Page 109 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

HAILEY

“ H ow about Tuesday at eleven o’clock?” My doctor’s receptionist had a warm, friendly voice. She’d been working for him since I was twelve years old. Aside from my sister, she was officially the only person who knew I was pregnant.

I put the call on speaker and opened my calendar app to confirm I could make that appointment work. I could take an early lunch break and get there in time.

“That works for me, Cheryl,” I said. “I do have to work that day. Can I call half an hour before my appointment to make sure Dr. Davies is on schedule?”

“Of course, dear.”

“Thank you.”

“Congratulations, Hailey! We’ll see you at eleven o’clock on Tuesday.”

“Thank you,” I said again. This time, my voice sounded hollow and thin.

Congratulations. Was that what people were going to say to me now? Were they going to celebrate something on my behalf that still felt like a burden—and might always feel that way?

The thought made me feel ill. Or maybe that was just the morning sickness. There was no way to tell really. All I knew was my mother had endured a rough pregnancy with both me and my sister, so I could only imagine what nonsense there was in store for me over the next eight months.

Nausea, heartburn, sciatica pain, swollen ankles, and a thirty-eight-hour-long delivery that ended in a caesarean.

I gave my head a shake. There was no sense ruminating on all the things that were entirely out of my control. I had to remember what Hannah had said. I had to take this thing one step at a time. Slowly but surely, I would get through this thing.

I had to.

With a tired sigh, I extracted myself from my sister’s sofa and padded barefoot into the kitchen, where I opened the fridge and stared into the depths of the shelves. I was hungry but didn’t want anything.

This had been a trend for the past week.

I was hungry but food remained unappealing. Disenchanted by all my options, I closed the fridge and opted for a banana from the fruit bowl on the counter instead. I’d eaten half of it when there was a knock on the front door.

Assuming my sister had a delivery coming, I went and opened it with my hair a mess and still dressed in my most unappealing pajama set, a washed out, oversized, armpit-torn, hanging off the shoulder, maroon Christmas-ornament-patterned atrocity that I’d owned for six years.

I called them my sad jammies.

But when I opened the door, it was not a delivery driver standing on the other side.

It was a tall, messy-haired, stubble-jawed handsome man.

And the father of the baby growing in my belly.

“Jackson?” My voice fluttered in my throat.

What was he doing here?

Had he found out about the baby?

Was he angry with me?

Jackson smiled. “Hey, can I come in?”

I rubbed my tongue on the roof of my mouth to try to restore moisture that had been zapped to dust when I saw him. Panic had a tendency to do that to me. Despite my uneasy stomach and my sweaty palms, I let him in.

Jackson stepped out of his sneakers and looked me up and down when I turned around. “The Christmas jammies are usually a bad sign. You okay? This isn’t because you’re still pissed at me, is it?”

“Erm,” I stammered. Where did I start? How did I explain this away?

He smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“You could’ve called,” I said.

“This is important. In-person kind of important.”

Important? It must have been important for him to fly all the way here.

My heart started racing in my chest. I played out every scenario in which he might have found out about the baby but realized that was impossible.

The only person who knew was Hannah, and there was no way she’d tell a single person about this until I was ready.

He didn’t know. This was about something else.

Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be bigger than me being pregnant. I knew I should sit him down and tell him before he said whatever it was he came here to tell me.

My head started spinning.

What will he think?

What will he say?

Will he want this? Or will it scare the hell out of him like it’s scaring me?

I didn’t even know how I wanted Jackson to feel about this, let alone how I felt.

“I made a mistake,” Jackson started. “I never should have left things the way they were after we slept together for the first time. I should have—”

“Jackson, wait. I need to tell you something too.”

He held up his hand and shook his head before reaching for me. He caught my hand in his and pulled me forward so we were standing about a foot apart. He gazed down at my hand and ran his thumb over my knuckles. The sensation was warm and gentle and intimate.

Jackson’s brow creased and he lifted his gaze to look at me. “I should have told you what I was feeling, Hailey. But I didn’t know at the time what it all meant. Now I have clarity. And I want to try.”

“Try?”

“This. You.” He cupped my cheek with his free hand. “Us.”

Us?

I bit my bottom lip and resisted the urge to pull my hand from his and step back so I could create a safe, familiar distance between us. Why did this feel so good and so terrifying all at once? This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? It was what I’d been pining over for weeks. Months, even.

But I couldn’t tell him yes. I couldn’t jump all in. Because I knew things he didn’t.

The baby. Our baby. The baby I didn’t even know if I wanted.

“Hails?”

I swallowed hard. “I—I think I need to sit down.”

Jackson didn’t let go of my hand. He guided me into the living room and sat me down on the sofa. He crouched down in front of me as I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees and plunged my fingers into my hair.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “This isn’t going the way I thought it would. I thought… well, I thought you would want this too.”

I do want this. “It’s more complicated than that.” I tried to find the right words. I didn’t want to hurt him. But I didn’t want to scare him off either and I was about to drop an atomic bomb on him—a bomb I wasn’t even sure I should drop.

Should I make up my mind about what I wanted first? Should I sit in the quiet of nobody else knowing for a little longer until I found clarity?

“Jackson, I’m—”

The front door opened.

Hannah came inside in a whirlwind of shopping bags and her head down so she could kick off her work shoes.

“Hailey?” She started talking before I had a chance to answer her.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I called Vanessa and asked what her favorite pregnancy snacks were.

She said she loved all things sour and deli sandwiches.

So I whipped up a turkey sub at the cafe before I left and stopped to get some of those sour gummies we used to eat when we were—”

Hannah froze when she saw Jackson.

My whole body felt numb. Shit.

Jackson was staring at me. I could feel the heat of his gaze but I didn’t dare meet his eyes.

Hannah let out a nervous laugh as she set the grocery and shopping bags down on the kitchen island. “Oh. Hi, Jackson. I didn’t realize you were here. This is um… awkward.”

Awkward? This was a thousand times worse than awkward.

At least the cat was out of the bag. The truth was out there. All I had to do now was get through this conversation one step at a time.

First, I had to meet Jackson’s eye.

Why did that seem so damn hard?