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6:49 A.M.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
Lila Angeletti groaned as she sunk back to rest against the side of her bathtub.
Another morning, another round of vomiting.
It was getting harder to pretend that nothing was wrong.
Harder, but still she clung to denial.
This couldn’t be happening to her.
It couldn’t.
It would be the most unfair thing in the universe.
She had turned thirty just a week ago, was single, and hadn’t had any plans for marriage and a family until a sexy former Navy SEAL came barreling into her life. She had been perfectly content with her life. Her hard fight for freedom meant she could live where she wanted, have the job she chose, and live in her own cozy little apartment that was furnished the way she wanted.
Free from her family’s influence, she had fled to the opposite side of the country, needing an entire continent between them to finally feel safe. A job that was tough but she loved, friends who knew who she had been but accepted she wasn’t that person anymore, and a man she had been falling in love with.
Now she was sitting here, on the bathroom floor, drenched in sweat, no longer able to pretend that this was food poisoning or a stomach virus, alone, scared, angry, and hurt.
More than two weeks had passed since Christian “Surf” Bailey had broken her heart and she still didn’t understand what had happened.
What had changed?
One minute they had been falling in love—well, at least she had thought they were, Lila knew she had been—the next he was showing up at her place out of the blue, ending things with no explanation whatsoever.
Christian had told her that first day they met about his issue. While he hadn't gone into details, she’d known that something had happened to him and his team a few months prior to their meeting and that it had been bad, and his coping mechanism was sex.
But she’d thought they had something more.
Stupid.
She should have known better.
Her track record with men was a disaster, although it wasn’t her fault, it was her family’s. Which was part of the reason she now lived in New York while they lived in Los Angeles. But this mistake had been all hers, and now she might have a constant reminder of said mistake growing inside her.
Could she do this on her own?
Juggling a demanding job with long hours and being a single mom sounded utterly terrifying. Plus, there was the financial aspect. She made enough to support herself, but herself and a baby?
Lila wanted her child to grow up knowing who his or her father was, but would Surf even want to be part of the baby’s life? And if he did, would she be okay with him parading women through their son or daughter’s life? That wasn’t the environment she would want for her child, but Christian was the baby’s father so he had as much right as she did to be part of its life, and she could hardly dictate how he lived when their child was with him.
What if he decided he wanted to take the baby from her?
His job with Prey Security’s Alpha Team was unpredictable and dangerous, but he had more money than she did and could hire a nanny to care for the baby when he couldn’t be there. Would he use his money to hire a lawyer, get full custody of their child, and cut her out of their lives?
Nausea churned in her gut only this time it had nothing to do with potential morning sickness.
Now it had everything to do with the fear of being cut out of her child’s life.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Lila. Calm down.”
Easier said than done.
There was no point in panicking until she even knew if she was carrying a baby. There could be other reasons why she missed her last period and why she’d been getting sick in the mornings.
