Cocky Baby Daddy (Cock of the Walk Duet Book 2)

by Rose Harper

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I want to ask you something.” Alex said, as I untangled my arms from her.

  I wiped my eyes, looking at her. “Shoot.”

  “I want you to move in with me.”

  My mouth hung open in shock. It wasn’t that I had much to move anyway. Every piece of furniture belonged to the apartment, but sharing a house with Alex? That was her safe haven, she barely brought anyone there, let alone have someone live with her. Was she frigging insane?

  “Seriously?” I asked, my brow arched in curiosity. “You barely let anyone in the house, let alone have someone live with you.”

  “I’m dead serious, Claire. You’re going to be going through so much in the next few months, and I want you somewhere close by.”

  “Alex, I know you want me close by, but think about this carefully. Are you sure you want me living with you? I’ll be there twenty-four hours a day. You won’t be able to have any time alone with Bo because I’ll be there,” I said.

  Her anger spiked, eyes beginning to dilate. “I’m fucking serious. I have already thought it through. I want you near me just in case something happens, not ten fucking minutes away. Now get out of the lease you have here, pack your shit, because Bo and I will be over here in a few weeks to help you move. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  I chuckled, holding my arms out to wave her bitchiness off. “Okay, okay. I’ll see what I can do. I’m so glad I have you for a friend. You’re there for me whenever I need you.”

  “Damn, straight. You’re my sister, Claire; I love you. So, if you need help, I’m so there,” she said, hugging me.

  When she left, I sat looking around my apartment. I’d spent the last ten years in this apartment, thanks to Henry. It was the only other home I’d known in my short life. I would miss it a lot. But the thought of moving in with Alex thrilled me. I would be near someone that would watch over me and little bean. She was a bitch, but that’s why I loved her. She would never let anything happen to me or the baby.

  The thought of telling Brad about the baby drifted into my mind. I knew that I had to tell him sometime. He was the only other person besides Alex that wouldn’t let it slip. The only thing stopping me was if Cherish overheard. If she did, that could cause a big mess. However, the more I sat and thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.

  I hadn’t spoken to him since that first night. But I was no longer the sad depressed girl I had been. I wasn’t necessarily the strongest, but I was getting there. Just remembering the way Alex talked to Brad the last time he called made me laugh. She’d give him a run for his money.

  I knew if I asked Alex what I should do, she would tell me to let him in on it. Of course, she was right, just like most other things. But that didn’t stop the apprehension I felt about it. What if he turned me and the baby away? What if he said I was lying and just trying to pin it on him? I did the same thing at the reception when Cherish told him about baby Shawn.

  But he didn’t listen to me. Instead, he took Cherish’s side. I didn’t want him to take my side, I just want to see what he would think of the whole situation. I could probably catch him while he was at work. Maybe say it was a friend of mine that needed the advice, and since he was in the situation with Cherish, he would be able to tell me.

  It was such a bad idea, but I couldn’t stop myself from calling his phone. I needed to know. Would he reject me and the baby if he was put in that situation, or would he open his arms and embrace us? I sighed as the phone started ringing, on the second ring he answered.

  “Hello, Claire,” he greeted in his gravelly voice.

  Fuck. I didn’t think this was going to be that hard. But damn, his voice just brought back so many images of our last time together. I was completely hell-bent over this man, and didn’t know the damn reason why. Love wasn’t supposed to feel like this, was it?

  “Hey, Brad.” I replied, my voice choking up a little.

  “God, love. Your voice is still so beautiful,” he groaned, like my voice was sex to his ears.

  “Brad. Please … don’t,” I exhaled in a shaky breath.

  He cleared his throat. “Sorry, that was over the line. What can I help you with? This is kind of a surprise, considering the tongue lashing I got a few weeks ago,” he chuckled through the line.

  Why did he have to say tongue lashing? That stupid fucker.

  “Well, I admit you deserved every bit of that, but that’s not why I called. I wanted to know something. I have a friend that’s pregnant with her ex-lover’s baby, but he just found out that his other ex-lover is pregnant, too, and he took her back already. What would you do if you were this guy? I know it’s stupid to even come and ask you about it. But I figured that since the bitch is pregnant you would have some insight.” I held my breath, waiting for his answer. Please don’t let him put two and two together.

  He sounded stunned when he replied. “Claire, is there something I should know about?”

  “Nope,” I squeaked, clearing my throat before repeating it again.

  “Claire,” he growled in his dominant voice.

  I rubbed my arms when goose bumps pebbled on my skin. I hated that he still made me feel like that, but there was nothing I could do. The body wants what the body wants. “Brad, just answer the question, or I’ll go to someone else and ask.”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely, if I was the guy, I would not turn them away. I would be the stand-up man and take care of what’s mine. You, of all people, should know this, Claire.”

  I snorted. “Do I?”

  His growl resonated through the line. “You damn well better. You think I’m with Cherish for shits and giggles?” His angry voice flitted through the line. I heard a door open in the background before he cursed. “I gotta go. Is there anything else you wanted to know?”

