Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hayden
I definitely hadn’t through my invitation through. All I’d been thinking was that I wanted my alpha, who wasn’t really “my alpha”, despite his baby in me, near me as things around us got a little scary.
Of course, I didn’t let on to Mace that I was scared. And I wasn’t, really. The break-in was a mess, and yeah, the hair stood up on the back of my neck a little when Mace told the whole story of Colin, the bastard, and Victory Holdings. The implications of everything that was going on hurt my brain a little, because it was exactly the sort of backstory I’d come up with in my kidnap fantasy playtimes before.
So far, the only indication that this was real and not just the beginning of another game was the presence of the awesome Det. Shirley. Aside from that, I felt like I’d done the whole extreme danger from organized crime thing before. My brain was on the alert, but my emotions and my sense of danger were elsewhere.
They were on the fact that I hadn’t thought to run down here, correction, waddle down here, to my apartment to clean things up a little before inviting Mace in.
“It’s a mess, I know,” I said, hurrying over to the kitchen to grab the bowl I’d used for cereal, before Simon had come over and taken me for an ice cream breakfast, so that I could dump the leftover milk and soggy cereal bits into the sink. “The maid hasn’t come. I gave them the weekend off,” I joked.
I grabbed the pile of dirty dishes sitting next to the sink and started rinsing them before pulling open the dishwasher to load them.
The trouble was that bending over to put things in the dishwasher wasn’t as easy as it had been before Junior had decided to take up so much room inside me. I might have started to sweat a little as I rushed through the job, nearly fumbling a glass in the process.
Tidying up in general was harder when you were as pregnant as I was, which was why the laundry wasn’t folded, the boxes from the various bits of baby furniture I’d started putting together were in the middle of the living room, and the bathroom was—oh God! I hoped Mace didn’t go into the bathroom!
“I’ll take care of it, I promise,” I said, hurrying out of the kitchen for the bathroom, leaving the water running and the dishwasher door open as I did.
“Slow down, Hayden,” Mace said, stepping into my path like he would catch me. “It’s alright.”
His face was serious and I could see the strain of the evening we’d just had in the lines around his eyes and mouth, but his eyes themselves were bright and glittery.
“I should have come downstairs to clean this place up when you told me to go,” I said sheepishly.
Mace shook his head and took a breath. “No, you were right to stay. I realized that as soon as Det. Shirley started asking me questions. As long as there’s danger in the air, I want you to stick close to me.”
“Ooh, there’s danger in the air!” I said, heart beating faster and smile widening. “I love danger.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mace said in a flat voice, sending me a scolding look.
I came really close to giggling. How was it possible that I’d only known this man a handful of days? Everything about him made me feel like we’d been together our entire lives. It wasn’t just the way he’d fucked me expertly back in Port Lucia. It wasn’t the baby he’d put in me either, or the way we’d interacted in the office for the last few days.
There was something more, something visceral. I wasn’t romantic enough to believe in the fairy tale of fated mates, but I was beginning to wonder if the whole quick bonding when you met someone you were really, really compatible with thing was real. It had certainly happened for Ari and Samson, so why not with me and Mace?
“You should probably turn off the water and finish loading the dishwasher,” Mace said, nodding back to the kitchen area.
I glanced over my shoulder, then winced at him. “Believe me, I should resolve the situation in the bathroom before anything else, before you need to use it.”
Mace puffed into a laugh and shook his head. “Geez, Hayden.”
He let me go, turning to deal with the water and the dishwasher himself, and I hurried past and into the bathroom, closing the door behind me out of sheer embarrassment.
Even though the bathroom situation was grim and I had to quickly whip out the rubber gloves and cleaning supplies I kept under the sink to give the place a much-needed scrub in as little time as possible, I couldn’t stop smiling.
Mace was here, in my house. My baby-daddy had come home. My alpha was strolling around my nest. Every cheesy way of looking at the situation popped into my mind as I cleaned up things I should have kept clean in the first place. None of it was rational or logical, but I’d never been much of a rational or logical guy. That was Simon’s department.
What I always had been was someone who was willing to jump in with both feet, sometimes without looking, when something felt good. Right now, I would have jumped just about anywhere for Mace. He’d felt so right eight months ago, and he felt right now.
“Aren’t omegas supposed to go into a strong nesting phase right before giving birth?” Mace asked once the bathroom was in satisfactory condition, as I headed out to the main room.
“I have been nesting,” I argued, though my face heated with embarrassment. I gestured to the pile of boxes Mace had broken down completely and moved closer to the apartment door. “You know how many birds and animals build their nests out of random junk they find lying around the forest floor?”
Mace laughed as he bent over to pick up a few snack wrappers that had fallen to the floor, but that I hadn’t had the energy or shape to pick up. “Has your apartment always been like this or have things gotten worse since….” He gestured to my belly with an empty soda bottle.
