Page 36 of Oops, I'm Having My Best Friend’s Baby!

CHAPTER 13

AMY

The yacht was drifting into harbor and it felt like the end of an era. It was strange to realize that only a week had passed because Amy felt like an entirely different human being than when she had first stepped onto the giant vessel. She no longer saw the glitz and luxury of it all, or more accurately she wasn’t overwhelmed by it. It wasn’t all just a flash of wealth anymore. She could see that it was a getaway, a place to escape for just a little while. It was privacy and comfort and a place to leave the world behind. It was a place where Jess wouldn’t have to be worried about getting stalked by paparazzi and where Kai and Jason could talk business without office walls and ties around their necks. Amy was sad to leave it behind even as she was sitting on the edge of the bed, her bag packed and ready to disembark when they docked.

Kai was up on deck somewhere, wrapping things up with Jason, who had to drive off pretty much the second they were anchored, returning to the world of tight schedules and a calendar filled down to the last second. The last time Amy had seen Jess, she had been doing a last sweep of the yacht to make sure she hadn’t left any power cords or tripod attachments behind.

Amy started scrolling through her phone, an automatic response to being alone and marginally bored. There was nothing super interesting going on in the world, which was a nice breath of fresh air really, so she went through Jess’s socials and started liking posts. Jess might actually be one of her first new friends in… well, in forever really. And not just someone she said hello to at the grocery store because their face was familiar. This was the beginning of an actual friendship, and Amy felt a platonic sort of giddiness at the prospect. Then there was the fact that things with Kai had changed so drastically since they set foot on the yacht…

That was a wild feeling, having come here playing pretend and leaving with a whole different path in life rolled out in front of her.

Could she say Kai was hers now? In a way that he’d never been before, in a way that she thought he’d never be. It maybe still felt too soon to be thinking that, even with the events of last night fresh in her memory. But it was a first step in that direction anyway, of being his, of being with each other.

They were finally back in cell range after another day of having little to no access, and Amy eagerly opened up her email account like a kid coming downstairs on Christmas morning. There were at least a dozen more catering inquiries that had come through over the last few days. Amy started reading through them, considering the only other thing she had to do was to wait until the yacht was docked in the marina.

One inquiry looked especially ritzy. It wasn’t just a party. It was a gala, and in the email the event coordinator said they were expecting around two hundred attendees, which was an insane number to cater for. Amy really did feel like a little kid on Christmas. This was a huge step for her little company, and she worked so hard for so long to get here. Everything was finally working out.

But then she finished reading the email and the excitement vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.

Kai Nichols recommended you.

Just four words shattered her mood into a million pieces. She read them again and again to make sure she wasn’t imagining things. But no, there it was in black and white, plain as day.

Kai Nichols recommended you.

There was this ice-cold feeling working its way through her body. It wasn’t anger; anger was too gentle a word for it. Rage was closer, but a rage so still and sharp that it almost made her feel numb. Almost. Because of course it was all too good to be true. She hadn’t earned these jobs, these requests. Kai had organized it. Even worse, he had organized it behind her back. How many conversations with him had she had explaining not to give her a leg up? But he’d done it anyway. That’s what the rage was about. The job offers didn’t even factor into it anymore. Kai had gone behind her back, and it hurt more than she could have ever guessed.

She stared at the ceiling, tilting her head back so that she could blink away the stinging tears without letting them fall. She point-blank refused to cry. She wouldn’t do it. And she was going to finish what she came on this trip to do, and she was going to do it well. She would say goodbye to Jason and Jess with a smile on her face. Then when they were alone, she would ask Kai what he had been thinking. She was very interested in what he had to say for himself.

Meanwhile those four words kept haunting her, taunting her.

Kai Nichols recommended you.

Amy, through sheer stubbornness and willpower, had managed to get through the next twenty minutes of goodbyes, watching as Jason and Jess jumped into a car as soon as they were back on land and drove off back to their normal lives. Which left her and Kai alone in the marina parking lot, Kai completely unsuspecting about the wrath she was about to unleash on him as he dug around for his keys. Should she maybe wait until they were somewhere more private than a public parking lot? Yeah, probably. But right now, Amy didn’t really care.

“Kai?” she said, shocked at how cold her own voice sounded coming out of her mouth. It must have surprised Kai as well because he looked around at her immediately, his search for his car keys forgotten.

“Amy?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

Amy wondered what she must look like right then. Without Jess or Jason around anymore, she didn’t have to mask what she was feeling, and right now she felt like she was on fire from the inside out.

“I got some more emails about catering jobs,” she said, just jumping straight into it.

“You… You don’t seem very happy about that.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Because I haven’t completely read through each one, but the one I read back on the yacht said that Kai Nichols recommended me.”

Amy could have sworn the whole world stopped turning, just for a fraction of a second. That was how it felt, anyway. Kai said nothing at first. He too went very still as what she said sunk in. But then he went pale, just a shade, and he broke eye contact with her, not once denying it.

That’s when Amy completely lost faith in him, when he couldn’t even look her in the eye.

“What on earth were you thinking buying business for me?” she spat. Never in her life had she been this angry, and she hated every second of it. It was the worst feeling, like her insides were melting and burning all at the same time.

“I never paid anyone to offer you a job,” he said as if that made it all okay. “All I did was mention to people who I knew wanted a caterer that you had a business and that you were amazing.”

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