Page 12 of Undeniably Unexpected (Boston’s Irresistible Billionaires #6)

O ther than a meeting here, an errand there, or being on set when I was back in London, I haven’t spent much time outdoors in months.

It’s cold but not bitter, and with the sun shining, I can convince myself it’s almost pleasant out.

I had grown accustomed to LA weather, but the Englishman in me adjusts quickly to gray, wet, and bleak, which is what Boston has been since I returned.

Today is the first nice day, and now that Fen seems to have shaken his cold, I want to get him outside. I think that’s why he woke up so early today. He’s a small boy with a lot of energy, and I’ve had him cooped up in our tiny flat nearly around the clock.

Tinsley suggested I buy a place here, and while I certainly have the money socked away to do that, I’m not sure where I want to go or where I want us to live after I’m done filming my next movie.

As of right now, I’m scheduled to shoot in Toronto later this spring and then in some small town in Colorado early this fall.

I’ve signed contracts. I’ve negotiated the deals.

Pulling out makes me look like a total wanker and could—very likely—hurt my chances of ever getting hired again.

But how can I be both? How can I be the actor, the film star, and the single dad?

I won’t leave him home somewhere alone for months with a nanny, which would mean I’d have to travel with them, but how do you find a nanny to even do that? One you can trust?

And that’s if the studios still want me and social services give me the green light. Then there’s the worry about his mother. Who is she and where is she and is she gone or is she going to pop back up again without a moment’s notice? Will she try to take him back from me if she does?

If this were me seven years ago, I’d be suffocating my anxiety and copious feelings in drugs, but I’m not that bloke anymore.

I will never be that bloke again. I’ve come a long way from that poor, scared punk of a kid to the man I am now.

Acting saved me in a way. It gave me purpose and clarity.

It sobered me up. Funny how I became an actor and left drugs behind when for so many it’s the other way around.

But I need this career.

Which means I need to buckle down and have a good think on everything.

Something that is nearly impossible when you’re chasing your son around and you’re more than a little exhausted and overwhelmed.

I can’t make a gut reaction with this. I can’t let emotion and fear win out, or I’ll wind up doing something daft.

I have to do this thoughtfully and with the utmost care.

Fen is holding on tight to his Curious George cuddly toy, his legs scissoring in his pushchair, anxious to get to the playground.

Just as we round the corner, I spot Keegan coming from the other direction.

Her long, crimson hair is pleated into a braid that winds over her shoulder and curls at her breast. She’s wearing a green knitted beanie hat, a black puffy coat, black leggings that hug her thick, shapely thighs, and tall gray boots that are lined with fur.

She hasn’t spotted me yet, and I take a moment to appreciate her.

She’s gorgeous as always, and her body is impossible not to notice.

Tinsley once referred to her as Jessica Rabbit, and I wholly agree with that statement, though she radiates sweet innocence more than raw sexuality.

But it works for me with Keegan. All of it does.

Still, she’s as untouchable as it gets, and that’s something I’ll continue to abide by with her.

Fen spots her and chirps out an excited noise that catches Keegan’s attention.

“Hi. Hi. Hi,” he crows.

A bright smile lights her face, and she waves with her bad hand, still encased in heavy plaster or whatever you call that brace thing she wears.

“Hi!” she sings in return and does a little twirl, her hands up as she gestures toward the sky. “Can you believe it? Sunshine.”

“It’s beautiful. Just like you.” It slips out, and I realize how it sounds. Flirty. Suggestive. Something that doesn’t go missed.

Bollocks. I’m such a wanker with her lately.

I quickly press on, flattening my tone. “Thanks for meeting us. I figured it’d be good for all of us to get out for a bit.”

“Definitely.”

We reach the gated edge of the school playground, and I carefully peer inside. I’m wearing colored contacts, glasses, a fake beard, and a ballcap, but that’s it. Other than that, I look like me, and it makes me uneasy. But I was going mad indoors, and so was Fen.

“Seems empty,” Keegan notes. “Are we gonna risk it?”

“Yes. Let’s hope it stays this way.”

