Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Third time wasn’t a charm. Her phone was off.
I stowed my cell back in my pocket, then walked to the desk, drew the chair back and sat down. I was never defeated. Defeat could kiss my ass. I rested my elbows on the desk, scrubbed my fingers through my hair. My gaze landed on the desk drawers.
I slid the top one open and removed several documents from it.
What was this?
Medical records? Why the hell did Riley need her medical records? Fuck, was she sick?
A fresh wave of frustration rushed through me. I couldn’t help her if she was sick, unless it was financially, and would she even let me do that? I shifted the records to one side and lifted a small book from the drawer.
Pay dirt. This has to be it.
I opened the address book, scanned the first page, all exasperation dissolving. Shock replaced it.
“What the fuck?”
It wasn’t an address book, it was her journal. Riley’s journal. I knew it was wrong to read it, I wasn’t a fucking skeaze, but I couldn’t stop. The words on the page had galvanized something in me, an anger I couldn’t contain.
Thursday, June 21st
A new journal for a new me, I guess. Lame as that sounds. Anyway, Michael’s officially out of the picture. Gone. Done. Good riddance, or so Veronica says. I tend to agree with her because he trampled all over my heart.
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened and what’s next for me, and I’ve come to a single conclusion.
If love is real it’s not the love you find in another person. By that I mean, romantic love. If love is real, it’s the type you get between mother and daughter or son. And that’s exactly what I want. It’s what I’ve always wanted, but Michael said he didn’t want that either. Fuck, don’t even get me started on the hypocrisy of that statement given his current situation with his fiancée.
Ugh, I’m getting off track.
The point is, I’m not going to sit around and wait for Mr. Right. There is no Mr. Right for me. I’m thirty this year. Each year that passes cuts away at the time I have left to have a child and raise it.
So, I’m taking matters into my own hands.
I’m going to have a baby all by myself. No man involved. More on this later. Classes starting now.
I gripped the pages so hard my thumbs left imprints in the ink. A baby on her own? She’d never mentioned this to me. She’d never told me that she wanted a child, immediately. How could she want one when her business was failing? When she could barely look after herself, financially?
It was harsh but rational. And it was only part of what made me furious about this.
I flipped through the journal, found an entry dated a week ago.
August 12th
Today, I did something really fucking stupid. I went home with a strange guy who found me sleeping in my dance studio—not technically, but I was about to. Whatever. Beside the point. He wants to buy the studio. I’m never going to sell it. I can’t give up on this place, on Jessa’s memory, and I won’t give up on the baby either. I’ll have it all.
I’ve spent the past five years giving up on my dreams, living Michael’s dreams instead, and I’ll be !damned! if I ever let that happen again. I’ll be damned if I restrict myself from having what I want for once in my life.
Anyway, this guy is unbelievably attractive. He’s temptation in a suit, and I don’t know how to handle this situation. All I know is Veronica is going to flip her shit when she finds out what I’ve done.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. If this will help me get closer to setting up the business long-term and saving enough money for the insemination, then so be it.
It’s sweet, really. In this day and age, I’d never have expected a man to act chivalrous or offer to help like he did.
Jax King.
Even his name is a fantasy.
“Fuck,” I grunted, and dropped the journal on the desk. “What the fuck?” She wanted a baby, I’d known that, but the plan? This plan to go get some other guy’s spunk injected into her pussy, my pussy… if I’d known then—then what? I’d have gone batshit fucking crazy and forbidden her to do it?
We’d known each other a week. She didn’t know anything about my past. It was fair I didn’t know anything about her planned future. Totally rational.
Except, I didn’t give a flying fuck about rational. This woman was mine. She’d been mine since the start, whether we’d wanted it or not, and I’d be damned if I let her fuck herself like this.
I needed to protect her, even if it meant protecting her from herself.