  I cleared my throat before responding. “Yes. As a matter of fact, there is. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about you proposing to Cherish? I may be hundreds of miles away, but the sound of betrayal doesn’t take long to travel.” I finished in a growl, hanging the phone up.

  His gasp before I hung the phone up told me that he didn’t know I knew about their engagement. Of course, I had no right to be mad at him. But dammit, I couldn’t help it. I loathed the ground Cherish walked on. He’d tossed me away simply because she said she was pregnant. He figured if it happened once that it could happen again. I, for one, call bullshit. But did anyone believe me? Hell no. No one ever believes me.

  I just hoped that I didn’t stay mad at him for the rest of my life, and I’d be able to forgive him; but until then, I’d just be existing. I had more important things to worry about now. This baby being the number one on that list. I didn’t have room in my life for hate and drama. The only place I had room for was my child, no matter who the father was.

  Chapter Seventeen

  One Month Later…

  Every day, I get just a little better. I no longer wake up in the middle of the night screaming and aching for Brad. The nightmares have started to fade into the dark recesses of my mind. I’m a hell of a long way from being back to my old self, but at least I’m getting better. That’s the story of my life. Loving someone is no joke, but to have them jerked away from you twice in one lifetime, is torture on one’s soul.

  When I have thoughts of what could have been if Brad hadn’t thrown me away, I always rub my stomach, because no matter what I will always have a piece of him with me. It hurts that he chose someone else over me after saying that he loved me. But in this day and time, you learn to take what someone says at face value. Do not believe them unless they prove to you otherwise.

  The last month has drained away my anger toward him. All I feel now is a sadness for him. Cherish had been married to him before, so she knew how to play him like a fiddle, how to trick him. I, however, had one year with him and that had been back in high school. I thought I knew who Brad was, but no, Cherish was the only one who really knew him.

  The only one
he let in.

  It hurts sometimes to think about that. To think about what could have been between him, me, and our child. But I wasn’t going to put my baby through that pain and suffering. I would be just like my mother and raise it alone. I turned out just fine, no thanks to my deadbeat father. So, I figured I would do a pretty good job too.

  I’d moved in with Alex, per her request. It makes me happy to see that she is with Bo. That she is actually letting someone in, besides me. When she asked me to move in and all my things were squared away, she didn’t have to ask Bo twice and he was over here moving all my things. He was there for her just like she was there for me.

  She was the main reason I was at the stage in my grief that I was. Accepting. I accepted the fact that Brad and I would not be together again. He was engaged to someone else, and she had helped me see that. I spent many nights crying in her arms, but the release was sort of cathartic. I was able to release the bad and retain the good. It didn’t hurt me to remember the good anymore, whereas a month ago all it brought was agonizing pain

  Since finding out at the hospital that I was pregnant, I haven’t been back to the doctor. This would be my first visit with an actual gynecologist. It took me this whole time to actually find one that I liked. None of them ever seemed good enough to be looking over me and my child. That’s when Doctor Andres came practically out of nowhere and blindsided me.

  He was phenomenal with children and pregnant mothers. He’s had over twenty years’ experience in this field and delivered over three thousand babies. All of his patient reviews were amazing, so I snatched him up, and this would be my very first baby visit with him. I was more than nervous, had no idea what to even look forward to.

  Alex has been excited for the last week. She can’t wait until they do an ultrasound, so she can see the baby. I’m beyond excited too. I’ve thought many times if it would have my blonde hair or Brad’s darker hair. My physique or Brad’s. The only thing I could come up with was that my child was going to be absolutely beautiful either way.

  I heard a voice at the door, dragging me from my thoughts. I blinked my eyes as if to blink the daze away. I glanced over to see a bright smile on Alex’s face. I smiled in return before finishing my makeup. Of course, makeup wasn’t a have-to thing nowadays, but it still made me feel good.

  “I figured you would be gone already,” I said, putting a few extra coats of mascara on.

  I turn a timid smile on her, and she reciprocated. “I’m just so excited. I’ve taken the whole day off. Afterward we are going to go shopping and everything.” She squealed with excitement.

  I chuckled. “I’m not finding out the sex, sweetie. That won’t come for another few months. I’m not even completely sure if I am getting an ultrasound today.”

  A knock on our front door had her walking away, calling over her shoulder. “Either way, Claire, you need a treat, so afterwards were going shopping.”

  I giggled at her obvious happiness by me being knocked up. She would put you in the mind of one of those aunts that wait between the mother’s legs while she’s pushing. She’s completely obsessed over the baby. Who’s to blame her, I’m pretty obsessed myself. I walked out of the bathroom and entered the living room to see Alex and Bo all but making out next to the front door.

  I snickered. “Ahh … that’s gross, can you two get a room?”

  Bo being the jokester turns toward me, eyes lit with mischief. “This is coming from a girl that has a bun in the oven. Girlie, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten a room.”

  His jokes forced a laugh out of me. By now I was already use to his antics. However, it hadn’t always been like that. The first time he said a pregnant joke to me I almost decked him. Sad, but true. It was then that Alex had to explain to him that my hormones were raging and that I was temperamental. Can someone say embarrassing? At least it had been at the time. Now, though, I gave as well as I got.

