Page 18 of His Bittersweet Regret

“What about the savings you have for the house?”

“It was in Marsh’s account, not mine.”

“He took all your money?”

I shrugged. “He probably didn’t even think about it. Unless he’s spent it all on his dates.”

“Opal, this isn’t right. He should have given you your half of the money back. Hell, he should be the one helping to pay for the doctor visits and all the baby stuff. This isn’t right. It shouldn’t all be on you.”

“It wasn’t supposed to all be on me. When I went to the doctor the first time, I took the test, the sonogram photo, and a cute little onesie that said, ‘I love the best daddy ever’ and put them all in a bag to give to him.”

“I don’t understand how he could have seen that, and not cared. That’s not the brother I know.”

“Ryker, he never saw it. That was the day that I got home to find all his things gone. He barely told me he was leaving me before he was up and out the door and when I tried to give him the bag, he told me he didn’t deserve anything I had to give him and left.”

“So, you never actually told him?”

“I texted him after that and he told me ‘Goodbye meant goodbye’ and not to bother him again.”

Ryker gave me an odd look and then his face turned red with anger. “That also doesn’t sound like something Marsh would say,” he muttered while continuing to drive us to his house.

“Well, I never thought Marsh would secretly clear the apartment out and leave me without even talking to me about anything either, but I guess that means neither of us knew him as well as we thought.”

Ryker’s leg bounced up and down on the other side of the car so hard that had we been sitting still instead of driving, it would have been shaking the car around just from those movements.

It didn’t take long to get to the house where my ex-boyfriend’s parents lived, which was kind of a shame because my stomach was in knots. The baby must have felt my anxiety because he started moving around and kicking the crap out of me. Maybe my son was telling me to stop being a coward and go face the music so he could one day meet his grandparents, even if his dad didn’t want anything to do with him.

I sat there long enough that Ryker had come around to my side of the car and opened the door for me. “Come on, Opal. You know my mom loves you. She’ll be angry that she didn’t know about the baby before now, but that anger won’t be directed at you.”

Unfortunately for me, the first people we saw when we entered the house were not Ryker’s parents. The twins were seated on the sofa – a reminder that it was the weekend, still early enough that Ryker had probably just missed family dinner, and unfortunately that meant the twins were there too.

Ryker put his arm around my waist to guide me through to the kitchen, but Brixton’s snide comment stopped us both in our tracks.

“Couldn’t have one brother, so you decide to go for the underaged one and pretend to fall in love with him too? Maybe we should call you Cass?”

I turned, but Ryker’s hand had a firm grip on my hip, which made my shirt pull tight. Bastion sucked in a harsh breath at the sight it created.

“I fucking told you she wasn’t lying!” It was an accusation thrown at his twin, who looked just as stricken by my condition.

“I thought it was just a desperate ploy to get him to come back,” Brixton said.

“What in the world is going on out here?” Kathy, the boys’ mother, asked before another sharp intake of breath let us know she’d seen my belly too. “Lord in heaven!” Marsh’s mother looked between me and her youngest son, her eyes narrowing just a bit in accusation.

“Wipe that look off your face right now,” Ryker growled at his mother. “That’s not my baby, but I do seem to be the only Kennedy who has stepped up to be there for Opal. So the rest of you can fuck off with your judgments and your games.”

“Boy, you better watch your mouth,” Mr. Kennedy stated coolly to his son as he walked into the room before taking careful observation of everything, including my burgeoning belly.

“Think maybe we all need to sit down and figure some things out. One of you assholes call Marsh.”

“Please, don’t.” I begged.

“No offense, sweetheart, but I think you’ve kept this news to yourself long enough. My son deserves to know he’s going to be a father.”

“He already knows!” I yelled at the man I once thought would be my father-in-law.

He took a step back as if I’d physically assaulted him.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘he already knows’?”

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