Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hayden
O ne of the reasons I’d chosen the building where my new, lonely apartment was to move into was because it had an amazing ice cream parlor on the ground floor. Well, that and it was a block away from the building that housed Canton Enterprises. But really, I was in it for the ice cream.
“And then he just, bam, offered to pay for Junior and more or less keep me as his baby-papa pet,” I explained to Simon on Saturday morning, a few days after my initial, shock meeting with Ace.
I mean, Mr. Mason Canton, my boss.
Simon blinked at me from across the cozy table where we sat outside, in the cordoned-off area along the sidewalk that belonged to the ice cream parlor. He only had coffee in front of him, which probably made sense, since it was just past nine-thirty, while I licked away at the double scoop cone of chocolate and cherry.
Hey. Baby needed ice cream. He didn’t care what time of day it was.
“So let me get this straight,” Simon said with a flat look, spreading one hand on the intricate ironwork of the tiny table. “The alpha you—” he cleared his throat, “—played with on your business trip, the one who got you pregnant, is the owner of the company you now work for.”
“Correct,” I said, swirling my tongue around my ice cream.
A passing alpha nearly tripped over himself as he gave me a long second look. I took the hand that was resting on my enormous, pregnant belly and flipped him off, then gave my cone another, particularly obscene lick.
Simon’s expression went flatter. “And neither of you knew who you were or about this company before you went to work for him,” he went on.
“Also correct,” I said.
“And when you met each other the other day in the office, this Mason Canton person immediately offered to take responsibility for you and the baby and to help you out in whatever way he could.”
I could see where Simon was going with this.
“I don’t want to be anyone’s charity project,” I said, squirming uncomfortably in my chair. The damned chair definitely hadn’t been designed for pregnant omegas.
“It’s not charity if it’s his son,” Simon argued, though he had a way of arguing that was stony-faced and way too logical for me. “Does he even know it’s a boy yet?”
“No,” I said, then avoided answering more by sucking on the small bit of ice cream left on my cone.
Simon watched me, and when it became clear to him I wasn’t going to say more, he went on with, “I think you at least need to consider allowing this man to be a part of the baby’s life.”
I finished swallowing the ice cream I’d sucked, then said, “Why? Why does he have a right to be part of this? His part was done eight months ago.”
“Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you’ve been pining for him for the last eight months, like the two of you were in a committed relationship and he was lost at sea,” Simon said, picking up his coffee cup.
I just glowered at him.
In a way, he was right. I had been pining for Mace since the weekend in Port Lucia. It wasn’t just about the stellar sex either. Something deep within me felt like I’d met my soulmate in Mace.
But the logical part of me—yes, it existed, shut up—wondered if I was being overly romantic. Maybe it was the hormones. Maybe I was so scared to be a single papa that I was clinging to a fantasy to make myself feel better.
Or maybe Mace really was my soulmate. Maybe some sort of embryonic bond had started to form between us along with a baby, but I had screwed up and broken that when I’d gotten on a plane and flown off to the other side of the country.
“I’ve messed a lot of things up in my life,” I murmured to Simon as I licked my ice cream down to where I could bite the cone. “I can’t be a screw-up anymore now.” I rested a hand on my belly, indicating the reason why.
“You’re not a screw-up, Hayden,” Simon said with a brotherly smile. “You’re just a handful.”
I was going to come back with the perfect reply, but before I could, I spotted Mace, of all people, walking towards us. He carried a small shopping bag and wore a look of fierce determination that had my insides pulsing and my cock taking notice.
At the same time, all of the uncomfortable, guilty, confused feelings I had pushed me into a panic reaction.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, hormones and the innate need to protect my baby causing me to sound way too aggressive. “Are you following me home now?”
Mace stopped with a jerk, his eyes going wider as he saw me. The fact that he hadn’t noticed me until I spoke immediately negated my accusation of him following me.
“I live here,” he answered with just as much tension as I’d used addressing him.
