Page 54 of Desperate Games

Callie flings herself at my leg and clings. “I picked everything! And I want the unicorn pillow too!”

Andrea looks between us, lips parting again.

“You have a daughter?” she asks softly.

“Technically, my niece,” I say, brushing Callie’s hair back. “But I’ve raised her since she was born. She lives with me now. Full time.”

Andrea stares at me.

At us.

Then, her eyes flick to her own belly again. And something cracks behind her eyes.

“I didn’t know,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep my tone even. “Seems we’re both full of secrets.”

Chapter Fourteen-Andrea

I must’ve been dreaming.

That’s the only explanation.

Because one minute, I was standing in the middle of Carter & Cove, face to face with the man who wrecked my heart and rewired my body—his green-eyed mini-me clinging to his leg like a scene from a Tim Burton rendition of a Norman Rockwell painting—and the next?

I’m being ushered into his matte camo-painted SUV like I didn’t just blow up both our lives.

“You okay up there?” Remy asks, catching my gaze in the rearview mirror as he buckles Callie into a car seat with the kind of effortless competence that makes my heart ache.

“I, um, yeah,” I manage, easing into the passenger seat with my pulse in my ears and my babies doing somersaults under my ribs.

“She’s pwetty, Dad,” Callie whispers after a minute.

“Yep, Shortcake, she sure is,” Remy whispers, frowning.

My gaze returns to the sweet little girl’s, “You’re pretty, too.”

“Can I hold your hand?” Callie surprises me.

I turn my body slightly, startled.

Her little face is tipped up toward me, hopeful, unsure.

My heart lurches.

“Of course,” I whisper back, reaching across the console.

Her tiny fingers wrap around mine, warm and sticky from who knows what. And I hold on like she might float away otherwise.

This feels right somehow.

But still I want to cry because I didn’t know when I made my idiotic plans to become a mom on my own.

I didn’t know about Callie. I didn’t know that Remy had responsibilities, and that he took them seriously. It’s all my fault because I didn’t ask. Didn’t care. I just saw what I wanted, and I acted.

Selfishly. Like a greedy brat.

Callie lets go of my hand, asks for her book, and Remy moves to get it from a little backpack he has on the floor at her feet.