Page 49 of The Homewrecker's Fate

“That is the absolute truth,” I agreed. Brax and I both stood and shook Mr. Sanderson’s hand as well as Brenda’s. Rich continued to sit, sulk, and be rude. The man was doing himself no favors.

“Rich, if you’d stick around a minute, I have some personal news to share with you,” Mr. Sanderson said when Rich finally hauled his ass out of his chair.

As we were leaving, we both heard Mr. Sanderson tell Rich how disappointed his parents were in the choices he had been making. Before we could overhear anything else, Braxton escorted me out the door and down to his car. “Well, that was interesting.”

“I’ll say. It felt like a fishing expedition for Rich’s family more than the congratulatory business dinner it was supposed to be.”

“It looks like they didn’t fault you, which was a good thing, because I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mouth shut if they made any remarks against you.”

“My hero,” I cooed at Brax as he leaned over and gave me a kiss before pulling out into the evening traffic. “Let’s go get your car and get you home where you can rest.”

“Amelia is with my mom tonight. We can go to your place,” I suggested.

“That sounds perfect, sweetheart.”

Chapter 20

I had not seen Rich since the disaster dinner with Mr. Sanderson a week before. Usually, he made it a point to be seen at work, but that wasn’t the case any longer. He hid in his office when he showed up to work, otherwise he had been working from home. I didn’t bother myself with where ‘home’ was for him these days. All I knew was that it wasn’t with Mel, despite his repeated attempts to get her to take him back.

Brax and I laughed at his disingenuous attempts. The idiot thought Mel would allow him to live in her house while he was still actively dating other people. According to her, there was a nurse he had been seeing and she didn’t think that was the only woman on his roster, either. She only knew because he asked to take the kids out for dinner, but failed to mention that he was bringing a date along. The kids had apparently embarrassed him and asked why their mom couldn’t come along if he had invited a friend.

I’m not sure if, or how, he got out of that mess with whoever the woman was, but at least she knew he had children. It did make me wonder if she knew there were also two babies by two different women on the way. Again, not my problem, but Rich was one tiger who wouldn’t change his stripes, so I didn’t think he would offer up the truth.

“Are you ready?” I turned to see Brax standing there looking like a sweet dessert that I wanted to stay home and indulge in. Instead, we were off to another doctor’s appointment. At 34 weeks along, I didn’t have much time left. Six more weeks, if I went full term. My brain wouldn’t even compute going past my due date. It already felt as though my skin wanted to pop open at any minute.

A tired sigh left me as I pouted. “I was just contemplating staying home and indulging in your snackiness, but now I just feel like taking another nap.”

“My snackiness?” Brax laughed as I nodded in earnest.

“Yeah, babe, you look like a whole dessert, and I’d rather lie in bed and just lick you from head to toe.” I scrunched my nose up at that thought. "Maybe from head to knee. I’ve been here when you took your running shoes off. It’s not yummy.”

Brax threw his head back and laughed even harder. “Damn woman, way to boost my ego and land a blow in less than two seconds flat.”

“I only speak the tired truth, Brax.”

“Aww, come on sweetheart.” He wrapped his arm around me and guided us through the door before propping me against his body as he locked up. “Once we get this appointment out of the way, we’ll come back, and I’ll make dinner for us while you take a nap. How’s that sound?”

“What are you making for dinner?”

“What are you craving today?”

“Right now?” I asked. He gave me a look that said that was a dumb question without actually saying it and getting himself in trouble. My man was smart. “I want a giant, juicy burger, fries, and a strawberry shake. No, blueberry shake.”

“I can probably make that happen, but we’ll have to stop at the store on the way. I don’t have blueberries in because someone ate them all yesterday.”

“If you didn’t want me to eat them, they shouldn’t have been sitting out where just anyone could grab them. That was like an invitation to partake,” I complained.

“Sweetheart, they were in the crisper drawer in my refrigerator, buried behind the kale, baby spinach, and lettuce.”

I shrugged my shoulders like I didn’t know how hard I had to dig to find those delicious dark berries. My daughter was probably going to be born blue, but not for lack of oxygen. She was being dyed from the inside out by the craving she gave me. Before I got pregnant with her, I never even really liked blueberries that much.

“Okay, we can go to the store, but I think I’ll just hang out in the car until you get what we need. My poor feet… If I could see them, I bet they’d be swollen to like three times the normal size. They feel like they’re about to explode too.”

“They don’t look too swollen to me,” he said after he stopped to inspect them.

“Did you just check on my feet for me?”

“I did,” Brax admitted before wrapping me back up in his arms and guiding us to his car.

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