I went inside and got dressed, what the fuck for, I didn’t know. I put on a dark-green sweater and some gray slacks that Will said made my eyes pop, along with some silly socks he’d bought me that had pizza slices all over them.
I took some calls from an ad I’d placed, trying to sell the Ferrari for dirt cheap. No one wanted it. They just wanted to call and see if my ad was a mistake. No, it wasn’t a mistake. I wanted the damned thing gone. First, because it reminded me of what could’ve been. Second, because a Ferrari wasn’t really a dad kind of vehicle. I needed something roomy and comfortable and preferably bulletproof.
And fucking heartbreak proof while I was at it.
I folded my arms and watched out the patio door while the clouds opened up and dropped big plops of rain outside.
Will loved the rain. Loved to sit in my arms and drink hot cocoa and watch cheesy movies with the sounds of thunder in the background.
I shivered. Even my arms felt his absence.
A knock at the door startled me. I wish they would go away, and I didn’t even know who it was.
“What?” I shouted as I opened the door, ready to give the person on the other side some hell.
“You can’t sell the Ferrari, Jack.” Will stood there, wet as a fish, on my front porch. He looked tired, and he was breathing heavy.
“Will, you’ll get sick. Come in.” I moved out of the way for him to enter, but he didn’t budge.
“I won’t get sick just because of the rain. And I won’t come in until you remove that.” He pointed to my side table and then jutted out his finger a little more toward the picture of Ellis. I didn’t even remember why that thing was still there.
“Done.” I reached over and with one swipe, pushed it into the trash. “Now come in. You’re soaked.” I closed the door behind him and then rushed to the bedroom, hoping there were some clean towels. I found three in the back of the cabinet and went to the bedroom where Will was already stripping.
“I need a hot shower and then you and I have some shit to work out.” He walked past me in a rush and grabbed the towels from my hand. I listened as he turned on the water and moaned as he stepped into the spray. Sitting on the cedar chest at the end of the bed, I laid my head in my hands and waited. He was here. That had to mean something, right? From his expression and his tone, it surely didn’t mean everything was okay, but it had to mean there was hope.
Hope hadn’t really been my friend of late.
A few minutes later, the water turned off and Will came in, one towel around his waist, under his very pregnant belly, and the other lying over his shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Will.” Pathetic words. But I meant every one of them.
He sighed and rifled through my dresser and pulled out a T-shirt and some pajama pants. I tried not to let the sight of him putting on my clothes make me jump to conclusions.
Oh, screw it. All the conclusions were jumped to and landed.
“I know you’re sorry. I’m sorry, too. You know all my life I’ve taken care of myself. I was so damned proud to own that house.”
“I…” I opened my mouth but Will put a hand up, stopping me.
“Just so you know, I love my new house, too. It’s like you stepped into my mind and gave me a dream home. But the way you executed it all needs some work, love. Like major work. As in, none of it worked at all.”
At hearing the word love, I lost it, completely. I broke down and sobbed like I had the first day coming home after he’d sent me away.
He finished dressing, sat next to me, and pulled me close. “Oh, Jack. I was stubborn, and you were pushy and aggressive. But I couldn’t stay away a single second longer. I haven’t slept, and the only reason I’m eating is because of our babe.”
I stood and pulled him to the big round chair in the corner of the bedroom and settled him onto my lap. I held him for the longest time, simply reveling in hearing his breaths again and being in his presence.
“I should’ve asked you and I’m sorry, Will. I just want you to have everything. I can’t help myself. You’re going to have to rein me in from time to time.”
He laughed. “Talk some more. Say anything.”
I scrambled mentally to think of something to say. “I did some other things. I put you in my will as the sole owner of everything I have. I set up a trust fund and a college fund for the baby. I haven’t worked. Couldn’t work. It all reminded me of you.”
“There it is.” He took my hand and guided it to his belly where I felt something protruding. Then, a bump moved my hand from inside him. “He hears his daddy. That’s right, love, we’re back with Daddy. I swear, he hasn’t been pleased with me while we were apart. I don’t want that to happen again, Jack. I don’t ever want you out my life again.”
I nodded and smiled at the movement of our child. It was as though he was doing somersaults right inside Will’s belly.
“Where are we going to live, Jack? I won’t spend another night without you,” Will asked, and then kissed my neck. My dick went hard instantly.
“We can live at your house or here or any of the houses.”
