Page 2 of Baby Me

Like I said, we’d been happy since he chose to devote himself to me and not her. There was never a day when I doubted his love for me and the feelings in my heart for my old man only grew with each day we spent together.

My family was my everything.

By the time I got back home, after running all my errands, that impending doom feeling started to set in. It had nothing to do with being insecure where June was concerned. There was just something in the air beyond the thick, humid heat that seemed to suck the energy right out of me. It was almost always warm in South Georgia, but it had been exceptionally, and unseasonably so, all day. I’d been sweating like a whore in church by the time I got into the house.

I glanced back up at the photograph of my old man smiling down at me just as I heard glass shatter in the kitchen. There wasn’t even time for me to take two steps in that direction to see what caused the noise before something connected hard with my head and I went down in a sea of blackness. The last image I processed was a swath of crude red impeding my vision of the picture I’d been staring at moments ago.

Prologue - June

May 7th

Tripp looked even more handsome than when we used to date. He put my sorry excuse of an unwanted husband to shame. I wished that I could go over and wrap my arms around his body and let him know that I could be the shoulder for him to cry on.

It wasn't time for that, though. That bitch only died a week ago. It should have been years ago, but they were careful with her in the beginning, especially when the kids were younger.

The kids.

Those little brats were the reason I couldn't approach him yet. Tripp never cared about that bitch. He fucked her out of duty after she drunkenly took advantage of him that time while I was in Europe. I don't know how he was able to forgive her for that, and I imagined it had to do with the little cunt being his club brother's sister. Still, I wasn't stupid.

I would have to bide my time and pretend to live a happy little life with my clueless, lump of a husband that my parents picked for me. He wouldn't even be in the picture if it wasn't for my father's stupid rules. I couldn't inherit his bank, but so long as I was married to a man that he approved of, that man could inherit ownership with some hefty stipulations that protected me.

I did everything he ever asked of me. I left Tripp alone, despite the fact that I knew I could have gotten him back. I went to college, double majored in business and finance, and could run the bank he started better than my father ever could. Still, he wouldn't leave the business to me.

I yanked at my hair as I watched my future husband throw a rose down on the man-stealing whore's coffin. Then I smiled because she might have stolen my man temporarily, but she got what was coming to her in the end. I wasn't even sure why they bothered with a whole coffin when there couldn't have been much left of her, considering she burned up in a fire. It was just a shame that their kids hadn't been with her when it happened.

They were the reason why I had to wait even longer to claim the man who belonged to me all along. I needed them gone. Otherwise, they might put up a fuss, and I wasn't stupid enough to believe Tripp would choose me over his children. I thought that might have been the case once, but he proved me wrong. I would bide my time, wait for the youngest brat – another whore-in-the-making like her mother – to grow up and move out, then I'd swoop in, and Tripp would be mine forever.

Chapter 1

Tripp - Eight years and nine months later

“Tripp Martin, is that you?" A woman called out to me from across the parking lot. I'd pulled in to check on my Harley Breakout. The damn thing kept choking out when I put it in fifth gear. I pulled my attention off my bike problems and glanced around until I noticed her. Recognition was immediate.

“June?"

She grinned widely as she walked toward me with a very deliberate sway of her hips. "I thought that was you. I noticed from my office window."

I glanced at the building, only just then noticing that I was sitting right in front of the bank her father owned. Since she worked there, I assumed he still owned the thing. It figured that she ended up working for him.

"How have you been?" I took her in from top to toe for the first time and realized that she had done a fantastic job maintaining her figure after all these years. Time wore on her face a little, but it was barely noticeable under the makeup she had on. She didn't seem to have any grays in her hair, unlike me, though that could have been down to a good hair stylist on her part. In fact, since it was still blonde, it must have been down to the stylist she used. I’d nearly forgotten that she’d once been a brunette.

Truth be told, I hadn’t thought about June at all in years. Once Kip came along, and things changed to seal the bond between Kim and me, anyone else faded out of existence for a while. When we came up to breathe from our brand-new little family, my focus remained on Kim, Kip, and the club.

“I’ve been doing well. Obviously, I ended up working at my dad’s bank after college.”

“Where did you end up going to college?”

June looked hurt before she was able to school her features. “You really don’t know?”

I shook my head. “By the time you graduated, I had a son to take care of. Didn’t really keep up with much of anything except when to change diapers and feed him.”

Her eyes narrowed on me for a minute in what almost looked like a menacing glare before once again smoothing out. “Isn’t that what his mother was supposed to do?”

I chuckled and kicked back against my Harley. “Shit, June. She had to sleep sometime. We took turns taking care of our kids.”

I wanted to feel bad, considering the hurt in her eyes at the mention of me having more than one child with Kim, but I didn’t. I loved my wife and the life we made together, that included both our children. There would never be a day where I apologized for it.

“I heard you had a girl, too.”

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