Page 17 of Fated Alpha Baby

Hannah Young is here, in Augusta.

And she has a child.

Chapter 4 - Hannah

“Mommy?! Who is that?”

I turn to my little girl, who won’t stop yanking on my hand until I’ve given her my attention.

But even as I tear my gaze away, I can still feel the shock vibrating through my body, trembling in my fingers, turning my breath unsteady.

Clarissa is as spooked as I’m feeling, and I muster every ounce of inner strength I possess to snap out of this daze and focus on my child. I know she can sense my uneasiness, the instability of my emotional state.

“I don’t know, Bug.” It’s not a lie. Not when I could have been mistaken.

There’s no way Conan Becker could be here in Augusta. No way our eyes met, and the years apart crumbled to nothing when he spoke my name. No way my heart could beat the way it did in the past.

“But you do know me,” a deep, baritone voice whispers as if he’s practically breathing down my neck with sadness, and I instantly straighten up, gasping.

“Mommy?” Clarissa frowns and stiffens beside me. I pull her closer so that she’s halfway hidden behind me as I turn to face him.

Conan Becker.

In the flesh.

I blink fervently, a part of me hoping that I can blink away the image of him. There’s no way he can be real. Logically, he is. But I refuse to believe it.

My blood runs cold when his eyes meet mine, the dark depths like gateways to an abyss I can’t lose myself in. Not again.

It’s happened before, and it’s been eight years since that mistake.

I’m grateful when Clarissa tugs on the hem of my knitted sweatshirt.

“Yes, Bug, I know this man…” I tumble over my words, tearing my eyes from him with much effort as I turn my attention back to Clarissa. Forcing a lopsided smile on my face, I crouch beside my daughter, but if I thought I was escaping Conan, I was wrong.

Six feet of muscle stands towering over both of us now, mint and masculinity so strong in the air, it’s almost nauseating. Eight years in a witch coven does that to you, I tell myself.

But it’s mostly the resurgence of emotions I had buried when I was exiled that come surfacing now, and I don’t want my daughter to see me get angry.

“I knew this man, a very long time ago,” I tell Clarissa, and she turns her face to fix him with deep inspection, her eyes raking slowly from his sneakers to his face, where the fierceness of her eyes sharpens.

“Can we help you, mister?” she asks with as much bold authority as a seven-year-old can manage as she crosses her arms and tilts her chin up at him.

I bite my bottom lip to stifle my laughter and how proud I am.

Conan chuckles and rubs his nape with a hand—something he always did when he was nervous.

Why is he nervous?

He’s the one who made sure I was exiled and left out in the cold…

“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” he mutters with a hint of amusement in his tone.

“I didn’t know you were looking.”

“I wasn’t,” he whispers, not removing his eyes from my face as I stand up.

I can hardly reach his shoulder, even in heels. “Good. I wasn’t expecting you to. It’s been a while.”