Page 55 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

“I’m not sure what to say, Michelle. I don’t want to tell you no, but I’m worried that you think it’ll change something between Aurora and me. It won’t. Things are really complicated and we can’t be together. You know that.”

“I know,” Michelle said, reaching up for Dante’s hand. “I don’t want to tell her because I think it will change anything. I want to tell her because it’s true. And not telling her feels like lying. And it feels bad. In here.” She patted her chest and looked up at him. “You know what I mean?”

Dante scrubbed one of his hands over his newly trimmed hair. Just like that his genius baby sister had shined a light on something he’d been trying to keep in the dark for two months now. He and Aurora were over, but his feelings for her weren’t. And he’d never told her how he felt. Not once. And as much as losing Aurora felt bad, he suspected what felt worse was knowing he’d taken the easy way out. He’d done it to protect himself. He’d figured ending things quickly, without hearing what she had to say or saying what he wanted to say, was the best. But two months later, he was still bleeding.

He’d let her walk away without expressing how he felt about her.

So maybe, just maybe, he needed to do something about that.

* * *

“Enough, Manman!” Aurora scowled as she pulled her face clear of the makeup brush her mother was dragging over her eyelids. For some reason, Cedalie had been primping Aurora for over an hour for the Von Willebrand’s fundraiser and it was annoying the heck out of her.

Maybe it was the late summer heat. Maybe it was the fact that she felt as big as a whale. Maybe it was that she was going stag to a fundraiser she’d planned to attend with Dante and Michelle. But her mother was about one more swipe of blush away from getting pushed into the ocean.

“I just want you to look perfect, child,” Cedalie said for what had to be the hundredth time. Cedalie knew how hard the last two months had been for Aurora. She’d been a shell of herself for almost three weeks of it. Until one day, a light had kicked on. She’d told Cedalie that she wasn’t wallowing anymore. She was following in her mother’s footsteps. Raising a baby on her own, and doing it well, if not exactly fearlessly.

She still ached for Dante. And for Michelle. And for what could have been for her baby. But she had a life to live, one with her baby, and she was going to live that life and be the best mother she could be.

“Why do you even care, Mama? It’s just a fundraiser. We have them three times a year and you’ve never cared before.”

“I have a good feeling about tonight. I think you’re going to get some romantic attention.” Cedalie did up the last of the zipper on the midnight blue satin dress that cupped her breasts and swept over her very pregnant belly. The dress had a long slit up one leg, the only feature on Aurora’s body she didn’t think looked whale-ish.

Aurora scoffed and started braiding her hair. “Romantic? Please. I look like I’m carrying triplets. No man is going to make a move on me tonight.” And Dante is still halfway around the world in Spain, the last she’d heard. But she didn’t add that part out loud.

“You never know,” Cedalie said in a sing-song voice as she arranged a thin necklace of small amethyst crystals at Aurora’s collarbone.

Aurora peeked out the window at the cab that had just pulled up. “Yeah. I know.” She turned to go, felt guilty for snapping, and turned back. “But thank you for the effort.”

Cedalie kissed her daughter’s cheek, laid a hand over her grandchild, and gently pushed Aurora out the door.

Aurora tried not to groan as they pulled up to the hotel where the fundraiser was being hosted. She knew that Gio and Rose were going to be inside, which, in a strange turn of events, was actually a comfort to her. When it had become very clear that the father of her child had not taken the news well, both Gio and Rose had reached out to her many times. She often found herself with some leftovers at lunch, chatting with Rose and Gio in one of their offices.

She’d never in a million years have thought that would be the case and she cherished her new friendships.

She arranged her dress, smoothing it down, and stepped into the grand ballroom. The space had been transformed with glittery decorations and rows and rows of items they’d gathered for the silent auction part of the fundraiser. The culminating event at the end would be a live auction, and one of the most generous items had been given by Gio himself—a year of his consulting services.

She wandered through the event space, tidying this and that and greeting the first guests who arrived. She couldn’t help the dull ache in her heart whenever she thought of Michelle. She’d put the whole thing together as a way of encouraging the little girl. Wanting to give her hope for a brighter future.

Aurora sighed. She’d really hoped to share the evening with her. But according to Gio, who still didn’t know that Dante was the father, he and Michelle had left town for an extended summer vacation over two months before. They were hopping from villa to villa in Spain.

Aurora had found herself insanely jealous of Spain for getting to be with them.

Ugh. She was so sick of being sad. Not for the first time, Aurora hoped that these kinds of feelings weren’t affecting the baby. Because if so, she was going to be raising one melancholy kid.

Minutes later, the band kicked on. The party started full swing, and Aurora pasted on the best smile she could muster up.

* * *

Dante was cranky, tired, starving, and thirsty. He’d been on four planes, a train, and two taxis in the last 24 hours. After two months of sandals and shorts, his tux felt like a prison jumpsuit, and it seemed like every person he ran into wanted to say five hundred things he couldn’t care less about.

When he and Michelle had gotten off the plane, the first thing Dante had done was call Aurora. But it had been Cedalie who’d answered the phone.

“You’re a stubborn one, Dante Callaghan,” she’d said.

Dante had raised his eyes to the sky, pinched the bridge of his nose, and then wondered idly if Cedalie was enough of a psychic to know that he’d done just that. “I really need to talk to her, Cedalie.”

“Yes, you do.”

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