Page 54 of Begin Again, Part 1

"That's not why I'm calling," Liam said. "Eden McBride, I don't see anything about her husband."

"That's because there is no husband."

Liam frowned as he picked up a pen and spun it between his fingers. "That's impossible. She wears a wedding ring."

"She could have bought it herself, or maybe it's a family heirloom. Her grandmother recently died. Maybe she left it for her? But her info has been verified and triple-checked. There's no marriage certificate in her name. She's a single parent."

The niggling tumour growing in Liam's heart since he saw the ring on Eden's hand shrunk considerably, and his chest suddenly felt lighter than it had in days.

"What about the baby's father? Any information on him?" He dropped the pen and stared at Eden's face in the dossier. She wasn't gorgeous in the conventional sense. But something about her lured him in and threatened to render him powerless if he so much as let down his guard. It had to be her eyes, he thought as he tapped his fingers on her glasses. They were warm and soothing. He could easily lose himself in them if he wasn't careful—

"The father's name is blank on the birth certificate." James continued, interrupting his thoughts. "Should we keep digging?"

"No, thank you." Liam hung up, still feeling unsettled.

He shoved the report and Eden's photo in his drawer, convinced he was overthinking things. The timeline matched up, though, and would explain why she disappeared. But there was no way a money grabber like her wouldn't have told him if she was pregnant with his kid, especially when his family was worth so much.

"No!" Liam shuddered in disgust at the notion that he could have fathered a child with Eden. There was no way he was the father. No chance in hell.

He went to his room, took a shower, and slipped into bed, determined to put the crazy notion out of his head.

Chapter

Eighteen

IS HE MINE?

Eden reported for her first day as Liam's junior assistant on Wednesday, as instructed. He expected her at 6:00 AM. She was there an hour earlier. Now that she had an access card, she didn't have to deal with the five Sandys at reception. After her customary stop at Ted and Jim's post at the entrance, she headed to the 36th floor.

She wandered the hallways for some time, searching for her office, pausing every so often to read the names on the doors. Liam and two other executives had the biggest offices. The smaller ones belonged to their army of assistants.

When she couldn't find a door with her name, Eden circled back to the waiting area and plopped down in one of the armchairs. Five minutes in, she was already restless from sitting idly. She pulled out her phone to call Gibby to check if there was anything she should do while waiting for everyone to come in. Brenda's text, though, caught her attention.

Panicked, Eden called the nanny.

Brenda, slurping her tea and munching on something, picked up on the third ring. "Sorry, Eden, you caught me mid-bite."

"Please, don't mind me. I'm just checking in," Eden said.

They spent the next few minutes discussing their trip to the park two blocks away from home. Their little adventure sounded like loads of fun, but a lot could go wrong if they weren't careful. So, she reiterated her list of all the things Aiden could and couldn't do. "Please, Brenda, he cannot eat anything from anyone. He can't have nuts, raw, or cooked."

"I've already packed the EpiPen in his bag, so don't worry, okay? I've got this!" Brenda assured her before they hung up.

Eden liked her confidence, but she couldn't stop fretting. The first time she introduced Aiden to solids, she almost lost him. She never wanted to feel as helpless as she did when she watched him wheeze and struggle to breathe after eating a small slice of peanut-butter sandwich. Thank heavens, one of Grammy's neighbours was a doctor. Within minutes, he had Aiden's breathing under control, and they'd raced him to the hospital, where she learned about his nut allergy—

The sound of the elevator sliding open startled Eden out of her worry. She jerked her head up just in time to see Liam stroll out of the lift. He looked like he'd walked straight out of a Dunhill advert in his black suit and white shirt, his silver cufflinks gleaming under the downlights.

In another life, if he didn't hate her so much and she didn't find him terrifying for her sanity, she would have wrapped herself around him and purred like a kitten at his feet.

She didn't understand how anyone could look this good and so fresh at the crack of dawn, especially when he'd spent the night partying at Crush.

"Good morning, Mr Anderson," she said with a smile. "I'm here bright and early, like you asked. How can I serve you?"

"Ms McBride." He nodded, his eyes as cold as ice as he strolled past her, dazzling her with the faint whiff of his woodsy cologne.

Christ, Eden sighed. Surely it was a crime for a man to smell this good. How was she supposed to concentrate, let alone serve him coffee and print his documents, when his mere scent made her want to climb him like a tree?

"Focus," she said under her breath, forcing all her wild thoughts out of her head. Going down this road wouldn't serve her well. She had to remember he was off-limits.

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