I lift the latch and push open the wrought iron gate.

The playground is more for elementary-aged children, but I couldn’t chance the larger public playground, so we’ll have to make do with this.

The moment I unbuckle Fen from his pushchair and set him on the ground, he takes off with a gleeful laugh trailing behind him.

Keegan chases after him, making silly sounds and faces that delight him to no end. She helps him climb up the playscape and sets him on her lap, then they go down the slide together. My chest squeezes at the sight of them, similar to the way it did the other day when she was feeding him.

I can’t make sense of it.

I never have this feeling when I watch him with Tinsley.

Keegan and I take turns with him on the playscape, going over bridges he loves to jump on since it bounces him and being held as we zip down the slides.

He’s too small for the swings, so we don’t even attempt that, and after an hour, he finally crashes, mumbling “Dada” and holding his chubby hands up at me, demanding I pick him up.

I lift him into my arms, and he doesn’t waste a second before he cuddles himself into my chest and burrows his head beneath my chin. Keegan points to a bench, and we walk over and take a much-needed seat.

“Wow,” Keegan muses, collapsing against the wood. “How did my parents do that with twins?”

I give an exaggerated shudder that makes her laugh.

“We had help,” she explains. “The best nanny ever. My dad’s a doctor, and my mom is, or I should say was, a school nurse at the prep school we went to for high school. Plus, we had my aunt Layla living with us for a while, and she helped out a lot too.”

“So you’re saying I should get on the ball and start searching for a nanny?”

“I’m saying despite what we tell ourselves, we really can’t do it all without help.”

I believe that. I’ve lived it. I just don’t know how to do that with this.

Silence settles between us as Fen’s breathing grows deep and even. I could put him back in his pushchair and take him home for a proper nap, but I’m not ready to leave Keegan yet. I like being out here with her. It makes me feel like the old me for a change.

She winces. “Sorry if that came out preachy. I didn’t mean for it to. I’m just saying it’s okay if you do get help. You don’t have to feel so alone.”

“I know, and thank you for that. When I was in London, I had so much going on all at once. We’d just found out about him, and the DNA results took two weeks to come back.

In that time, my mum was there, and she did so much to help.

I was bitter,” I admit ruefully. “I was angry and bitter that not only did I not know about him until he was dropped on Mum’s doorstep, but I hated that he’d been abandoned.

With that, I didn’t allow myself to start to bond with him right away. ”

I glance down at him, feeling a familiar pang of guilt when I think about how I was with him at first. So cold and standoffish, I’d hardly look at him, so afraid to fall in love as I’ve always been.

When my father walked out on us when I was nine and my brothers were small, my mother told me one universal truth.

A life code if you will. A rule to follow at all costs.

If you don’t want to experience real pain and crushing heartache, never need anyone and never allow yourself to fall in love. And if you do, always love yourself more than them.

After watching Mum suffer the way she did, trapped in heartache and loneliness and poverty, working too many hours and raising three boys all on her own, that rule became my compass.

I never got close to women and never envisioned having a family.

Then my child was suddenly there, abandoned as I’d been, and from the moment I knew he was mine for sure, I couldn’t help but love him and want everything for him that I never had.

I broke the code.

I need him like nothing else, and I love him far more than I love myself.

But with that comes the fear. Fear that he’ll be taken, and I’ll lose everything. Fear that the world will get to him, or I’ll fuck everything up.

“Now that’s all changed. He’s mine, and he’s my world.

I just wish I knew who his mother is and what happened to her.

For all I know, she could come back at any moment and demand I return him or try to fight me for custody or money or both.

” This is easily my biggest fear. Way more than social services or anyone else.

It’s part of the reason I’ve tried to hide out, hoping Vander could discover something about her.

“I think that’s understandable.”

I sigh. “In London, I was filming and distracted by that. Tinsley and my mum were always there. It was so much easier. Now we’re here, and I start filming next month, and I have to, very soon, tell the world about my son when I don’t have a clue who his mum is or even when he was born.

How do you trust a nanny, a stranger , when all of that is going on? ”