  “Touché,” I chortled, picking up my purse. “I’ll catch you guys later. Off to check on said bun in the oven. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  I cracked up when I heard Alex say ‘don’t count on it,’ then run through the house screaming. God, I loved living with her. I hadn’t realized how much I missed living with someone until I’d moved in with Alex. It’d been almost ten years since I had. I chalked it up to not wanting to be lonely. But it wasn’t just that. I missed the interaction, the playfulness between two people. I now got to see that every day.

  As I backed out of the drive, I rolled the window down. It was close to noon and I wanted to feel the now chilling September air blowing through my hair. I didn’t care that I would have to stop every other block for a stoplight. I was lighthearted and felt better than I had in ages. As soon as the nausea stopped, I began to see what this pregnancy was all about: a pure miracle.

  The first stoplight brought with it a man and woman crossing the crosswalk, pushing a stroller. It broke my heart for a mere minute, but I refused to stay down for too long. I would have that one day. Just maybe not who I wanted it to be with. I can’t let my life be put on pause for one person, especially when said person was within months of having their child with their fiancée.

  The only thing I could do was forgive. I made some rash decisions when I first found out that Cherish was pregnant. Saying that the baby wasn’t Brad’s and why would she wait to tell him if it was. I was now in a drama-free zone. I couldn’t care less if the baby was his. I had a baby of my own on the way and I needed to think of it first. That’s what a real mom does.

  A real mom bottles up the hurt and makes giving her child a happy, normal life her priority. It reminded me of my own mother. I kicked my ass several times over the past month for talking to her the way I had over the phone. I blamed it on raging hormones, and I couldn’t help it. That’s what being pregnant did to you. It made you happy go lucky one minute, and a raging bull with horns the next. I’d been hit with a wave of emotions all at once, and she just happened to be my outlet for my frustration at the time.

  I’d since apologized for my behavior over the phone and my mother and I have grown stronger from it. It still hurt me that she was going to be in the room when Cherish gave birth. That was supposed to be her place with me. But if I really wanted to forgive, I couldn’t stand in her way. I couldn’t hold a grudge against a woman that merely wanted to be accepted.

  As I once had been.

  I didn’t have to work to be accepted into the Titan family; it just happened. From the very first time I went to their house, Henry had considered me one of them. That’s when I started to feel sorry for Cherish. She had to work to get Henry’s approval and has yet to gain it. Henry was over-the-moon happy to get a grandchild from Brad. What he wasn’t too happy about was the person that it was coming from.

  As I pulled to a stop in front of the doctor’s office, I smiled. This would be my first visit of many. I had begun a new chapter in my life two-and-a-half months ago, but today was when it was all going to become real. I would have an exact due date of when my little miracle child would be here. That was what excited me the most. The chance at being a mother. I didn’t need a man to help in raising a child. My mother was proof of that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After signing in, I waited … and waited. Since it was my first time with this doctor, the nurses warned it could take a few hours before I got to see him. This news didn’t bother me in the least. I knew that bringing in a new patient would take a bit of time. They would have to pull my records and everything. What I didn’t expect, however, was it actually took less than an hour before I was called back.

  There was only one thing I could tell I was going to hate about coming here every month—the part where I had to undress and wear the paper-towel gown, as I called it. I was shy when it came to showing myself to other people. I don’t think that would ever change. But I found the more I sat there, the more I became comfortable with the idea of wearing this gown for long periods of time.

  I started f
idgeting when the door opened. A pale-as-a-ghost doctor came in with a laptop that sat on a cart and a nurse stood right behind him. He was your typical doctor type; he wore a button up shirt, tie, and slacks with a white coat over it. I couldn’t explain it, but I instantly felt at ease. I remembered the stats I’d read about him and his many deliveries, and that sold me. He wouldn’t be in this field very long if he wasn’t the absolute best.

  “It says here that about a month ago you had a positive pregnancy test,” he stated, his eyes looking at me over the rim of his glasses.

  I nodded my head. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Well let’s see if we can get an exact gestation, shall we?” He motioned for me to lie back and bring my butt closer to the edge of the table.

  When I put my feet in the stirrups, he put gloves on. “Just lie back and relax; it’ll only take me a moment.”

  I lie back, closing my eyes. God, I’d never felt so violated in all my life. Having another man’s fingers where Brad’s once were felt like I was cheating in a way. I know that’s completely ridiculous considering he and I are no longer together. But it felt like cheating all the same. It was his baby that the doctor was trying to get a read on, his baby that grew inside of me.

  As he finished, he snapped the gloves off his hands and smiled. “You’re measuring about two-and-a-half months, Ms. James. Now let’s take you to get your baby’s first picture.”

  I was completely speechless. I hadn’t known that I’d be getting an ultrasound today. I just figured the doctor would measure me, and then I’d be on my merry way. But the doctor had other things in mind. I didn’t know I’d be so emotional going into this ultrasound, but I was. Brad wouldn’t be here for our baby’s first picture. He wasn’t here for the first visit. He was going to miss everything.