My stomach sank with embarrassment. Well, as much as it could sink with my innards crowded with baby.
“You live here?” I asked, a little more sheepishly.
“Yes,” Mace answered. “While I’m searching for a house.”
“I live here, too,” I said.
Mace gaped at me for a moment.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Simon said like we were at one of our parents’ cocktail parties. He set down his coffee cup and stood, extending his hand. “I’m Simon Kipling, Hayden’s older brother, and I apologize.”
“For what?” I asked, then bit into my ice cream cone, determined to finish it before getting into whatever confrontation I could feel brewing.
“For you,” Simon said with a sideways look to me, then smiled at Mace as they shook hands.
“Nice to meet you,” Mace said, relaxing a little.
His relaxed smile faltered a moment later, and he went tense again and cleared his throat.
“I assume your brother has explained the situation?” he asked.
“He has,” Simon said in an even tone. “I can assure you, Hayden is not as much of an idiot as he’s making himself out to be. I think we would all be glad to have your help and involvement in the baby’s life.”
“Hey!” I protested. “You don’t get to make that decision for me.”
“Consider it a strong suggestion, then,” Simon said. He then looked at his watch in what was clearly a ploy, then said, “Look at the time. I have somewhere else I need to be. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Canton.”
“Mace, please,” Mace said as Simon gathered up his phone and satchel, gave me a look, then marched off.
Mace and I both watched him go for a few seconds, then Mace looked back at me.
“He seems nice. Protective,” he said.
“He’s an interfering git,” I said sullenly, looking sadly at the napkins on the table that were all that remained of my ice cream.
Mason shifted to sit in the chair Simon had vacated, putting his grocery bag on the table. He jumped right into it. “Are you angry with me?”
I was, but hearing the question asked made that anger burst and dissolve into shame.
“This has all just thrown me for a loop,” I said, scratching at one of the curlicues on the table. “First, I never expected to have a baby this young. Second, I didn’t expect to have the alpha who knocked me up suddenly reappear in my life. Third….”
Silence followed.
“Third?” Mace prompted me.
I didn’t really have a third, so I just looked at him, head lowered.
Well, I did have a third. The third was that I was ashamed of myself for having something so good and flying away from it. And now that Mace was back in my life, as his real self, not some dark fantasy, I was scared. I didn’t want to give my heart away only to have him fly away and break it. Especially when a baby was involved.
“I don’t have a third,” I lied. “I just said it to sound good.”
Mace stared at me like he didn’t believe me.
He sat back in his chair, studying me. He studied me for too long. The more he looked at me, the hotter I got. Or maybe that was the smell of summer and old books. At the same time, the intensity of his gaze made me feel like he was seeing all of my flaws and didn’t approve.
I wasn’t sure I could take it, but then Junior saved the day.
“Oh, God. I have to pee,” I said, sitting suddenly straighter.
“Do you need—” Mace straightened as well, like he would throw his arms wide and spot me as I stood.
“I don’t know what I need,” I said genuinely.
“Let me at least get the door for you.”
Mace grabbed his grocery bag and strode around to hold the front door to my building. Our building. I waddled through, bristling with panic because I didn’t know what to do. About my bladder or anything.
By the time we reached the elevator, Mace seemed to have made up his mind about something.
“Okay, look,” he said as we whooshed up to the tenth floor, where my apartment was. I noticed he’d hit the penthouse button. “I don’t know what to do in this situation any more than you do. But I do know one thing.”
“Yeah?” I peeked hopefully at him.
“I don’t know Barrington at all, and I could use someone to show me around, show me all the sights,” he said. “You want that job?”
I smiled as the elevator stopped on my floor and the doors slid open. Mace reached out to hold the door and keep it from shutting.
“Does this mean you’ll be my boss twice over?” I asked.
Mace let out an amused breath and smiled as well. His shoulders loosened, and I caught a glimpse of the smoking hot, easy-going, confident alpha I’d been with in Port Lucia.
