Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
If only.
But after my first moment of elation and arousal, the fear crept in. What was he doing here? Why? And would he - oh God, would he notice my…I wasn’t too far along in my pregnancy, was I?
I was fucking terrified that he’d notice I was pregnant. I had no idea what to tell him if he asked. Could I lie? But Brooke knew and if I lied to him and he told her… oh this was such a fucking mess.
“Stevie,” he said as I walked up, and his voice was like a caress. Fuck, I had missed him. So much. It felt like I had a limb reattached to see him there.
But what could I say? What could I do? I had missed him, yes, I wanted him, yes, but not like this, not with this horrible secret literally sitting in the pit of my stomach.
“Michael,” I replied. I tried to put on a casual smile, ignoring how my heart ached. “What brings you here?”
His gaze flicked down over my body and I braced myself, waiting for the exclamation of surprise, the suspicion, all of it…
Michael’s gaze met mine. “Brooke told me,” he said, his voice a bit rough. “About why you really moved away.”
Oh, fuck. Of course she did. Brooke was the absolute worst at keeping secrets, she always had been. I could resist a small chuckle. “I should have known. She was the worst, you know in our school, it was said that if you wanted everyone to know something, just go to Brooke and tell her what it was and then say it was confidential. The rumor or whatever would be all around the school by the next morning.”
Not that Brooke was an avid gossiper or out to hurt anyone. She was just that bad at keeping her mouth shut.
“You look good,” Michael added, his voice sliding over me like velvet. “I was hoping I could come back to your place. We need to talk.”
Oh no. Was the restaurant not doing as well as Brooke had thought? Had things taken a turn for the worst again?
A thousand fears raced through my mind and I couldn’t even keep track of all of them. But I knew there was no way I was getting out of this conversation, so I just nodded. “Okay. Um. You can follow me in your car.”
Michael agreed.
The entire drive back, which wasn’t a very long one, my mind raced.
If Brooke told Michael that I was pregnant, then she likely told him that Cameron was the father. I didn’t think she would leave that part out and if she had, Michael would probably have asked about it anyway. That meant that Michael thought Cameron was the father, that I had been sleeping with Cameron while I had been sleeping with Michael.
Normally I would never want him to think such a thing. I wouldn’t be with two people at once, and I certainly wouldn’t have kept a secret like that from Michael. The idea of being with Cameron while I had been fucking Michael… it was far too close to what Virginia had done to him.
No, we weren’t married. We hadn’t even been in a proper relationship. Michael had been clear that he didn’t want that. But still. To fuck some younger flirt and not tell him, while I was also sleeping with him, that was just… no. It didn’t sit right with me.
But how could I tell him the truth? How could I confess that it was his child when he didn’t want that, didn’t want even to date someone? How could I dump that on him?
On the other hand, I was a terrible liar. Maybe this would all be a moot point because I would just give the game up anyway.
Fuck.
No matter which way I looked at it, it sucked. It felt like my back was to the wall. Like I had no options.
This was all my own fault. I’d brought this on myself by pushing too fast and too far for what I wanted, instead of letting things evolve more slowly. Now I was stuck, and I had to make a choice. I couldn’t be sure what the right course of action was but I had to pick one, and either way, I was scared that at the end of it all I would be alone and heartbroken.
Well, even more heartbroken than I already had been, anyway.
We parked out front and then I led him up to my apartment. A studio wasn’t very big, but it felt even smaller once Michael was inside. He seemed to take up the entire space, filling it with his presence, and I both loved and hated it.
I loved it, because it was him, and I wanted him to take up space. I loved how he filled whatever room he was in, lighting it up, taking effortless command. But I hated it, because it showed me just how small and pathetic my new life was. This was such a sad little apartment, with no real décor, no proper space. Not even the privacy of a bedroom. I couldn’t have guests over and my kid wouldn’t get their own space, either, once they were born.