Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance by Hazel Parker (fun to read txt) 📗

“I know. I just wanted to come in and see it for myself.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.”

I nod. He’s right. I’d put my heart and soul into this place for years, and now it looked and smelled like the inside of a barbeque grill. My sense of loss was enormous, dwarfed only by the prospect of rebuilding. That was when the real uphill climb was going to start.

I stand, picking up the crate. It looks so forlorn and clean among all the dirty char that I can’t just leave it behind.

“We’re going to be okay, Daniel,” I say.

“We are?” he asks, then says quickly, “Of course we are.” He looks around the fire-blasted room again. “A little drywall, a little paint…it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

“Actually,” I say, “it’s going to be better than ever.”

He stares at me for a long moment, then grins. “I guess you just can’t keep a good chef down, huh?”

“Damn right. The crew comes in to start working the day after tomorrow. I have a bet going that they’ll make some pretty swift progress.”

“Oh, so now you’re betting, as well. This has been a real breakout season for you, Steph.”

I throw my arm around his shoulders, a task since he’s taller than me, and begin walking him towards the blackened opening that had formerly been the front doors. Our shoes crunch in the litter of grit and burned wood on the floor.

“Better than ever,” I say again. “You wait and see.”

“If what you say is true, I won’t be waiting very long, either.”

“That’s the idea.”

It’s hard to say which was more difficult, not falling apart completely when I first heard Trent’s voice this afternoon or turning down his offer to help. I was so glad to hear from him that I almost felt like crying, although I may be able to lay that one down at the feet of hormones. No, I decide, it’s because I was glad to hear from him.

I also knew that if he could duplicate his torched kitchen, he could without much more effort do the same for my entire restaurant. It would be like Daniel had flippantly supposed, like it had never even happened.

But I won’t ask him to do that. As hard as our words had been several weeks back, there had been a large kernel of truth in them. I had come this far on my own, and I had done it by believing in myself. I had to keep believing in myself, and that meant standing on my own two feet, pregnancy and all.

That last raised an entirely different specter of doubt in my mind. Obviously, I have to tell Trent about the baby. He has the right to know. But how will he take the news?

We’ve not talked about children. We’ve not talked about much of the future at all, we’ve been so busy living in the present. I’ve heard stories about guys freaking out when presented with the idea of impending fatherhood and heading for the hills.

I don’t think that’s how Trent will react, but his exact feelings will be impossible to gauge until I tell him.

So why didn’t I tell him when he had called just a few minutes ago? Especially since I know he won’t be back in town for several more days?

Because you don’t just drop a bombshell like that on someone over the phone, I reason. If that means waiting a bit longer before I tell Trent he’s going to be a father, then so be it.

I’m curious as to what could be keeping him from simply coming straight back, though. He didn’t make it sound like an emergency or a world-shifting business deal. So what could it be?

Whatever it is, I hope it’s over with soon. I’m dying to tell him my news.

I also realize that that’s not all I want to tell him.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but in this instance, I was pretty fond of him to begin with. More than that. Against all odds and circumstances, I can admit to myself that I have fallen in love with him.

That’s something else I don’t want to tell him over the phone.

The question is, which do I tell him first?

The days pass. I would say they dragged, but they’re so crammed with activity that they blow by like a strong wind. In between making a general nuisance of myself at the reconstruction site, I somehow manage to keep up with the head chef duties at my other two restaurants. My house plants, which had been tentatively revived by my growing maternal instincts—i.e., I watered them more or less daily—now succumb once again to neglect.

I still haven’t told my staff about my “little passenger.” Trent is going to be the first person I actively tell. Tira has been sworn to secrecy, at which she is lousy. She insists on regularly bringing over tiny outfits to my apartment.

“You don’t even know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl yet,” I say as she holds up a miniature dress and a little suit. The dress is pretty, but the suit would make a baby look like a diminutive secret agent.

“I can always return all this stuff when I do find out,” she declares, waving an arm at the growing pile of baby clothes on the armchair in my living room. “When will I find out?”

“Relax,” I tell her. “You’ve still got a while to wait. The ultrasound won’t give out that kind of information until at least fourteen weeks.”

She pouts.

I laugh. “You’ll have plenty of other vicarious experiences to have through me in the meantime,