Page 34 of Accidental Vegas Vows

Buzzer pressed on west gate.

Buzzer pressed on west gate…

I swiped on the notifications that were piling up by the second. The live video feed flickered to life on my phone, and standing outside my gate, frantically and angrily pressing my buzzer over and over, was a woman I only vaguely recognized.

I pressed the button to speak through it. “Hello?”

I watched as the woman glanced around before realizing the sound was coming from the speaker. She leaned closer to the camera. “Hi, Damien. Can you let me in, please?”

Scrubbing my eyes, I focused on her again, trying to work out why her face rang bells in my mind. But it was far too early — six in the morning, if my phone was to be trusted — and I couldn’t bring myself to wake up enough to place her. “I’m sorry, the camera is broken,” I lied. “Who is this?”

“Christ, you’d think someone as rich as him would have a working camera,” she grumbled.

“I can hear you.”

“Sorry, yeah, it’s Grace. Grace Thompson.”

Grace Thompson…

Shit.

I sprung from the sheets, stumbling to my dresser as I pressed the unlock button on my app. Grace Thompson. Marissa’s sister. The one who was handling all of the handover details about Noah. Why she was here at six o’clock in the Goddamn morning was beyond me, but if I needed to sign something or she needed to drop something off, I was more than willing to let her onto my property.

The sound of the doorbell rang through the empty house. I pulled on the first pair of joggers I could find and slipped a plain white t-shirt over my head as I trudged down the stairs. This would be the first time I would be speaking to her directly since Marissa and I split over five years ago — almost everything so far had been handled by Ethan.

On some level, I was nervous. But my stomach sank into a black abyss the moment I opened the door.

Grace stood in her pastel green scrubs, name tag dangling from her neck, her auburn hair chopped short and blunt at her shoulders. And beside her, a quarter of her height, clutching a tiny toy car, a head of dark brown curls and staggeringly bright blue eyes stared up at me.

Nope. No. I was going to pass out.

“Damien, this is Noah. Noah, this is your father, Damien Blackwood.”

I took a step back from the door.

“This is your new home from today,” she continued, lowering herself to a squat.

She was a week early. Why the fuck was she a week fucking early? “Grace,” I croaked, half expecting her to explain herself and half expecting this to be a Goddamn fucking nightmare. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.

“What?” she snapped, the bite of that single word telling me everything I needed to know about the situation at hand.

“You…” Fuck, I couldn’t find words. Breathe. Fucking breathe. “Next week. You’re supposed to drop him off next week.” I stared her down, my gaze unwavering, partly because I hadn’t mentally prepared myself yet to even be able to look at the kid I’d made and been unaware of for five whole years. I should have said hello to him. I should have been ready.

“There was a mix-up in the schedule. He’s yours from today,” she said. “I told your lawyer last night.”

“When?” I pressed. “When last night?”

“I don’t know, nine or so?”

I pulled my phone from my pajama bottoms and looked at the notifications that had piled up overnight, scrolling past each separate one from the buzzer. And sure fucking enough, at nine-thirty last night, three missed calls from Ethan.

I’d been in the shower. I’d been thinking about Olivia. I’d been doing all fucking manner of things to myself.

Oh my God. “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I’m not… I’m not ready yet, Grace. None of his things have come in yet.”

“What?” she snapped, but quickly took a deep breath and looked back down at Noah. “Noah, buddy, how about we go inside and you can have a look around your new house while Damien—sorry, your dad—and I speak?”

Noah looked between us, his too-big eyes lingering on me. Say something, you idiot. Say something to your fucking kid. “Okay.”

---