I looked down at Junior, as if I was shocked to find him there. Then I rested both hands on my stomach and let out a defeated sigh.
“This is my first apartment on my own,” I confessed, raising my eyes sheepishly to him. “I’ve only been here for a few months.”
Mace was halfway across the room, heading for the trash can with handfuls of junk, but he stopped and stared at me. “Really? Your first place? How old are you again?”
I made face and answered, “Twenty-one. I’ll be twenty-two in August.”
“And you’ve never had your own place?” Mace asked, continuing on.
“How old were you when you got your first apartment?” I asked him aggressively, hoping to use his answer to justify my own uselessness.
“Younger than you,” Mace said, dumping the trash into the can, then grabbing a rag to wipe down the kitchen counter. “I stayed in a dorm for my first year of college, but after that, some buddies and I rented an apartment together, including my friend Alex, who was my second for our, you know. In grad school, Colin and I had a place together.” He frowned as he said that.
“You’ve known Colin that long?” I asked, seeing an opportunity to deflect the conversation from my uselessness and taking it. Although I did head to the couch to sit down and fold my laundry as I did.
“We were part of the same program,” Mace answered with the sort of frown that came with bittersweet memories. “We conceived of the idea of a company to develop and market our ideas back then. Once we made it a reality, though, it became more about me doing all the work while he sucked up all the profits.”
“Did you two, you know,” I said, really hoping the answer was no.
“No,” Mace laughed, immediately putting me at ease. “God, no. Colin is a beta, and he’s always preferred other betas. He was married for seven years and has three kids, but thankfully, she left him and took the kids last year after putting up with his shit for longer than she should have.”
“Good for Mrs. Colin, I guess,” I said. Talking about divorce and kids kind of put a dent in my mood, though. I wanted to believe in the concept of a happy family, but I suspected it was a fairy tale, just like fated mates. Although Ari and Samson gave me hope.
“You never really answered my question,” Mace said as he continued to clean the kitchen. “Why have you only just moved out on your own?”
I threw a pair of socks I’d just balled together over to the other side of the couch with a little more force than I should have.
“I’ve been living at home, with my parents,” I said. There didn’t seem to be any point in hiding the truth from Mace. I was what I was, and it did no one any good for me to pretend otherwise. “They’re wealthy, and as rotten of a person as it makes me, it’s been easier to trespass on their generosity all these years than to do the hard work of launching myself.”
Mace glanced up from putting boxes of cereal and snacks back in the cupboard. He didn’t have to say anything. I recognized the disapproval in his look.
“They kicked me out when I told them I was pregnant,” I said.
“You said that before,” Mace said with a frown. “I don’t like it.”
Mace seemed far too angry at my parents without ever having met them, so I winced and said, “My brother, Simon, who you met, says they didn’t kick me out, they prompted me to get my act together and start a life independent of them. They were teaching me responsibility. And it’s not as if I don’t want to be a responsible adult,” I rushed to add, since it looked like Mace was going to say something. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do now that?—”
I stopped, a little too aware that my hand had instinctively moved to rest on my belly.
I didn’t want to dump all my troubles on Mace’s shoulders. Yes, he’d offered to take care of me, but I didn’t want to go from mooching off my parents to mooching off my baby-daddy. As paradoxical as it felt at times, my parents had been right to shove me out on my own. I really had been coasting too much and relying on them, and them putting their feet down really had instilled me with the determination to stand on my own that they’d been trying for.
The trouble was, I was shit at standing on my own. At least, I had been so far. I had, at most, a month left to pull myself together before Junior showed up.
That was so much scarier than nebulous mafia guys and ex business partners messing up a penthouse apartment.
“Hayden?”
I blinked and glanced up from my gloom to find Mace studying me. He looked so strong and commanding in the light of the kitchen, while I was slumped on the couch in a sea of half-folded laundry, a pair of enormous pregnancy underwear spread across my lap.
“It’s going to be alright, okay?” Mace went on, coming out from around the kitchen counter. “You don’t have to do any of this alone.”
“Except I think I do,” I said, trying to fold the undies and set them aside before Mace reached the couch.
Not only did I fail at that, Mace crouched in front of me, took them out of my hands, folded them like a pro, and set them aside. He then took my hands and held them, staring intently into my eyes.
“You do not have to do this alone,” he said, slowly and deliberately. “I know you’re trying to prove something, to your parents, your brother, yourself, maybe even to me. But you don’t have to.”
I gave him a dubious look, tensing up like a spring about to pop. Fuck. I was so going to cry now.
