Baby Daddies - Tara Brown Page 0,66
realized I don’t know anything about your family. I Googled—”
“It’s fine,” she mutters but I can tell it isn’t. “Uhm, Lori’s not here. He asked me to tell you he left.”
“He left?” I check my phone but there are no texts from him.
“Something’s happened, Jenny. I can’t say anything else. Grace and Bert will ensure you’re all right until the family gets back.” She steps out of the doorway again.
“It was nice meeting you,” I offer but she’s gone and I’m alone holding my phone in my underwear.
It’s not the way I thought I would meet Lori’s family.
I get dressed and hurry downstairs.
My mind is whirling with possibilities as to what’s happened.
Is it my fault for coming?
Did they fight about the baby?
Is this one of those crazy rich-people things where just to have a conversation about a new heir there has to be a lawyer present?
But aren’t they also rich enough that the lawyer visits them?
In the kitchen, the chef I met earlier, Grace, is still there. She’s dishing up meals and putting them into containers, like she’s meal prepping for someone who counts gourmet macros.
Being here without Lori, unsure what to say or do, I want to hide in his room, but I’ll never get answers that way. So I force myself to sit at the bar stool and watch her until she acknowledges my existence. I’ve definitely been around women such as her before and know the routine. This is her domain and I’m a guest. An unwanted guest.
“How was your nap?” She’s curt, as if she’s asking because she feels obligated but doesn’t care.
“Good, thanks.” I smile, trying hard to be cool under the circumstances. She needs buttering with friendly banter and self-deprecating humor. “It was one of those ones that is so deep you wake up and don’t know where you are or how old you are.” My words soften at the end and the humor isn’t as thick as it needs to be, but this is what I’ve got.
“I’ll be frank with you.” This is the moment where she warns me about Lori’s shenanigans to protect me, but in actuality his mom just wants me—the older woman stealing her baby and grasping at the family fortune—gone. “You should go home to New York, Miss Snowdon,” Grace says, not lifting her gaze to meet mine as she lids the food and stacks the containers. Her act is impeccable. She genuinely sounds worried about me. “It’s not my place to say this, but Lori shouldn’t have brought you here. Not as you are. And particularly not now.”
“As I am?” My body tingles with nerves but my mind whispers that this is textbook. And it’s also not the meeting where she warms up to me. According to the Hallmark movies, in six months we’ll get snowed in and I’ll save her. As she’s recovering, she puts her hand on my belly and feels the baby and somehow that tells her I’m a decent and worthy person.
“Pregnant. Under normal conditions his parents would not take this news easily nor would they be kind to you.” She pauses, sighing heavily as if the words are a struggle to say and not because of her thick accent. Finally, she lifts her eyes to meet mine. “But to make matters worse, Sean, Lori’s brother, has been found. He’s in an ICU in a Seattle hospital. The doctors called and told the family to come. I don’t know if he’s going to make it. But Lori and his parents have gone to Seattle and I don’t know when he will be back. Sean’s condition is quite serious.”
Her words land with a hard thud in my chest.
This is more like a Lifetime movie and I’m not emotionally prepared for it. In fact, I have no idea what this means. But there’s one course of action. Remove myself and the baby from the equation so his family can cope in private.
“Of course.” I stand, aware that I must stay calm. “I won’t add this burden to them. Thank you for being honest with me.” I hate calling my baby a burden and deep down hope it can’t hear that.
“Do you have somewhere you can go?”
“Yes, my brother keeps a place here. It’s not far at all, just over on Pender.” I walk from the counter, fighting the dizzy spell that’s come out of nowhere.
“Bert will get a driver to take you.”
“Oh, I can get a cab or the bus.”
“I insist.” She’s firm.
“Okay, I’ll get my