Page 46 of Bedding the Baby Daddy

“But if you wait, the longer you wait, you risk ruining your relationship with him. And I can see what it has come to mean to you.”

“What do you mean ‘ruin it’, Mama? You mean that he’ll be mad that I kept it from him for so long?”

Cedalie had paused. She seemed to mull something over in her mind. Aurora knew that look on her mother’s face. She’d seen it a hundred times. It was the look Cedalie got when she knew more than she wanted to. “No. I don’t mean that. I can’t say more, child. You know that.”

Dante had come out of the bathroom then and there hadn’t been much more to say anyway. Her mother was not going to say much more than she already had. Because to speak about it would be to interfere with it, and that was not her mother’s place. It never had been. Aurora understood that, but she was also deeply disconcerted over her mother’s change of heart.

Aurora pulled into the driveway of her apartment building and parked, hurrying up to her home. She showered quickly and threw on pajamas, needing nothing more than to sink into the oblivion of sleep.

Her head was spinning. Aurora hadn’t realized how much comfort she’d been taking from the plan to wait and gather information. Letting things play out little by little. It had allowed her to keep things as they were, and the only thing changing was her level of closeness with Dante. But now her mother was completely flipping the script. Telling Aurora to turn everything on its head. The thought of having that conversation with Dante chilled Aurora down to the bone. She knew that it would change everything. She thought of the way he’d looked today, walking arm in arm with her mother. His t-shirt straining across his chest. The confident little swagger in his hips. God.

She’d tell him and there’d be no more casual dinner and movie nights with Michelle. She’d tell him and she would lose the right to come knocking whenever her desire for him overwhelmed her. She’d tell him and every time she saw him it would be so awkward that she’d start to dread doing business with him.

Aurora tossed and turned. She wanted the baby and he didn’t. And things were bound to get so tense that either she’d have to dissolve her partnership with Gio or Dante would. Everything would go away the minute she told him. And all she’d have left were these memories.

And his baby.

Not for the first time since she’d gotten pregnant, Aurora pressed the flat of her palm over her belly. She closed her eyes and tried, really tried, to feel the life in there. And of course, she instantly did. Aurora’s eyes came open. There the baby was. A zipping, growing energy inside of her. Aurora could feel the baby. She could feel her future there.

This baby deserved to come into a world where things were clear and calm between its parents. Aurora didn’t think they’d be a classic family. The chances of that went up in smoke the night she’d jumped Dante’s bones. But they did have a shot at peace. All she needed to do was tell him. Come clean. That way, they could move on.

She just hoped they could move on together.

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