“You are strong, Hayden,” Mace went on. “You’re not a screw-up or a failure. Yes, the baby was an accident, but your heat came on early. You were brave enough to trust a complete stranger to take you through safely rather than suffering or getting desperate. You moved out when your parents wanted you to. I can guarantee that if you’d resisted and tried to stay, they would have let you. And you applied for and got a brand new job with a start-up company late in your pregnancy. I can’t think of many omegas who are half that brave.”
The bastard had me in tears before he’d gotten halfway through his little speech.
“I just want my baby to have a good life,” I said, all wet and snotty. I grabbed the freshly folded underwear and used them to wipe my face.
“And it will,” Mace said, squeezing my hands. “It will.”
“He will,” I corrected him, still all cry-faced.
“He?” Mace lit up, his smile broadening. “You know it’s a boy?”
I nodded, then blew my nose using the undies.
Mace didn’t seem to care about the outrageousness of that action. He let go of one of my hands and rested his hand on my belly, a look of excitement in his eyes.
That excitement turned to awe a moment later when Junior kicked. Mace sucked in a breath, his gaze darting up to meet mine.
“Oh yeah. Did I mention I have a baby growing in me?” I asked.
Mace’s smile turned into a laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt a baby moving inside of someone like that.”
“Really?” I blinked in shock. “Never? Don’t you have friends who have had babies? Do you have younger siblings?”
“I’m an only child,” Mace said, shaking his head and staring at my belly as Junior continued to say hello. “Most of my friends have been alphas or male betas.”
“Dude, you need to get out more,” I said.
Mace raised his eyes to me again with a smile. “I’m sure I will now,” he said. “Now that I have a tour guide to show me around the city. I should get you to be my real estate agent, too. You probably know all the places with the best schools.”
A shiver ran through me with those words. He couldn’t mean…he wasn’t saying…we were still virtual strangers. He couldn’t be hinting that he wanted me to live with him wherever he ended up buying a house, could he?
Of course, that level of kindness and suggestion made me incredibly horny. My body flushed with heat, and I felt a small shift of dampness around my hole. And the new thing that came with pregnancy, my nipples started to dribble.
Oh, God. What if Mace ripped my shirt off over his head, pushed me back against the couch, and started to lick and suckle my nipples?
“I think I’d better go make sure there’s enough space in the bureau for all this clean laundry,” I said breathlessly, scooting to the side a little and getting ready to stand.
Mace cleared his throat and rocked back, then stood. “Yeah, I can help however you need me to.”
I definitely noted the bulge in his trousers.
I felt a small rush of slick as I stood, with Mace’s help. Our eyes met, and the air between us crackled. It felt like tendrils of lust were weaving their way between our joined hands.
It wouldn’t be out of the question to tear off my clothes and kneel on my bed in the traditional omega mating pose, would it? I mean, he couldn’t exactly get me pregnant more than I already was. And sure, he was my boss, not to mention my guest, and someone was out to get him. But a little harmless pregnancy sex couldn’t hurt anything, right?
“I noticed that you have a lot of half put together baby furniture in the bedroom,” Mace said in a rough voice, letting go of me and breaking the moment. “I know it’s cliché, but I’m pretty good at putting things like that together. I do have a masters in Engineering, after all.”
“I would absolutely love you,” I said with a rush of breath.
Immediately, I tensed as I heard the words that came out of my mouth.
“I mean, I would absolutely love that,” I said, feeling myself go so, so red.
Junior kicked me furiously from the inside, like he was either making fun of me for the slip-up, which would be so typical of a child of mine, or like he was prompting me to say it all for real so he could have his daddy in his life from the day he was born.
The kicking also saved my bacon as the moment between me and Mace got awkward.
“I need to pee,” I gasped. “Junior just stomped on my bladder.”
“Is that what you’re planning to name him?” Mace asked as I hurried away from him, toward the nicely clean bathroom.
“It’s a placeholder,” I told Mace over my shoulder. “If you can think of something you like better, I’m open to suggestions.”
“There’s got to be something better than ‘Junior’,” he said as I reached the bathroom and pretty much leapt inside.
“There’s got to be,” I echoed him, then shut the door and headed for the toilet.
I was relieved in more ways than one to sit down and just breathe for a second. It could be argued that the day had exceeded even my wildest expectations. Well, except for the whole ex with an ax to grind breaking into Mace’s apartment and fucking it up. But other than that, it had been so wonderful that I took a moment to just lean back against the lid of the toilet and close my eyes, reveling in the whole thing.
I had an alpha in my life now. The alpha.
Of course, he was my boss, no one knew he was the one who had knocked me up, at the office or in my family, and someone was out to get him. God only knew what would happen when people found out about us. And I might be in real danger by association, about a month from when I was supposed to give birth. But I could conquer all of that as long as I had Mace with me.