Page 29 of Daddy's Double Surprise

It was a message from Sunny, so I opened it immediately.

Sunny 11:47 AM:I’m feeling a bit better. Have dinner with me?

My chest released like a bowstring firing an arrow, the tension coiling outward until I could breathe again. One thing at a time, my life felt like it was correcting itself slowly, hopefully. I didn’t respond, choosing to focus on the meeting, but I was glad she had made an effort to reach out. I was beginning to think Rick had brainwashed her into thinking I was evil.

Right now, I had to get through this meeting, then I could go have a very hard discussion with her. I had to tell her what was going on before someone else did. It was the only way to salvage the relationship because I knew how upset she would be.

19

SUNNY

Carter and I went back and forth a few times this afternoon but finally decided on me arriving at his house around seven for dinner. I stood at his doorstep wringing my hands. Dad grilled me before leaving as to who I’d be with and where I was going, and I made it very clear to him that I wasn’t telling him and that I didn’t like how he insisted on knowing every detail. He was upset, but I slipped out when my Uber arrived.

“Sunny,” Carter breathed out in a deep exhale. He pulled me into his arms before I could say hello and kissed the crook of my neck, burying his face there. “How are you doing?”

When he pulled away, I met his gaze and felt gut sick again. I’d made the decision to come over and tell him about the baby right away. The guilt was consuming me and so was the nervous energy. I’d thrown up so many times this past weekend, I felt like my insides would fall out any second. I couldn’t keep carrying this, fearing his reaction.

“I’m better,” I told him, smiling, but it was a fake smile, plastic—imitation. I’d learned over the years to wear this professional smile on hard days and especially around myfather. For all Carter knew, I had the flu and was healthy again. My news would probably gut him, but I hoped that somehow I could reach through the mess of fear and triggers to find the man who adored his baby that passed. The man who originally wanted a child and loved being a father.

“Come in,” he said, glancing over my shoulder like he expected someone to be watching us. He ushered me into his living room which was a bit messier than I remembered. Stacks of papers were strewn about on his coffee table, a few empty beer bottles beside them. There was a dress shirt and tie draped over the back of the sofa, shoes by the bar. Carter appeared to have been very busy or distracted by something.

“Can I get you a drink? Some wine? A seltzer?” His eyebrows rose as he shut the door and smiled at me, passing me to head toward his kitchen.

I pressed a hand to my belly, thinking of my little guy, and it made me smile. “Just water is fine.” After finding out in an overly dramatic way with Mom and Luna that I was pregnant, it started to dawn on me that I had been given a gift.

Most women my age would be horrified at an unplanned pregnancy, especially in my situation, where the father didn’t want kids necessarily. I, however, found it sweet and heartwarming. Life shifted in a very negative direction when Kira died. I lost my best friend. But I gained a baby. I felt like she sent me this gift, someone to love, someone to love me. Someone who couldn’t just desert and hurt me, and for that I was thankful.

“One water, coming up,” he said with a grin and vanished. I walked over to the couch and sat down, ignoring the mess. My heart was thumping hard against my chest. I’d come with the purpose of telling him about our unborn baby, and I had no clue how he was going to take it. When I got that text message he sent, telling me he loved me, I melted. I couldn’t keep this fromhim and risk tarnishing that love. He’d fought so hard to come back from the brink after his divorce and the heartbreak of it all. I had to give our relationship a fighting chance by being honest.

“Here we go,” he said, smiling as he plopped down. For a moment, his eyes scanned the mess around us, and I thought he looked panicked. I took my water and sipped while he scooped up the papers and stacked them, then set them aside on the end table. “My gosh, I’m sorry about the mess. I’ve been working on something…” His forehead crinkled and his eyes darkened.

“Hmm, what’s that?” I asked, swallowing the water and setting the glass down. It did nothing to calm my nerves at all. Mom told me to be bold and just spit it out, but I didn’t want this to be traumatic for him.

“Nothing too important to distract us. My gosh, I missed you so much I took the chance to call Rick.” Carter chuckled, but I saw the expression behind it. Dad must’ve reamed him again by the looks of it. Carter’s eyes were still stormy.

“How’d that go?” I asked with a wince. My hand rose to my hair, instinctively tangling in the soft waves. I hated that I was so easy to read, so predictable. Carter probably read me like a book. My hair twirling was so obviously a sign of my nervousness.

“About as well as you’d think. He had the nerve to talk about Hope…” Carter huffed and I clenched my jaw. The couch suddenly felt very uncomfortable. My back went rigid, muscles tensing. “Told me I ‘didn’t have a child so I wouldn’t know.’ I get it, he was angry, but my lord, the man can be very hurtful at times.”

My chest ached. I reached for him and rested my hand on his back as he continued to tell me in detail how he felt, which ripped my heart out.

“Rick just doesn’t understand how bad that kind of thing hurts. He never had his balls handed to him like that.” He rubbed his temples, then jerked his sleeves down into place.“When you go through something like that and fight back to some semblance of normalcy, anything can set you off. I’ve been burying myself in work all afternoon to try to shake that, but I’m seriously raging mad.”

I rubbed his back for a second, not even knowing what to say. Hearing the words spill out of his mouth, I knew I couldn’t bring up the baby right now. He’d already been upset by Dad’s selfish mean statements. How could I make it worse by bringing it up again? Anything I said could trigger worse emotions than this, and I of all people knew how that felt. Hearing from Mrs. Baker on Saturday brought up all those raw emotions. I felt like she’d just died right in front of me all over again.

“Wow, that was really awful of him. I’m so sorry he’s like that sometimes.” I never thought I’d have to apologize for my father’s bad behavior, but here I was hoping to smooth things over. I loved my dad, even though he was a total jerk sometimes. And I loved Carter, though he didn’t know it yet.

“Well, enough about me. You said there was something you wanted to talk to me about?” Carter turned the full force of his gaze on me, and I wilted like a three-day-old rose out of water. My plans were going up in smoke, and I scrambled to find somethingtalk-worthyto discuss with him.

In my haste, my mind landed on: “I’m staying in LA.” The decision had been made by my mother, who insisted that I couldn’t raise a baby alone in Tampa. She convinced me that Luna and I could get an apartment, away from Dad’s prying, and she’d be here to help me through pregnancy and birth and maybe the first year. She was right; I would need her. But I didn’t see how I’d ever get through this without Dad’s meddling.

“You have just made me the happiest man alive,” Carter said, pulling me onto his lap. I had no choice but to straddle him with the way he forcibly handled my body. Not that I minded one bit. I missed him, and I craved being intimate with him. I just hopedit would’ve been celebratory after he accepted the truth and we vowed to raise the baby together as a family.

I chuckled to mask my own discouragement, but I fell into a kiss that warmed me to my core. When I pulled away I said, “And I’m going apartment hunting with Luna next weekend probably.”

“You don’t need an apartment. Stay with me…” Carter’s lips found mine again, definitely eager to get on with the pleasurable parts of this night.

The apartment idea with Luna wasn’t a suggestion; it was a must-have. If things went sideways with Carter, I had to have a backup plan. I’d be staying here in LA anyway, but I wasn’t going to go back to Mom and Dad’s house because I got dumped. How bad would Dad treat Carter then?

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