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“Somehandsomestranger. You forgot to say that.”

She rolls her eyes. “No, I didn’t.”

I suck in a dramatic breath. “You wound me, darling. Besides, I make no apologies for stepping in as I did. Especially after hearing all that. Let him suffer and realize all he’s missing now that you’re mine.”

I wink at her but find myself tripping over that. I’ve never called a woman mine. Not even in jest, and I have no idea what compelled me to do it now.

“He was pretty upset,” she notes, thankfully ignoring my claim on her. “I’d like to say I’m a big person and that I feel bad about lying like that, but I don’t. I don’t know why he showed up last night, and I wish I wasn’t as curious as I am. I wish I still didn’t care.”

“That’s only natural, I imagine.”

“Probably. I’m hoping our families didn’t urge it.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Our parents were upset that we broke up.”

“How so?”

She gives me a sour look. “He’s a Hughes, and I’m a Fritz. It’s a match made in heaven. Our families are very close, and he comes from money and healthcare like I do. Our parents werepractically planning our wedding from the moment we told them we were dating again.”

“Do you love him? I mean, I know you told him that, but did you mean it?”

She stares down at the table, her body heavy and shoulders slumped forward. “I don’t know. I thought I did. I thought he was the one. I liked that it was nice and easy and uncomplicated between us. Well, until I complicated it. I thought it was going to lead to forever. I’m thirty-one and he’s thirty-five, and it was good between us, but what felt right to me didn’t to him, and that’s just how it is. I’m not sure something can truly be right if it doesn’t go both ways.”

“I’m sorry. That’s a tough one to navigate.” I give her hand a squeeze and force myself to release her. “For what it’s worth, from what I know of you, it’s his loss.”

She laughs. “Thanks. Let’s just say it’s been a shitty week.” She holds up her braced arm. “And a good week, but that’s an entirely different thing.”

“What’s that now?”

Before she can answer, Fen wakes with a stirring cry, and both Keegan and I shoot to our feet. “Can I get him?”

“Um.” I rub the back of my head, taken aback that she wants to do that. “I guess. I mean, can you?” I point to her wrist.

“Yep. I can. I’ll use my left for his weight. Will he be okay with that?”

“We’ll see. He loves Tinsley, but he’s not feeling well.”

She throws me a smile that lodges somewhere deep in my chest. “Relax there, Daddy. This isn’t the first baby I’ve lifted.”

She winks at me and goes over to his pushchair, then crouches in front of him and gives me a sinfully delicious view of her round arse in her jeans. Christ. Blood shoots straight to my dick, and I have to adjust myself before she turns around and sees it. It’s been far too long since I’ve been on the pull and evenlonger since I’ve had a good fuck, and if Keegan were the sort to have a dirty shag and nothing more and wasn’t Tinsley’s close friend, I would have already been all over her.

“Aw, poor baby,” Keegan coos as she starts to one-handedly undo the buckle on his pushchair. “You’re not feeling well. You have a cold, huh? And you got a shot last night. That’s no fun. Did you have a good nap?”

Keegan lifts him out of his seat and brings him up to her left side, supporting him with that hand. He’s still fussing a bit, but she bounces and rocks him as she continues to speak to him in that voice that could get any man to do her bidding, and he quickly soothes.

“I don’t think you have a fever, so that’s good. Ah, there you go. You’re such a big boy.”

From what I’ve gathered from my mum and Fallon, he’s an incredibly good baby. He eats and doesn’t cry a lot and seems to take to strangers relatively well. I stare at Keegan holding and fussing over my son. It has my heart hammering in my throat, making it hard to breathe and feel like I’m choking.

“Keegan,” I murmur, tasting her name on my lips, letting it linger before words I shouldn’t say tumble from my lips.

I don’t know what I want to tell her. What I want to say. I’m overwhelmed and overwrought, and she’s here smiling and cooing and hugging my son, and he’s snuggled against her like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I clear my throat and pull my shit together.

“Your last day in LA, I got a call from my mum informing me that a baby had been left on her doorstep. Literally left in a basket like Moses. Like a parcel package.”

She gasps and spins around, her eyes wide. Fen is tucked against her with his fingers in his mouth. “Oh my god, Loomis.”