Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Hayden
Eight months later…
“ Y ou know, it’s amazing to me how fast a life can fall apart and then get put back together in just eight months,” I commented to Simon as the two of us sat in Hywell Park, eating our lunches on a sunny, spring day.
“Your life did not fall apart,” Simon said, eyeing my enormous, pregnant belly with a grin as he picked the tomatoes out of his sandwich.
“Why do you order it with tomatoes if you won’t eat them?” I asked, instantly side-tracked from my original point. That happened a lot with pregnancy brain.
Simon shrugged and looked sheepish. “I like the essence of tomato in my sandwich, not the actual tomatoes.”
I burst out laughing, which sent the little guy in my belly wriggling. I placed my hand on my stomach, giddy to feel my baby, then extended it to Simon. “Here. Give them to me. Baby loves him some tomatoes.”
“Yes, well, baby can have them.” Simon gingerly handed me his tomatoes, which I promptly ate, without even putting them in the sandwich I held in my left hand. “And like I said, your life has not fallen apart.”
I was too busy chewing and swallowing tomato slices to answer him right away. I supposed he was right. Getting knocked up on a business trip by a stranger I’d met through a kink app wasn’t exactly ruining things.
Although I still had nights where I lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling and remembering Ace’s gorgeous face, his intoxicating alpha scent, and his massive cock and knot as they rearranged my insides.
Damn, I missed him. And I didn’t even know who he was or what he was doing now. The day after I’d gotten home from Port Lucia and realized I was pregnant, I’d made the rash decision to turn my life around and be more serious, more stable. I’d deleted the Dark Fantasies Club app straight away. Before attempting to send Ace a message or to save his contact information.
Yes, I still had his contact in my phone, but in another fit of pique, the one I’d had after surprising my parents with the news that I was pregnant and having them rage at me for an hour, then kick me out of their house and more or less disown me—Simon insisted they hadn’t disowned me, they were trying to teach me a lesson about responsibility—I’d deleted that, too.
It had been monumentally stupid, but stupid things happened when your life fell apart in a heartbeat.
I swallowed the last of the tomato, then replied to Simon with, “Even you have to admit that Junior here threw a wrench in my life.” I rubbed my belly, smiling at the quick burst of happiness I got every time I did that. “Papa and Dad threw me out?—”
“Prompted you to get your act together and start your own life,” Simon corrected in an undertone.
“—I lost a ton of friends?—”
“Who were mostly a bad influence anyhow,” Simon continued to mutter.
“—and I lost my job,” I finished.
Simon paused, a chip halfway to his mouth. He lowered it, then said, “Okay, I’ll give you that one. It was wrong for the Goulding Group to fire you for being pregnant. So wrong, in fact, that I think you should sue for wrongful termination.”
“Is that what you think, Mr. Paralegal?”
Simon reacted like I’d spit on him. “I might not love my job, but it’s taught me about the law. That includes people’s rights. Companies do not have a legal leg to stand on when it comes to firing omegas for being pregnant.”
I grimaced as I bit into my sandwich. I chewed and swallowed, then said, “I’m excited about this new job, though.”
Simon arched one eyebrow at me. “I don’t know about this new company you’re so excited about. It seems a little unstable and sketchy.”
“It’s a new tech company start-up,” I said, defending Canton Enterprises as though I’d worked there for years instead of just a month. “They’re innovative and exciting.”
“You said they don’t even have their HR system or their employee directory set up yet,” Simon said.
“We’re getting there,” I insisted. “I mean, the IT department is getting there. I’m just the office manager. But I can tell you that I’ve ordered the best office chairs in the business, and we definitely won’t run out of copier paper anytime soon.”
Simon rolled his eyes at me. I laughed at his fussiness.
“No, seriously! It’s a great company, even if it is new,” I said. “It was another company before, or maybe the boss was part of another company and started a new one, I’m not exactly clear on that.”
“Maybe you should be,” Simon suggested.
“I’ll look into it once I don’t have something else occupying my mind,” I said. “Like proving that I’m an asset to a new company so that they keep me on and I have a job when I become a single papa in about a month. It’s a little bit distracting to know you’re about to be responsible for a new human.”
“Okay, I get it,” Simon said, holding up his hands in defense, the end of his sandwich in one of them. “You’ve had a lot on your mind lately.”
“You bet I do.”
The truth was that I’d floundered for a couple months after the Goulding Group fired me. Almost no one wanted to hire a pregnant omega, despite the laws protecting us. Thank God Papa and Dad had agreed to pay for the rent on my new apartment and to help me furnish it with baby things. It was going to be hella hard to raise a baby on my own, and for a while there, I’d been depressed.