“Not your boss, just your friend. I’d like us to be friends.”
I’d like us to be kinky fuck-buddies, but something told me Junior would kill the mood.
Unless Mace had a pregnancy fetish.
Oh, God. What if Mace had a pregnancy fetish? I hadn’t had sex since that weekend, and I was more or less gagging for it.
A twinge from my stomach kicked those thoughts right out of my head.
Well, as far as thoughts about sex ever left my head.
“Sure,” I said, my smile easier. “I’d love to be friends. I can show you around Barrington.” My bladder twinged, and I grimaced. “Just as soon as I pee.”
Mace laughed as I hurried out into the hallway. “I’ll meet you back down in the lobby in ten minutes.”
I waved to him as the elevator doors closed, then ran down the hall to my apartment.
Correction, I waddled down the hall keeping my legs as close together as I could so I wouldn’t need to change trousers and take a shower before meeting Mace downstairs.
I hurried through everything I needed to do to get ready for a day of sightseeing, eager to get to the lobby and spend the day with Mace. Even though I was a bundle of mixed and scattered emotions, underneath all that, hope throbbed within me.
What if Mace and I could reconnect? What if we actually were suited for each other? What if we became friends, more than friends? What if I didn’t have to do this whole baby thing alone?
Suddenly, an entire picture of the life I might have in front of me unfurled. I wouldn’t be a single papa after all. I would have a partner, an alpha. Not just any alpha either. I’d have the biological father of my son, the man who had given me a breeding orgasm that had turned my body inside out. Mace already shared my darker kinks, so I wouldn’t have to have that potentially awkward conversation. Like Ari and Samson, Mace and I could play out the things that got us off within the context of a committed relationship.
I was so hyped up on the potential for a beautiful life that when Mace finally stepped out of the elevator and strode across the lobby to meet me, I blurted out, “Do you wanna go to the zoo and see if we can catch any of the animals fucking?”
Mace nearly missed a step. Mrs. Peabody from Six-D, who was on her way to the elevator, turned and gave me a wide-eyed look of disgust.
Mace laughed as he started walking again. “If that’s what you want to do.”
“We don’t have to,” I blundered on. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m just nervous for some reason. I don’t know what I’m doing. Pregnancy fucks with your mind like that. Oh, God, I think I’m gonna cry.”
I really thought I would. I could feel it all welling up inside me.
But Mace came over and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Hayden, it’s alright,” he said in a confident, soothing voice. “This is all uncharted territory for me, too.”
His hand on my body felt so good. It felt like more than a touch. Just his presence was soothing to me.
Maybe there was a potential bond brewing there.
I drew in a breath and let it out noisily, one hand resting on my belly. “Okay, I can handle this.” I paused and tilted my head. “Maybe not the zoo, though. I don’t want to get all worked up in public if the baboons really are getting their kink on.”
Mace laughed again. “Alright, what else do you suggest?”
Everything was going to be okay. I could feel it. Mace wasn’t disgusted or angry or upset by me and Junior. He was taking it all in stride, and he really did seem to want to help.
“We should start with the trolley ride,” I said as we headed for the door. “It’s for tourists, but it’s a Barrington institution. And it stops at all the major sites, so you can decide what you want to do or skip.
“Sounds perfect.”
The trolley turned out to be the perfect start to a day of sightseeing. Mostly because it enabled me to sit down for an hour as we tootled around Barrington in a hundred-year-old trolley car.
Mace seemed interested in everything I pointed out to him. There was an official, recorded tour that played through a tinny loudspeaker as we passed monuments, museums, and parks, but I had my own narration for the sights of my home city.
“See that obelisk over there?” I pointed across Mace at one of the city’s older monuments.
“Yeah?”
“I nearly lost my virginity there when I was sixteen.”
Mace dragged his eyes away from the obelisk to stare at me. “Sixteen?”
“I said nearly,” I told him seriously. “Some friends and I snuck out at night and got a wee bit tipsy on wine coolers.”
