, panic cresting inside of her as she thought of sleeping Charlotte and the proximity of her father. One part of her wanted to draw the door open and invite him in, to touch him again, to kiss him, and the other wanted to push him away, all the way to oblivion, so she never had to deal with the reality she’d kept secret. It was like being on a roller coaster she couldn’t escape, careening higher and higher, the only option to speed right to the bottom. “Why?”
“Because we need to talk, like I said.”
“No, we don’t.” She looked an absolute mess. Still dressed in the clothes she’d worn to work, hair pulled back into a bun, it was hardly how she’d planned to meet him in any dream scenarios.
“Five minutes.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t budge. Oh, she could slam the door in his face, but she suspected he’d just knock until she answered, and that would risk waking Charlotte.
“Fine. Use them to explain how you found my apartment.”
“If you’re giving me five minutes, I’m not going to waste them on that.”