His eyebrows furrowed. We hadn’t explicitly talked about my wealth, but maybe it was time we did.
“Houses? Jack?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been single all my life, Will. I started working at thirteen, and I lived cheap. Had a mentor who taught me how to day trade. I’ve got seven houses. I just don’t go to them because I haven’t had someone to go there with.”
Chapter Twenty
Will
“Seven…” I jerked away from Jack and pushed to my feet. Images tumbled through my head. All those “little” silver items, antiques purchased at estate sales and auctions, the fact he never seemed to care if his store was open or closed, treated it like one more hobby. Like his silversmithing and watch repair.
He lived in such a small space, but every item was nice...extremely nice. China, crystal, silver. The furniture, antiques or beautifully hand-carved pieces, and the rugs scattered about were probably from Ancient Persia or something. I paced from one thing to the next and even dragged the picture of what’s his name out of the trash. “You sure you want to throw this frame away?” With great pleasure, I yanked out the picture and set the frame on the table.
The freaking front hall table now that I looked at it was dark, glossy, and highly polished. What was it worth?
What was any of it worth?
“Sure, if you want, we can keep it.” Jack tracked my travels through his home, following me at a distance as if I were a wild animal likely to turn on him at any moment. He might not be entirely wrong.
“And what is this worth?” I waved a six-inch high free-form sculpture that had always looked like a lump of melted ice cream to me. I set it down and grabbed a small pottery dish. “And this?”
“Ummm, I made that in kindergarten. It’s worth nothing in real dollars.”
“Huh.” I prowled on, seeing his home as I never had before. “Good to know even a rich guy has some things for sentimental reasons.” Suddenly, a sharp cramp doubled me over. “I feel like I don’t even know who you are,” I gasped as he raced to my side and supported me under his arm. “How much money do you have, anyway?”
“That doesn’t matter now. Just come sit down.”
“I-I can’t sit down because I’m going into labor.”
His sharp intake of breath coincided with his arm tightening around me. “We have to go to the hospital.”
“We aren’t going anywhere until you—oh, ow!” I tried to breathe like on the YouTube Lamaze demos I’d been watching since we never made it to the class.
“Until I what?” His usually elegant voice cracked. “Anything, as long as we can get to the hospital.”
I stilled. Everything seemed to hone in on one, really stupid, but for some reason, super important to me in the moment fact. “Tell me your net worth.”
Jack turned me to face him. His jaw was dropped, his eyes wide. “What? You’re in l
abor and you want to know my net worth?” He clearly thought I’d either become the biggest gold digger in the country or lost my mind. Since I didn’t give a damn about the money, beyond knowing what he’d been hiding from me, it was probably the latter.
“Since you’ve managed to keep your status as one of the five hundred richest men in America from me, I figure you must be ashamed of it. We’re about to have a child and I want to know how much his father is worth.” Okay, now I had zero idea why I cared or why I was insane, but my insides were cramping, my back was aching, my heart was racing, and my mind was a fuzzy mess. “And that baby is not arriving until I know.”
“Ahhh…”
“Tell me!” I jerked free and braced myself on the wall as another pain came fast and furious.
“I don’t want to upset you.”
“I’m already upset!” I shouted. “What are you? One of the top one hundred richest people in the state?”
“Yeah.” He closed in carefully and managed to slip an arm around my waist and start me toward the door. “I am number ninety-nine if Forbes Magazine has it right.”
“In the state? The country? Which?” If I didn’t get moving the baby was going to be born in the entrance hall of the shop.
“The world.”
My knees buckled.
Jack scooped me up and grabbed his keys from the shiny table on the way to the Ferrari. “This is why I didn’t tell you before. It almost always weirds people out to hear I have fifteen billion dollars.” He balanced me on one bent leg while opening the car door and then poured me inside, buckled the belt carefully over my swollen belly, and scooted around to the driver’s side. Gunning the engine, he tore out of the side street headed for the birthing center. “I don’t know why it’s such a big deal.”
My eyes drifted closed as I tried to relax between pains like all the experts I’d watched advised. The advantage to YouTube Lamaze and having nothing to do all day was that I’d watched a lot of them. A whole lot. Of course, I’d missed some stuff with all the crying. With wishing Jack was beside me to practice the exercises.
“We’ll be there in just a few minutes, Will. Hang in there.” He patted my hand before taking a corner way too fast. “You okay?”
