I looked down at my hands. "Then why did he come here?"
"Because you mean something to him." Brandon's voice softened. "I'm not saying he deserves you or that you should forgive him. But guys don't drive thirty-five minutes and pound on doors and get yelled at by angry fathers unless they actually care."
His eyes met mine and the intensity in his expression made me pause. He was right. Kade was trying, and as much as I wanted to hate him and be angry with him, I couldn’t stay mad. It wasn't his fault he got caught up in news reporters trying to make him look bad and sucking me along for the ride.
"I don't know if that makes it better or worse."
"Neither do I." He stood up and moved toward the door. "But I want you to be happy, Lainey. Even if it's with some billionaire jerk who doesn't know how lucky he is to have you looking at him the way you used to look at me."
My throat tightened. "Brandon?—"
"I mean it." He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "You deserve to be happy. And if he makes you happy, then figure out a way to make it work. But if he doesn't, then tell him to go to hell and move on with your life."
I stared up at him and his puppy dog eyes, wishing things had worked out differently. But there we were, a broken wreck of a relationship with no hope for a future. I couldn’t change that any more than I could change the fact that I was pregnant with Kade's baby and staring down the barrel of life as a single mother.
He left and closed the door quietly behind him. I heard his footsteps down the hallway and then the front door opening andclosing. He was gone, and I was alone again with my thoughts and my phone that wouldn't stop buzzing.
I pulled it out and looked at the screen. Fifty-three missed calls. A hundred and twelve text messages. My Instagram notifications had stopped updating because there were too many to count. Between Kade's desperation to hear from me and news reporters trying to get in touch about the fundraiser and God only knew what else, I wanted nothing to do with my phone right at that minute.
I knew I should turn it off completely and hide from the world until this all blew over. But I couldn't stop myself from opening Instagram and scrolling through the chaos.
Most of it was normal stuff the algorithm put on my feed, but slowly it was being consumed with people tagging me. Some of them were for the fundraiser, but a lot of them were people I knew, commenting on Kade's posts and Internet gossip accounts' posts of the images being shared in the tabloids. That took no time at all. Some of my old friends from high school helped it along quite quickly, even.
But when I went to Kade's official account, I was shocked. His most recent photo showed him standing in front of my bakery with his arm stretched out taking the selfie. His smile was as dazzling as ever. It almost made me smile too, but I was too teary-eyed to feel that smidgen of warmth right now.
I clicked on it and read the caption.
"Honored to partner with Lainey Rowan's bakery 'Bake Me Happy' to bring an incredible cancer research fundraiser to life. If you haven't tried her cupcakes yet, you're missing out. Best in Nevada. Maybe the best in the country. Support localbusinesses. Support good causes. And support talented bakers who deserve all the recognition they can get."
The post had been up for twenty minutes and already had over two hundred thousand likes. Comments flooded in. People asking about the bakery. People saying they'd come to the fundraiser. People defending me against the gold digger accusations. And the hashtag made the waterworks turn on full bore.
"#ThinkImInLove" was listed at the bottom with a smattering of other tags meant to boost my bakery's visibility. I didn't know if he meant he loved me or if he was trying to tell his friends he loved the cupcakes, but it made me bawl.
He'd posted this after Dad had turned him away. It was like he went straight to the bakery and took the picture just to post it. Why would he do that?
I zoomed in on his face. He looked tired. His smile didn't reach his eyes. But he was there, standing in front of my business, telling the world I was talented and worthy of recognition.
Maybe hiding from him wasn't going to be so easy after all.
And what would he think when he found out about the baby? Because it didn't seem so cut and dry now.
Waiting until after an annulment to get this off my chest was starting to sound harder and harder every day.
29
KADE
The Las Vegas convention center was packed with people when I arrived. Hundreds of them, maybe more, all here because I'd made some calls and pulled some strings and promised this would be worth their time.
I had called everyone I knew—business contacts, friends, people who owed me favors. And to my surprise almost everyone I called on had shown up. The place was packed with people I knew wearing their tuxes and expensive jewelry, all to help fund cancer research. But there was a line at the Bake Me Happy table. People were lined up to buy cupcakes like they were works of art.
Which, honestly, they were.
Lainey had never been anything other than incredible and her work showed that in such amazing detail. I was impressed by it, and I wasn't the kind of guy to be impressed by cupcakes, but wow had I been missing so much for so long.
I spotted her near the main table talking to someone with a clipboard. She wore a simple black dress and her hair was pulledback. But even from across the room I could see the exhaustion on her face and how she carried the stress she was under. I pictured her belly swollen and that dress filled out and it made my chest ache.
I desperately wanted to go over to her and force her to talk to me, because I had so much to apologize for. But this night was her big night; she didn’t have time for emotional drama. She had cupcakes to sell and customers to rub elbows with. I had to bide my time and play my cards right, and hopefully before the night was over we'd have our chance.