So depressed that I’d spent nights doing internet searches for Ace. The only problem was that all I knew was his first name. When I made a new account on the Dark Fantasies Club app, his had been deleted. When I searched for the apartment building where we’d played, by images only, because I hadn’t gotten the address, and finally found it, I’d discovered it was owned by a company, and a lot of their business information was unavailable for some reason.
But then I’d stumbled across the listing for Canton Enterprises, a start-up tech company specializing in security and surveillance equipment. They were starting from the ground up and needed an office manager to help set everything up. Security and surveillance reminded me just enough of Ace and his sex toy tech stuff that I applied for the job.
A fabulous Chief Operations Officer, a beta named Rachel Fielding, had interviewed me, we’d clicked on the spot, and as of three and a half weeks ago, I was employed by Canton Enterprises.
That was the whole “putting my life back together” part of the last eight months.
I finished the last of my sandwich, sucked on my large soda until the straw made slurping sounds at the bottom of the cup, then sat back with a contented sigh. “Well, I need to get back to work,” I said. “The boss arrives at the office today, and Rachel wants all hands on deck to greet him when he shows up.”
“I should get back to work, too,” Simon said, gathering up the strewn bits and pieces of our lunch and stuffing them into the paper bag from the café we’d bought from. “I don’t have anything half as interesting as meeting my boss to do—m”
“Because Dad and Papa are your bosses,” I interjected.
“—but there’s always paperwork.”
“What about signing up for the Dark Fantasies Club?” I teased him.
Simon blushed brightly, which had my jaw dropping with excitement.
“You have signed up, haven’t you!”
Simon grumbled for a few seconds before saying, “I might have created an anonymous account, but only so I can look around. I’m not going to do anything with it.”
I laughed, so proud of my big brother, then spent several embarrassing seconds shifting myself around until I could push my fat ass up off the bench.
Okay, I wasn’t fat, I was pregnant. And despite café food for lunches, I was doing all the things a heavily pregnant omega was supposed to do. I got as much exercise as I could, half of which came from Simon and I meeting for lunches every day, since Canton Enterprises had opened their office only two blocks from our parents’ legal office, where Simon worked, but I kept fit in other ways, too. Most of my size came from the baby growing inside me. I knew from ultrasounds he was a boy, but even though you weren’t supposed to be able to tell in utero, I was certain Junior was also an alpha. He was already too aggressive not to be.
“Gah! He always has to kick my bladder when I stand up,” I complained, holding still and gripping my belly for a moment so I didn’t accidentally pee down my leg.
“What did the doctor say at your last appointment?” Simon asked as the two of us headed out of the park. He walked, I waddled.
I shrugged. “Everything is as it should be. Junior is healthy and strong. I could have him right now and everything would be fine, but the doctor doesn’t think I’ll go into labor early.”
“What, like you didn’t think you’d go into heat early?” Simon teased me.
I stopped, making a comically terrified face.
“Wait! I think I feel something. Contractions. This is it, Simon!” I grabbed his arm in a death grip. “You’re going to have to deliver this baby! You’re going to have to deliver him single-handedly, right here on the street corner!”
Simon was not amused by my acting. A couple of the businessmen and women waiting to cross the street with us weren’t amused either. They inched away from me, like they might be called on to deliver a baby in the street themselves.
When I started laughing, Simon shook his head. “You’re such a bastard,” he said, though he was smiling and his eyes were bright. “You’re about to be a papa, you’re going to have an impressionable new life to take care of, and you’re still acting like a fool.”
“I’m having a baby, Simon,” I said with a wry, sideways grin as we crossed the street. “Not a lobotomy. I’m always going to be the same Hayden I’ve always been.”
Except for those delicious times when I was Billy. Those days were long behind me now, though. My personality wasn’t going to change at all, but Simon was right about getting serious in some ways. That’s why I’d deleted my Dark Fantasies Club app. I couldn’t very well run off for a kidnapping fantasy with an infant at home who needed me.
We reached my building, and Simon hugged me goodbye before watching to make certain I made it into the high-rise office building okay. I shook my head and grinned at his protectiveness. That’s what older brothers were for, after all. Even if they were also omegas. Omegas who really needed to get kinky and get laid so their holes didn’t dry up and seal themselves off.
I waddled my way to the elevator, happy that one of the alphas who worked a few floors down from me held the door. He checked me out as he did, which I found flattering. He was a nice guy. We’d had a few elevator conversations. He knew I was single, and I was waiting for the day when he worked up the courage to ask me out.
Not that I’d say yes. I mean, he was cute and all, but he wasn’t Ace.
I sighed as the elevator whooshed up and rubbed my belly absently. Was I going to go my entire life missing the man who had rocked my world, anonymously, for three days, put a baby in me, and spoiled me for other alpha cocks forever?
Probably.
