Page 7 of On Thin Ice

I glanced up at the ceiling to look for answers. Had he noticed my bump when I stood up? I was wearing a flowy dress because Denver in late August was hot, so it camouflaged my body pretty well. And I hadn’t waited long enough for him to say anything before I bailed. I mean, what the hell. The freaking nerve of him. I grimaced. Sure, hooking up when we were near each other was our thing, but still…

I bit back a groan. That was not how I had planned on running into my baby daddy.

Ugh.

That sounded ridiculous. I knew I had to tell him, but I wanted to be prepared. No surprises.

I put my hand on my belly as my baby girl moved around inside of me.

Nomoresurprises.

My pen rolled off my lap, making apingsound as it hit the floor. I internally shook myself free of thoughts of Dom and focused on where I was. I’d been looking forward to this conference and I was supposed to be paying attention, but seeing Dom had rattled me.

“Here,” a low voice said, startling me.

I looked over to see the guy next to me holding out my pen. He had a nice smile. But the only thing fluttering in me right now was the little diva.

“Um, thanks.”

Focus. Ally, focus.

There was plenty of time to dwell on my situation when I got back to my hotel room. I still had three days in Denver, loads of time to figure out exactly how I was going to tell Dom about this little peanut growing inside of me. I wasn’t about to leave this city without telling him. We might not have ever really been a couple, but he deserved to know. Part of the reason I’d asked myboss about attending this conference was to force myself to be in the same town as Dom, so I had no excuse.

I sighed and turned my attention back to the lecturer at the front of the room, who was discussing flexible tools for making analyses accessible to our clients. It was a practical workshop and one that would be immediately useful for me instead of just theory. Not that I minded a few theory workshops; I just preferred hands-on processes and tangible information. I was here to absorb all the knowledge that I could from my peers.

Yup. That was my focus.

Not chocolate-brown eyes that always looked just a little sad and a mouth that kissed like a damn dream. I wasn’t even going to think about his lethal tongue between my thighs.

I squirmed in my seat, then turned my attention back to the lecturer.

Focus.

***

Later that afternoon, I headed back to my hotel room. My workshops were done for the day and there was a mixer later that evening, but I was tired. I just wanted to order room service and veg. Which would probably lead to overanalyzing everything.

I snorted. Analyzing was what I lived for, just not when it came to my personal life.

The smart thing would be to take a quick nap and then go mingle with my fellow statisticians.

I chuckled. Ethan would definitely have a joke there, something about us partying hard or something. You would think a man married to an accountant would embrace a love of numbers.

Kicking off my shoes, I sank onto the bed and flopped back, sighing. I needed a plan. Did I just go to his condo right now? Or where I assumed he lived. I’d heard some of my brother’s teammates talking about how most of the Stampede members were all living in the same building. Some sweet setup by the owners. It wasn’t like I’d stalked his address or something.

Yep. Overanalyzing.

Maybe send him a text? Or sleep on it until tomorrow?

I blew out a frustrated breath.

My phone pinged, and I had a brief moment of panic. Was it him?

Erika: Come have a drink at the bar with us. That last workshop was slooooow.

I chuckled. During last night’s welcome cocktail party, Erika Jones had struck up a conversation with me. While my focus was data analysis for market research, she worked in the medical field. We’d chatted about the pros and cons of our different sides of statistics and then moved on to talking about action movies and the lack of younger quality action heroes. Liam Neeson could only kick ass for so many years.

I knew a handful of people here, but most of them were much older, so hanging out with Erika was fun. I sat up and pushed my hair behind my ear, then tapped out a message.

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