Page 10 of Slow Burn
4
BRYNN
For being a relatively smart woman, I certainly make stupid choices. My life is riddled with them. One night in high school. About two years of wasted life after graduation. Mostly I am self-destructive so my stupid choices hurt just me. This time, though, my choice could affect more than me and I’m still doing it.
I must be some kind of sadist. Or is it masochist? Whatever it is, it’s not like I plan to stop now.
Because Levi Holt put a baby in my arms and asked me to help give her everything. The handsome fuck might as well have spread my legs and filled me with baby batter himself. Jesus. One look at that precious baby, so innocent and unaware of the dark cloud trailing her brand-new life, and I had no choice. Not really.
I mean, it’s not like he had played fair last night, anyway. Not when he made it clear he wanted more than a nanny for his new daughter. A daughter his whore ex-wife didn’t bother to tell him about, intend to stick around for, or even leave a Goddamn name. What kind of mother doesn’t name her child? A whore mother who didn’t deserve her or someone like Levi.
“Get it together, Brynn.” I scold my reflection in the mirror; just thinking about him makes me warm in places he shouldn’t be able to reach.
And yet.
And yet. Last night, he had touched me, had pressed his lips to my skin, had pinned me to the wall of a dressing room. It had been months since he had touched me like that. Talked to me like that. Mostly because I let him believe he didn’t deserve to touch me at all.
Last night though, he had touched me like those months had never happened. Like we were under the stars again. As if the ugliness we came back to didn’t matter. But, I knew better. Of course, it mattered. So did the months since, when I knew for a fact Levi had touched other women just the way he had touched me.
“I wanted you, baby.”It pissed me off when that statement played over again. And again. And again.
I gave up pretending, just for a moment, that it hadn’t done a number on me. Last night, holding that adorable baby, Levi whispering that to me as his perfect, hard, body pressed to mine, it had nearly done me in, in fact. Or, maybe it had since I had agreed to nanny for him. Why had I agreed to that?
“Because, guilt, Brynn. Also, because Amelia is Goddamn adorable. Just like her stupid father.” I made a face at my reflection, scrunched nose and wagging tongue, and headed from the steamy bathroom.
Lola knew before I had even stepped out of that dressing room what had gone down. After we loaded the ridiculous amount of baby gear Lola had insisted Levi needed, she had brought me here. To her old condo, across the hall from where she and Hunter still lived. I argued for about two minutes before I fell in love with the place and agreed.
I was staying in Chicago for as long as I could pretend it was just to do right by that precious baby.
Not for Levi. Or what he made me feel. Or the way he looked at me last night. And every night before. But, last night, it had been different. I had looked at him with that baby and listened to him plead with me to help him give her everything he had never had. Everything he probably assumed I had.
“Breakfast in ten, China Doll.” Lola’s voice called from across the hall as I headed for the door.
Hunter had dropped us off, then returned with my bags less than an hour later. We spent the night unpacking my stuff as Lola gushed about babies. Not just hers. That adorable crimson haired poppet Levi seemed so willing to alter his life for. Wasn’t that fucking amazing, Lola wondered? Of course, it was fucking amazing and, yes it did shit to my girly parts. Combined with what Levi already did to those parts, I was doomed and we both knew it.
“I promise to attempt to behave. I won’t lie to you, baby, it ain’t going to be easy.”Levi had warned me. Should have been enough of a warning.
Hot firefighter. Turned daddy. Who wanted his brand-new daughter to have everything. I was utterly doomed. Levi knew what he was doing but I was letting him do it. Again, it was my stupid choices. This one was epically ill-advised. And yet.
“The Yolk. I want banana nut waffles and I want them in abundance.” Lola announced as I met her in the hall.
“Baby Byrne will have his or her waffles, then, my lady. Shall we?” I held my arm out and Lola giggled, hooking hers through it.
“How fucking adorable will Hunter’s baby be?” I cocked a brow at her as we headed down the hall and outside.
“Umm, grossly adorable. How adorable will a Lola baby be, though?” I shot back with a wink, stepping up to the curb to hail a cab.
I could feel resentful or envious of her pregnancy. I don’t even think Lola would fault me, if I did feel that. I don’t, though; after hearing, what her first husband had done to her, how unlikely this baby was, I knew better.
Lola was meant to be a mother, and she had a second shot at it now. A shot with an adoring husband who would dote on her and that baby and give them a full, loving life. I wanted that for her more than I wanted it for myself. I didn’t always believe I deserved that same fate.
It took me a long time, longer than some thought it should, for me to make peace with what I had done. With the choices I had made. It felt like a lifetime ago. Some days, I regretted the choice. Others, I knew I had done the right thing. The days I thought about it too long or too hard, when I looked too deeply into my choice, guilt nearly suffocated me.
“Stop it. Don’t go back, Brynn.” Lola was murmuring beside me, breaking into my heavy thoughts.
“Hard not to, Midge.” I gave a half smile but knew it didn’t even look right on my face. It didn’t feel right, either.
“China Doll. You did right by her. You know you did. I can’t imagine being so strong.” Lola bends her tiny, swollen body into the cab that slows beside us.