By the time I stepped out onto the floor with Canton Enterprises’ office, Junior was squirming, I really needed to pee, and my chest was itchy. Instead of heading straight to my double-wide cube at the back of the office, near the executive suite, I detoured to the restroom.
My thoughts were scattered as I emptied my bladder. I took a few second of my private time in the stall to massage my growing chest. Maybe Junior was on his way sooner rather than later. I could safely say that I had boobs now, and they were even starting to leak milk now and then. Apparently that was something that happened to male omegas as the rush of hormones needed to produce milk to feed a baby kicked in before the baby was born. I’d had to start wearing a bra, for Christ’s sake. One with nipple shields.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t be playing around with dark fantasies in this state. Although I bet there were a ton of horny alphas with pregnancy and lactation fetishes out there.
“Why do the last few weeks of pregnancy have to be so uncomfortable?” I asked, Chaz, the older omega who happened to be washing his hands in the sink next to me when I was done in the stall.
Chaz laughed. “I don’t know. I was so miserable during the last few weeks for all three of my kids.”
We exchanged knowing grins. I was surprised and happy that Canton Enterprises would hire a slightly older omega who had school-aged kids for their IT department. So many places wouldn’t hire omegas at all, let alone those with kids.
Before my thoughts could spin too far out in that direction, as we stood around the paper towel dispenser, Chaz said, “Have you met Mr. Canton yet?”
My brow went up. “No! Is he here already?”
“Yep.” Chaz nodded. “He got here about an hour ago.”
“I’d just left for lunch,” I said. Sudden anxiety reached up and took me by surprise. “How is he? What do you think? Is the honeymoon over or is the boss cool after all?”
Chaz grinned. “Don’t worry, he seems really fair.”
We headed for the door, and I sent Chaz a sideways look. “Fair? As in really tough and we’ll be chained to our cubes, but at least there will be snacks in the breakroom fair?”
That made Chaz laugh as we returned to the main part of the office. “We’ll be fine,” he said.
It was probably silly, but I slowed my steps as we traveled back through the cube field towards our desks. Mine was all the way at the other side of the office, so I did my best to talk to everyone I could along the way.
I liked my coworkers. Some of them were from the West Coast and had worked for the previous company that the boss, Mr. Mason Canton, had owned. The fact that the previous company had been located in Port Lucia had just been another tick in the “pros” column when I’d been deciding whether to take the job offer. Port Lucia would forever give me good vibes.
I couldn’t delay the inevitable forever, though.
“Ooh, Hayden, there you are,” Rachel caught me as I walked past her office.
She got up from her desk and came out of the office to greet me. I hoped that was a good sign.
“I heard the boss is finally here,” I said with a smile, hiding my anxiety.
“Yep. He’s here at last,” she said, marching forward with excitement. “Come on. I’ll introduce you. Don’t worry, you’ll love him.”
I gulped in a breath and rested a hand on my belly. Junior seemed as jittery about the meeting as I was. He wriggled and pushed against me, like he was ready to get out.
Wouldn’t that just be great? I joked about Simon having to deliver my baby on the street at lunch, but how weird would it be if the second I went into labor, my new boss would have to deliver my baby on the floor of his?—
I smelled his scent before we’d made it all the way to the office. Summer days and old books. No one else I’d ever stumbled across had smelled quite like that. My heart sped up like I was bouncing hard on an alpha cock even before Rachel stepped into the open office doorway and said, “Mr. Canton, I’d like to introduce you to our office manager, Hayden Kipling.”
I knew what I would see as soon as I walked through the door, but I wasn’t ready for the full impact of Ace in a suit, behind the fancy, mahogany desk I’d ordered to decorate his office, reaching up for something on one of the shelves. I’d ordered those shelves, and then put together myself at the beginning of my second week in the office. Ace’s suit jacket was hung over the back of the office chair I’d bought because I thought it looked like a throne. All of that meant I had a delicious view of my alpha’s tight ass as he reached up.
I would have appreciated the view more if my mind hadn’t exploded at the sight of him and probably started leaking out of my ears.
And then Ace turned around, saying, “It’s a pleasure to meet the man who’s done such a good job of?—”
He stopped dead, his eyes going wide as he recognized me.
Then his gaze dropped to my enormous belly.
Pink shock splashed over his cheeks as his eyes widened even more.
“Sorry, I was in the middle of something that really needs to get done,” Rachel said, not noticing our reactions. “I’ll just leave the two of you to make further introductions.”
She turned and marched out of the room, as efficient as ever, leaving me and Ace, er, Mr. Mason Canton—the name suddenly clicked in my head, too—gawping at each other.
“You’re here,” I said breathlessly. My hand shot straight to my belly as Junior squirmed like he knew exactly what was going on and was shouting, “Daddy! Daddy!”
Ace swallowed, dragged his eyes up to meet mine, and said, “You’re pregnant.”