Happily Ever All-Star: A Secret Baby Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,358

son.”

19

Lachlan

My secret was supposed to shock her. Instead I got the gut-punch.

It crushed my chest just like it had in high school, when Victoria twisted the knife and revealed that she was pregnant. But the panic never went away. Once he was born, it twisted into a different fear—an all-consuming, terrifying love that blended devotion and protectiveness and anxiety.

How was I supposed to care for a child?

My world changed after he was born. I held him in the hospital—a little four and a half-pound sack of nothing—and I felt like the tiny one. When I sang to him during his months of colic, I was the one in pain as he cried. When he spoke my name for the first time—a little squeak of Lockin!—the amazement stole my own words.

Every day with him scared the ever-loving fuck out of me, but I wasn’t upset because I had a son.

I feared how quickly he was growing up.

But he didn’t know it.

No one did.

Except for Elle.

She hadn’t moved. I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped my own damn picture of her surprise. Elle stared at me like I was insane.

“Fair is fair, Red,” I said.

“Lachlan.” She wasn’t mad, but she tried to piece together a puzzle she wouldn’t understand. “He’s your son? But you would have been…”

“I was sixteen when I got my high school girlfriend pregnant.”

“I had…no idea. Does Sebastian—”

“No one knows. Only my mom and my ex’s parents.”

That surprised her more. “Are you going to tell him?”

“He’s five. His biggest concern in life is putting his shoes on the right feet. I’m not going to fuck with his head like that.”

“Will you…ever tell him?”

I hadn’t had to face that reality yet. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to tell him?”

“Christ, Elle.” I rubbed my head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to do any sort of psychological damage to the kid. Not to mention all the explanations I’d have to give, how confused he’d be. He’d have to know…”

What had happened before he was born.

Why his mother wasn’t around.

Why I’d never let her near him again.

I lowered my gaze. “Victoria was the head cheerleader. Popular girl. We’d dated for a year, and I got her pregnant. But she didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t go to the doctor.” My voice hardened. “Didn’t stop partying on the weekends. No one knew, including me.”

“She must have been scared.”

“Only because her cheerleading uniform couldn’t fit anymore.”

Christ. I was supposed to be zip-lining, paintballing, and fucking the hell out of my wife. The last thing I’d expected was to relive these memories.

But Victoria had left another half-dozen messages on my phone. I’d have to face her again, if only so I didn’t lose my shit if she got too close to Sebastian.

I released a ragged breath. “Everyone knew I was bound for the pros, even at sixteen. My mom had done everything she could to help me. She took second jobs to pay for trainers and saved every penny to get new equipment, to let me travel on an all-star team, to find good doctors if I was injured. She sacrificed so much for this…but then I had to tell her I got a girl pregnant.” My mouth dried. I hated remembering it. “I told her, and it nearly broke her heart. The look she gave me…”

Elle took my hand. “Lachlan…”

“The night I told my mom, Victoria panicked. She was seven months in, and finally beginning to show. She ended up in the hospital after she tried to terminate the pregnancy at home.”

“Oh my God.”

“We’re just fucking lucky nothing happened to Bast. She nearly killed him and herself…and she said she did it because she was getting fat.” The word stung. “We learned later she was intentionally starving herself to stay slim. Made her sick. I get she was young and scared…” I shook my head. “But I can’t forgive her for trying to hurt him. I won’t.”

“But she had the baby,” Elle said.

Because she was under doctor supervision. “Her parents wanted to put him up for adoption.”

“And you?”

“I wanted him. He was mine. I was a fucked-up kid then, some hot-shot asshole jock, but I knew right from wrong. I told her I’d take him, and Victoria said fine. She wanted nothing to do with him. Ever. Terminated her rights. She gave birth, and I cut her out of our lives.”

“So you had a baby in high school?” Elle asked.

The shame burned me. “I tried, but I was an idiot kid with too many