Page 62 of Mile High Baby

"What?" I stared up at him innocently.

"This!” he hissed, still looking around like one of his burly buddies might see him.

"What about it?" I rolled my eyes. "Too manly to hold feminine products? Here." I started to take the items from him. "Go stand by the door while I get what I need. Heaven forbid you be caught near menstrual pads.” This was it. If this didn't work, I was going home with all this stuff but without the one thing I really needed, a pregnancy test.

He scanned the store. It wasn't empty, but the few people there looked harmless enough.

"Fine.” He strode toward the main door.

Yes! Victory. I quickly grabbed a pregnancy test while his back was to me and brought it with everything else to the self-checkout. I scanned and bagged everything, then paid.

With the pregnancy test well-hidden between the douche and tampons in the bag, I walked up to him. "Ready?"

His eyes narrowed at me. “You enjoyed that, didn't you?"

I grinned. "A little."

He looked at me then in a way that made my heart stall in my chest. It reminded me of the way he'd looked at me the night he told me he couldn't stop thinking about me.

I went up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "It was a great adventure, Alex."

He gave a short nod, then opened the door and escorted me to the car.

Once home, Knightly greeted us. "Mr. Banion would like to see you," he said to Alex.

Alex looked at me, and I felt the weight of this moment. There would be no goodbye kiss. No intimate acknowledgement of the last few weeks.

"Take care of yourself.”

I sucked in a breath as I felt tears come to my eyes. "You too.”

"This way.” Knightly directed Alex to my father's office.

Alex followed, looking back at me just as he was about to walk through the office doors.

I gave a small wave. He sent me a wan smile in response. Then he was gone.

I sighed, heading upstairs with my bag of products. I went straight to the ensuite bath connected to my room and dumped the bag on the floor. I snatched the pregnancy kit and read the directions.

"Are we really going to do this?" I asked my reflection in the mirror.

I was probably overreacting, but knowing would alleviate the worry. I followed the directions, leaving the test on the box as I distracted myself by going to unpack. Three minutes later, I stood at the threshold of the bathroom, too nervous to walk in and see if my life was about to change.

No. I was being ridiculous. I was worrying for nothing.

I stepped into the bathroom and looked at the test.

PREGNANT.

21

Alex

Ishould have been relieved by how quickly Victoria accepted that this little affair we had going had come to an end. I admired her ability to speak it out loud when I hadn't had the guts to be clear with her. She had understood what I hadn't been able to articulate. She didn't cling and ask for more time. She didn't pout, nor did she get angry. She accepted and moved on. It was exactly the perfect response. So why did it piss me off so much?

She'd ensnared me with her beauty and wit and intelligence until I was halfway in love with her. I didn’t much like holding all those girly products, but when I realized she was fucking with me, still teasing even though we were done, I’d nearly changed my mind.

But her ability to revert back to normal, to not feel any loss over the end of us, told me she didn't feel the same for me. Why the fuck would she? I was old enough to be her father, after all.