Page 12 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

Six weeks, she once again thought.

Wait…

Six. Weeks.

Was it possible?

Aurora scrolled through her phone to her calendar app. Yup. Sure enough. The lung cancer fundraiser had been six weeks ago. And that meant…

Her stomach in one humongous knot, Aurora did some backwards math. She hadn’t had her period in eight weeks. Which meant that she’d been exactly two weeks into her very regular cycle when she’d slept with Dante. They’d used a condom every time they’d fucked, but they’d fucked a lot, and now she’d missed her period…

In a daze, she lowered herself into her desk chair. She took a deep breath, trying to reassure herself. She hadn’t been sick, or had headaches, or cramps, or any other physical symptoms of pregnancy. And she’d been upset. Stressed. Sad about Gio. Women skipped periods all the time over stuff like that, right? Right.

One thing was certain, however, she needed to put her mind at ease, and the best way to do that was a pregnancy test. Only when she took a pregnancy test later that night, she still wasn’t reassured. Not completely. Like condoms, pregnancy tests weren’t 100% effective, especially when it was early in a pregnancy. So the next day, she immediately called her doctor and set up the earliest appointment she could.

Two days later, Aurora was sitting on the papery table of an examination room trying not to freak the hell out.

“Congratulations,” Dr. Radnor said to Aurora. She laid a hand on Aurora’s shoulder for just a second. “Do you… have someone to share the news with? Maybe help you think about your options?”

“My mother,” Aurora answered weakly, both reassured and crushed by the thought. She wasn’t alone, sure. But she didn’t have a partner.

She couldn’t believe it. She’d been so careful. So restrained. Such a good girl for the most part.

Good girl. Dante’s voice echoed through her head. It was what he’d said to her as he’d gently guided her down on his cock, encouraged her to take even more.

The one time she really let herself loose she went and got pregnant.

God. What was she going to do?

* * *

Dante sat in Gio’s plush office and drummed his fingers on the arm of the leather chair he was kicked back in.

“No, that’s exactly what I was thinking, Doug,” Gio said into the speakerphone, turning and raising his eyebrow at Dante’s drumming fingers.

Dante rolled his eyes but stopped the nervous habit.

He was annoyed with Gio, but really he was lucky the man had his shit together. He was phoning this meeting in. Just like he had with almost everything for the last six weeks. He just couldn’t get his head in the game. And the reason for that was sitting in her office not thirty feet away.

Well, he was actually pretty certain she wasn’t sitting in her office. Every single time he’d come to Gio’s office for a meeting for the last six weeks, she’d mysteriously disappeared. All for apparently good reasons. Lunch with clients. Picking up something from the printers. An out of office meeting.

He knew she was avoiding him. That much was obvious. The six weeks of silence were evidence of that. He internally rolled his eyes at himself. As if he needed any more evidence that she wanted nothing to do with him given she’d snuck out in the middle of the night.

A night that had left Dante irrevocably changed.

She’d run without leaving anything more than her scent on the pillow, which had clung for a week. When the scent had finally disappeared, he’d reached out to her via text. And that was that. She’d made her feelings clear.

He sent the flowers because… well he wasn’t exactly sure why. He wasn’t ready to let this shit go. And she hadn’t told him to cut it out, so part of him wondered if he was somehow making progress with her.

Who was he kidding? He wasn’t making progress with her. He hadn’t struck out this hard with a woman since… well, never. It was fucking with his head. That was why he’d agreed to see Grace tonight. She was an old friend in town for a night on business. One who he’d shared a few mutually satisfying nights with. It was an invitation he would have normally jumped on with no reservations whatsoever. Vigorous sex with Grace could be just what the doctor ordered. He needed to get over this crush or whatever the hell it was he felt for Aurora. So why had he felt like he was cheating on Aurora when he’d made the date?

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gio demanded as he clicked off the phone call and rounded on Dante. “You barely spoke on that phone call. You know that neither of us are going to land this client if you sit there like a complete jack off.”

Dante opened his mouth, automatically getting his hackles up, but really, Gio was right. He scraped a hand over his hair. “You’re right.”

“What?” Gio looked at him like he’d just announced he was joining a nudist colony.

“I said that you’re right. I’m off my game right now. Thanks for carrying the phone call.”

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