Page 35 of His Captor

“They have a lot more money available to them than you have available to you,” Alex told me.

I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face. “I’ll worry about that when I have a few spare seconds. Right now, my primary concern is getting Canton Enterprises ticking along like the well-oiled machine I know it can be.”

“Understood,” Alex said, sounding happier. “If anyone can do it, I know you can.”

We said our goodbyes, then I hung up and leaned back in my chair. It was nice that Alex had faith in me. I was glad that we still had things to talk about and reasons to be friends. I certainly didn’t need him to be my second for any fantasies recently.

A day or so after Billy had left, after I put out the fires Colin had created for me, all of which needed my undivided attention for almost a week, I’d gone back onto the Dark Fantasies Club app. It had dawned on me that I could message Billy there and tell him I wanted to see him again, somehow.

But Billy’s profile had been deleted. I’d been so disappointed by that, not to mention losing all interest in tawdry hook-ups with anonymous omegas, that I deleted my app, too.

Colin was still causing a lot of trouble for me back then, and as much as I wanted to give Billy a call, I started to worry that he wouldn’t want to see me. I didn’t want to be a creepy alpha pestering an omega he’d spent one weekend with, so I didn’t call him.

Then things had gotten messier with Colin and I’d found it necessary to get a new cell phone and change numbers. Somehow, Billy’s contact had ended up deleted from my phone.

I hadn’t had time to deal with that while shutting one company down, preparing to battle potential lawsuits, and setting up a new company on the other side of the country. And moving, which would have been distracting enough on its own. But I had hope that just being in Barrington would help the Universe bring me and Billy back together again.

I just hadn’t expect it to happen as quickly or as shockingly as it did.

After my phone call with Alex, I’d gotten out of my chair to take my too-hot suit jacket off. Then I’d turned to reach for oneof the binders on the bookshelf, curious what sort of information was being stored in that old-fashioned way.

The next thing I knew, Rachel’s voice sounded from the doorway, saying, “Mr. Canton, I’d like to introduce you to our office manager, Hayden Kipling.”

I smiled, glad to finally meet the man, and turned away from the bookshelf.

“It’s a pleasure to meet the man who’s done such a good job of?—”

A giant dinosaur could have attacked and toppled the office building and I wouldn’t have been more shocked. There he was, looking just as alarmed as I felt, glowing with health, dark eyes wide, smelling like fizz…round with child.

“Sorry, I was in the middle of something that really needs to get done,” Rachel said. “I’ll just leave the two of you to make further introductions.”

I barely heard her. I was too busy trying to smash the pieces of my brain back together.

“You’re here,” Billy gasped, putting a hand to his belly.

That felt like an admission of some sort. Not that I needed things spelled out for me.

I swallowed, dragged his eyes up to meet Billy’s. “You’re pregnant.”

You could have cut the awkwardness in the room with a gummy worm, let alone a knife.

“Um, yeah. Funny thing, that,” Billy said, resting both hands on his huge bump.

I shook myself. “Your name’s not Billy.”

“And yours isn’t Ace,” Billy—er, Kipling? Hayden? What the fuck was I supposed to call him?

“It’s Mason, actually,” I said, still too stunned to know if it was a good or a bad idea to blurt things out. “My friends call me Mace.”

“And your play partners call you Ace.”

I couldn’t tell if Billy—Kipling—Hayden was making a joke or if he just didn’t have the first clue what to do in this situation either.

Another painfully awkward beat or two passed.

“Oh. I guess you can call me Hayden,” he said. Then the verbal flood started. “Although maybe you should call me Mr. Kipling? You’re my boss, after all. Holy fuck, you’re my boss. You’re Mason Canton. You own this entire company and you’re my boss. You’re also the alpha who knocked me up. Oh, shit! I shouldn’t say that out loud in the office, should I.”

I’d started for the door after the first sentence, when I could see the panic fill Hayden’s eyes. “Hayden” would take some getting used to. I just hoped that I’d shut the door before he got to the part about me getting him pregnant and that no one outside of the office had been listening in.

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