I had never even expected to see him again, let alone that he would be interested in helping me raise his own son. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel at the thought of him offering to step in.
Fate had a sick sense of humor and I was sweating bullets because of it. For just about eight years, I’d managed to keep Brody’s paternity a closely guarded secret, and now suddenly, his biological father, who he was practically a clone of, was offering to step into the very role I knew I couldn’t fill.
He was offering to be a father figure. The male influence I’d been looking for. And if I took this risk, then very soon, Brody’s mom and dad would be living under the same roof for the very first time ever—and neither of them could ever know about it.
CHAPTER 9
CALLUM
By Wednesday, I figured I wasn’t going to hear from her. Her radio silence since the weekend had to mean that she was chalking up our conversations to a temporary lapse in judgment.
Hell, maybe I should’ve been doing the same, but the truth was that I probably would if I could. I just didn’t know how because her silence was actually bothering me.
Because it washer.
Something about Maisie Morgan had always driven me a little insane. Even back in college, when we’d barely run in the same circles, she’d had this way of catching me off guard and sticking in my head longer than she had any right to.
Years later and apparently nothing had changed.
I was still chewing on that pill that was a little too bitter to swallow when Jameson strode into my office without knocking.As usual.
He leaned against the doorframe like he owned the place, which wasn’t entirely untrue. Technically, we all did.
“You look like hell,” he said, eyeing me as he pushed away from the door and crossed the room. “What’s wrong? Is oursocial media engagement not quite what you wanted it to be or has something else happened?”
I leaned back in my chair and snorted. “Our social media engagement is fine. Better than fine, actually. It always is.”
He dropped into the chair opposite my desk and smirked in that know-it-all, easy way of his. “So what’s got you grinding your teeth like Mom when we’re late for dinner?”
“I might be getting married soon,” I said without really meaning to. I also hadn’t meant to hold it back. Not exactly, anyway, but that wasn’t how I’d planned on breaking the news. “Is that a good enough excuse?”
His eyebrows shot up, but his expression stayed maddeningly calm, like I’d told him I’d switched brands of toothpaste. “What? I didn’t even know you were seriously talking to someone about it.”
“I’m not,” I said flatly. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
He cocked his head, and then he was staring me down with that weirdly intense look in his eyes that he’d absolutely inherited from our mother. “Complicated how?”
I sighed. “I took Harrison’s stupid advice and put out an ad.”
He laughed, the sound loud, sharp, and disbelieving. “You actually did that? I thought you were joking about considering it.”
“Yeah, well, so did I until I went ahead and did it. I figured I might as well give it a try.”
Jameson blinked hard, eyebrows staying high as he stared at me. “You’re serious? You really went ahead and put an ad in the paper for a wife, and someone actually answered it?”
“Someone did,” I confirmed. “Two someones, actually, but the first turned out to be a prankster. The second, however, turned out to be a girl I knew back at Cal Poly.”
He stared back at me, the last of the humor fading from his gaze. “And you want to marry her.”
“I do.” I groaned and rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “I mean, if I’m going to be marrying anyone, I wouldn’t mind if it was her.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Whyher?” he asked pointedly, leaning back and kicking an ankle up to cross it over his knee, letting me know that he didn’t plan on leaving until he’d heard it all. “You must’ve known hundreds of girls back then, so why this one? Is it only because she answered your ad, or is there more to it?”
“As if I was the only one whoknewhundreds of girls at college,” I shot back, but then I sighed when he simply shrugged in response. “Sorry, I guess I’m just a little tightly wound.”
