Page 10 of His Unexpected Heir

Astra added chocolate chips to the batter and mixed everything together.

What would it be like to have a little boy like Antonio running around her home? Astra smiled at that, then added a touch more vanilla, thinking to make the batter less dense.

What if she had a little girl with dark hair and dark eyes? And Antonio’s charming smile?

Yeah, that would be pretty darn nice!

But could she do this on her own? Sure! There were plenty of women that raised children by themselves. She could do it herself, right?

Of course, she’d have to tell Antonio. How she’d do that, Astra wasn’t sure. As she dumped the bowl of ingredients from the mixing bowl into a casserole dish, she tried to figure out the language one used in an email to inform a man she hadn’t seen in four months that he was about to become a father. That was a tricky message, she thought, unconsciously sticking out her tongue as she patted the batter into the casserole dish. She would have used a cookie sheet, but…well, she’d thrown out all of her baking sheets after previous disasters.

She re-read the instructions, set the oven temperature, then stuck the casserole dish into the oven. “There!” she whispered to her kitchen. “Now what?”

As she stared blankly out at the cars passing on the street, Astra thought about Antonio. “Do I want a tiny version of him running through my life?” The idea had appeal, but would that be painful? Seeing a smaller version of Antonio, a constant reminder of him, would be heartbreaking. “I can’t do it!” she suddenly blurted out to the silent kitchen. “That would be…too painful!”

Okay, so the night with Antonio hadn’t been horrible. She’d been exhausted and…and yes, she’d wanted Antonio. If she were perfectly honest with herself, which wasn’t often lately, Astra knew that she’d been attracted to the man from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. It was only the wedding festivities’ hectic schedule that had kept her from…from what?

Pursuing him?

Astra hadn’t ever pursued a man in her life. She didn’t even know how. Nor had any man ever pursued her, for that matter. She simply wasn’t that interesting. She was…average looking, she thought as she reached up onto her toes for the cooling rack. That’s when her fingers touched the muffin pan and new inspiration struck her!

“We’re going to make muffins!” she told the air. “And this time, I’m going to follow the recipe perfectly.” She walked over to the oven and peered at the cookies. “They look okay,” she said, then closed the oven door. “Besides, if I’m going to be a mother, I’ll need to know how to make muffins. And pancakes!”

She hefted the giant bag of flour out of the bin, grabbed a clean mixing bowl and pulled up a muffin recipe on her phone.

Carefully, she measured out all of the ingredients, trying to follow the recipe perfectly. “No weird ingredients this time,” she told the mixing bowl as she whipped the butter and sugar together. “Those date cookies had been bad. The chocolate chip cookies are going to be delicious!”

The date cookies hadn’t been as bad as the lemon cookies she’d tried to make two weeks after returning from Sidrina. And the chocolate chip cookies with the raisins had been…black. The dough had completely melded itself to the baking sheet. Astra had just thrown out the cookie sheet after that attempt. Oh, and the maple cookie attempt had been disastrous. She couldn’t figure out why her cookies always seemed to adhere to the baking sheet.

“This time, we will use a silicon baking sheet!” she announced to no one.

The doorbell rang and she looked up, startled. “Who in the world?” she whispered, setting the mixing spoon carefully against the mixing bowl. She knew that the spoons preferred to slip into the batter so she was extra careful to ensure that it was steady before she wiped her hands on her apron. Another trick she’d quickly figured out. The maple cookie debacle had forced her to throw away the clothes she’d worn that day. It was a mystery as to why the batter wouldn’t come out of the leggings and tee shirt she’d donned during that episode.

Pulling open her apartment door, she blinked when she found Raven standing outside her door. “Raven? What are you doing here?” she gasped, and immediately reached out to hug her friend. “Oh, it’s been a while. But you look great!” she said, pulling back. Then she realized that Raven’s gorgeous red sweater was now covered in flour. “I’m so sorry!”

Raven laughed and dusted off the flour. “Don’t worry about the flour.” Raven came inside and Astra closed the door. “But could you explain how you have flour in your hair?”

Astra looked up, as if she could see on top of her head. When she realized what she was doing, she groaned and turned, looking into the mirror on the wall and laughed. “Good grief,” and she started swiping at her long, dark hair. “I have no idea how…,” she paused, then looked at the rest of her. “I’m literally covered in flour! How does this always happen?”

Raven chuckled, dropping her purse onto the sofa. “Your baking skills are a continuous mystery to all of us.” She sniffed the air. “What’s in the oven?”

Astra grunted, then waved her friend into the kitchen. “I’m baking chocolate chip cookies. But then I also decided to try making muffins.” She gestured to the oven. “What brings you here? It’s great to see you, but I thought you were in Paris with Tim this week.”

Raven perched on one of the stools, resting her elbows on the countertop. “That was last month.” She tilted her head to the side. “You’ve been so busy lately that you’re losing track of time.” Then Raven looked down at the bowl of batter. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Astra argued, unable to look her friend in the eye. “In fact, everything is very good. Macie and I just won a new contract. In fact, we have so much business, we’re actually turning clients away.”

“That’s wonderful!” Raven paused, looking around. “So, what’s wrong?”

Astra was concentrating on carefully mixing the batter, not wanting to get anything else on her person. “Nothing is wrong. Everything is fine.”

Raven shook her head. “You’re baking.”

Astra looked up, smiling triumphantly. “Exactly!”

Raven’s eyes narrowed and she tapped a fingernail on the counter. “You only bake when something is bothering you.”

Astra stopped mixing and looked up. “That’s not true,” she argued. “I just…want to master the art of baking. It’s a concept that has eluded me thus far.”

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