The slight hesitation in Lottie’s voice gave her away. Braden only had one ‘friend’ they all avoided mentioning by some unspoken agreement they’d come to when Braden and Lottie had returned from their honeymoon.
Killian O’Rourke.
Of course her father would be hanging out with the father of her child the day she found out she was pregnant.
So much for that benevolent god smiling down on her. It was clearly Loki, or some other mythological trickster watching over her these days.
“That’s fine.” Pushing thoughts of annoying trickster gods out of her mind, she forced a smile for her stepmother. “I actually came to see you.”
“Me?” Surprise flickered over Lottie’s face. “Really? Because I’ve kinda felt like you’ve been avoiding me since the wedding, but I didn’t want to push if you were still uncomfortable about… things.”
Guilt twisted her stomach, adding to the nausea that still hadn’t quite abated. She had been avoiding them, not entirely, but she certainly hadn’t been spending as much time here as they’d all expected she would when she’d moved into her apartment downtown. But Lottie being who she was hadn’t said a word about it, instead giving Aria the time she needed to come to grips with things.
Like her father being best friends with a mob boss. A mob boss whose child she was currently carrying.
When the hell had her life become a soap opera?
“I’m sorry. I have been avoiding you, and now I feel like a total asshole because I only came to see you because I need to talk, and that makes me both a shitty friend and a shitty stepdaughter.”
To her horror, tears burned at the backs of her eyes, blurring her vision so she was forced to blink rapidly to hide them. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t quite quick enough and worry filled Lottie’s pale eyes, turning the normally brilliant blue to a stormy gray.
“Oh, honey. You aren’t either of those things. Here, have a seat and I’ll grab us a snack from the kitchen.”
Just the thought of food had her stomach rolling again, but it would give her time to get her emotions under control, so Aria nodded as she dropped down onto the plush couch. Lottie hurried out of the living room and Aria closed her eyes, dragging in a deep breath.
You can do this. It’s just Lottie.
The breathing helped, as did the internal lectures. Enough so that by the time Lottie strode back into the room carrying a tray laden with muffins and steaming mugs of tea, Aria no longer felt as though she might start sobbing at the drop of a hat.
And, surprisingly, the smell of the muffins didn’t make her stomach roll. Emboldened by that, she peeled the wrapper from the one Lottie handed to her and took a tentative bite.
Of pure blueberry heaven.
“Oh my god. Are these those muffins from your wedding day?”
“They are. Frankie brought a batch over yesterday.” Grinning now, Lottie unwrapped her own muffin and took a bite, her eyes fluttering closed as she let out a low moan of satisfaction. “Holden is a fucking genius, I swear.”
Frankie, aka Francesca Prescott, one of Lottie’s oldest and closest friends. From what Aria understood of the situation, Frankie struggled with an eating disorder but her husband’s blueberry muffins were the one food she couldn’t turn down, so he’d invested a fair amount of time into making the perfect blueberry muffin just for her.
That, kids, is true love.
Fuck. She was going to start leaking again if she didn’t get her hormones under control.
“Okay, so.” Shifting so she was facing Aria more fully, Lottie gestured with her muffin. “What did you come over to talk about?”
Oh god, oh god, oh god. This was it. She had to actually say the words, out loud. And then it would be real and there would be no taking it back.
Except it was real, whether she said the words out loud or not, and pretending otherwise wouldn’t fix anything. So she just needed to say it.
Just say it.
But as she was gathering the courage, her gaze landed on a gold plaque perched in the middle of the mantle above the living room fireplace. “What’s that?”
“Huh?” Following her line of sight, Lottie smiled. “Oh. Our wedding gift from Killian.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t she try to distract herself from the mob baby currently making its home in her womb by focusing on the one thing in the room that was directly connected to said baby’s father?
Now that she’d noticed it, though, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from asking more. “He bought you a plaque?”