“Do they still make those?” Mace asked, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“I wouldn’t know,” I lied. “Pregnant.”
Mace laughed.
“Anyhow, me and this alpha I liked were making out, and we decided to do it. We were in the shadows, up against the obelisk, he spun me around, we both started undoing our pants…and the cops caught us.” I laughed at the memory.
“You must have gotten in so much trouble,” Mace chuckled, leaning closer to me.
“You have no idea. Being grounded for a month was the least of it.”
A few minutes later, the trolley traveled closer to the beach.
“This is the area where I’m looking for a house,” Mace said.
“Really?” I brightened, a germ of hope that maybe I could live in the house tickling my insides. “This right here is an okay beach, but if you want more privacy, you should check out the north beaches.”
The tour continued on like that. I had more colorful stories than I’d thought I did for the sights of my home. We rode the trolley back around to Barrington’s waterfront, then got off and walked on the beach for a while. Barrington’s beach wasn’t like where Ari and Samson lived in the Caribbean. It was too far north. But that meant Mace and I could have some amazing lobster rolls for lunch.
After lunch, we spent a little more time on the beach, then headed back into the heart of the city to see some of the cultural sites. I was far more interested in those when looking at them through Mace’s eyes.
Mace was enthusiastic about Barrington, which made me happy. I felt so much positivity from him and so much hope.
But I also noticed him checking his phone with a frown multiple times. I could feel waves of concern and frustration coming from him, too. That wasn’t any sort of bond. Anyone could have felt it. For an alpha, Mace did a terrible job of keeping his emotions hidden.
“Is everything alright?” I finally asked him as we walked slowly back to our building in the early evening, after supper at a Thai place just a block away. “Something seems to be bothering you.”
Mace hummed, like he wasn’t sure he should burden me with his cares. “I’ve just got a lot on my plate. Starting a new business, trying to get government contracts.” He paused before adding, “Dealing with an ex business partner who is trying to sue me for breech of contract and to claim he owns the research and developments I made while we were in business together.”
My eyes went wide as Mace held the door for me and as we walked across the lobby. “That is a lot. And now you’ve got a pregnant omega to worry about, too.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to worry about you, remember?” he said, surprisingly teasingly, as we crossed the lobby to the elevator. “You’re an independent omega who doesn’t need help.”
I laughed. I probably deserved that.
We got into the elevator, Mace pressed the button for the penthouse, and the doors shut, but I didn’t press the button for my floor.
“Can I see the penthouse?” I asked, a little sheepish, a little flirty. I did want to see what the penthouse looked like, but I also kinda wanted to see if maybe Mace had a pregnancy fetish after all. We’d had a great day of getting to know each other for real, after all.
“Sure,” Mace said with a sly grin that said he had guessed my motivations.
I stopped myself from giggling like an idiot, told my interested cock to slow down and chill out, and smiled back at Mace.
Neither of us said anything as the elevator raced all the way up to the top of the building, but we did inch closer together. We couldn’t stop looking at each other. I wondered if Mace was remembering our weekend fantasy the way I was.
I let my hand drop from where I’d been holding my belly. Mace reached subtly for it, the back of his fingers brushing the back of mine. My heart sped up.
Then we reached the top floor, the elevator doors flew open, and Mace took my hand to lead me into the short hallway. There were only three doors on the top floor for the three penthouse apartments. Mace walked straight to the middle one and pulled out his key card.
I was going to get laid. I was so going to get laid. And it would be fantastic in every way.
That’s what I thought until Mace pushed open his apartment door into a scene of chaos.
“What the?—”
I didn’t get any farther than that. The entire main room of the penthouse looked like a tornado had blown through. Furniture was overturned and cushions had been cut into and the stuffing scattered. Papers were everywhere. Some of the larger electrical appliances, like the TV, had been smashed and ripped open.
In short, someone had broken into Mace’s apartment, and they’d obviously been looking for something.