His Unexpected Baby Bombshell

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He tried his hardest not to look, not to feel, but it was impossible. She swung her far leg over and came down toward him, and Ben put both hands up, catching her around the waist and guiding her to the ground. She landed with a tiny thump.

His palms were pressed against the flimsy material of her T-shirt, he could feel her taut skin beneath his hands. Despite his best intentions he didn’t let go, not straight away, their bodies only inches apart. It wasn’t until Rebecca cleared her throat that he stepped back, hands falling away.

Ben was about to apologize, but she turned, her dark blue eyes smiling in his direction. There was nothing to be said. The attraction that had started the night before he’d left was still there, he knew it and she knew it. But things had changed. She was a mom now, and he couldn’t be a dad, not even a stepdad. And with Bec? If anything happened between them, it wasn’t going to be a casual night of sex again—she meant too much for him to treat her like that. Which left him wondering what the hell could happen between them. If he had to consider the possibility of getting close to someone’s else’s kid.

“I should be saying thank you, Bec,” he said, searching for the right words. “You shouldn’t have lied to me, but the fact that you let me follow my dreams? You were an awesome friend. It was the best thing I’ve ever done and I don’t regret it for a second.”

She nodded, her eyes leaving his as if she was nervous about something. “I wasn’t that great a friend.”

He chuckled. “Believe me, you were.” She hadn’t brought up that night and he wasn’t going to, either, because the last thing he needed was for her to be embarrassed when things were starting to feel easy between them again. “When my mom left, there wasn’t a day that went past that I didn’t feel guilty. Knowing that she’d sacrificed everything she’d ever wanted to have me, it made me feel like crap. But then I guess you already know all that, right?”

Rebecca reached out, her fingers brushing his arm in the softest caress as she met his gaze again. “She had no right to make you feel that way.”

Ben shrugged. “Maybe. But when you’re eight years old and you find out that your mom never wanted you? It’s not exactly an easy pill to swallow. No kid deserves that.”

“Maybe she regretted telling you that,” Rebecca said.

He ground his teeth together, trying to keep his anger at bay. “If she regretted it she’d have come back. She made it pretty clear that her career was more important than I was.”

Rebecca’s hand fell away, her smile sad. “You deserved better, Ben. We both know that.”

“Hey, I’m a big boy now, the past is in the past and all that,” he said, brushing it off as if it meant nothing to him, even though there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t wonder how a mother could do that to her son. “All I was trying to say was I’m not angry with you, for lying to me. You let me go, and I should be thanking you instead of being so angry. You were never the kind of person to hold someone back and that makes you special.”