“I’ll make it.” Probably. I peeked through my lashes at the countryside flying by. “But maybe slow down just a little? We don’t want to have an accident.”
“Remind me to tell you about my almost win at Le Mans?”
“Yeah, sure.” I leaned back in the seat, breathing in and out, trying to ride the couple of contractions that occurred and wondering what other surprises this alpha had for me. In record time, the engine revved down and we screeched to a stop. When he opened my door and extended a hand to me, I shook my head. “I need a chair.”
Although the birthing center was not a traditional hospital, it was overseen by a pair of married doctors and their nurse-practitioner omega. When we’d taken the tour, I’d felt like I was at a resort, with landscaped grounds, pools, and big, comfortable rooms. That Jack had set us up there should have been a hint of his wealth.
Before I had a chance to cramp again, an orderly was beside the car with a luxury wheelchair and a petal-soft blanket to spread over my lap. “We’ll have you settled in a moment, sir. Mr. Hendrix, if you’d like to take a short stroll in the topiary garden or get a cup of coffee in the cafe, we need a few minutes to get your omega settled.”
Despite his words, Jack lifted me from the car and settled me in my chair, covering my pajama pants with the blanket. “I’ve already lost too much time with Will and the baby. I’m not leaving his side unless you need me to fill out any forms or something?”
“No, sir. Everything is taken care of.” The orderly’s dismayed expression said he would have given anything to lock Jack in an office with a sheaf of forms, but he’d just have to put up with us as a team. Besides, if he’d tried to leave, I’d have called him back.
We rolled past rooms with partially closed doors from which emerged happy coos and the occasional groan of someone in labor which alternately soothed me and amped my nerves. But from the pressure to push I was currently fighting, it wouldn’t be long now.
No sooner was I undressed and settled in the combo labor/delivery suite than the doctor arrived, took one look, and told me to “Bear down.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Jack
Will was a fucking god in my eyes. He’d popped out our little Alexis in less than an hour. I didn’t know much about babies or birth or anything, but I thought that must’ve been some kind of record.
It was in my eyes, anyway.
Since then he’d been a dad supreme. He taught me how to change diapers and how to tell the difference between her cries. I learned about diaper cream, nipple cream, and all other creams in between. Turned out it wasn’t only Lamaze he’d been watching on YouTube.
And now she had two closets full of clothing. Enough pink to last her until she went to kindergarten, at least.
“Jack, give her to me. You hear that little grunt?” Now that we were home in Will’s house or our house or whatever it was, things were settling down and I had my family around me—the family I never thought would happen.
“I do. She grunts before she gets hungry. Before she cries.” I repeated what he’d told me a million times. He was not a fan of all things crying Alexis.
I scooped up the little meatloaf from her cradle and swooped her over to Will who was already unbuttoning his shirt and sitting in the rocking chair. First, he’d birthed our babe like it was an Olympic sport, and then he fed her from his body.
There was nothing my omega couldn’t do.
“Here’s your daddy, sweet angel. He’s got the goods.” I handed her over to Will, and she rooted around until she found what she was after.
“Jack, are you sure about tomorrow?”
Yeah, tomorrow, the day we would be married. We decided to have some downtime after Alexis was born and then go for it.
“I’m more sure than I ever have been. Are you having doubts?” I sat next to him on the stool and admired the beauty of my omega feeding our child while I waited for him to answer.
“No. Never. I’m making sure you aren’t.”
I chuckled. “Oh, Will. I’ll never doubt you or us or this family. You took a shell of a man and made him whole then gave him a family. I want to see you in your white suit across from me, taking my last name and my hand for the rest of our lives. And then I want to sweep you away to Sweden and then Hawaii and then Belize. Lots of places I’ve been waiting to take you.”
He bit his bottom lip while I spoke. I promised him a honeymoon to top all honeymoons and I meant every word.
I would show my omega and our babe the world.
Because they’d given me the world.
“I love you, old man,” he joked and took my hand.
“I’ll love you forever, Will.”
Other titles by Lorelei M. Hart and Ophelia Heart
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All he wants for Christmas is a safe place to have his baby. Santa has other ideas.
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Attending a Valentine’s Day wedding solo, when your “plus one” just dumped you, is about as romantic as a visit to the dentist
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The Omega's Silver Alpha_MM Non-shifter Alpha Omega Mpreg_A Mapleville Romance Page 8