Big Bad Boys A Romance Collection - Penny Wylder Page 0,177

out for me.

Letting out a loud rush of air, I'm already out of breath and I've hardly done a thing.

“Again, push!” she screams.

So I push. I push and I push and I push for what feels like eternity. I'm not even sure this baby is ever going to come out. My insides are tearing in every direction, the pain too much to take.

“I don't think I can do this! I can't do this!” I say between giant gulps of air.

“Yes you can, you can do this,” Phade says, reaching his hand up and running his fingers across my forehead. “You got this.”

“Almost there. One more good push, just one.”

Sucking in a huge breath of air, I hold it in and push.

I feel the pressure as the baby's head breaks free and the body slips out next. The woman disappears for a second, leaning over her lap. I can only see the top of her head. Phade's eyes are open wide, tears streaming down as he watches her.

“What's going on? How's the baby? Is our baby okay?”

No one is answering me.

Then it happens. My baby cries, loud and long and full of volume.

The woman stands up, passing the baby to me. “Congratulations, it's a boy.”

Phade drops to my side, laying his face on my chest, and stares at our son. He's crying, I'm crying, I've never felt so much emotion in my life before.

He runs his fingers through my hair and kisses me softly on the cheek. “Our son, Syl, he's here.”

Smiling, I coddle our baby. “He's just like you too, impatient and a fighter. He couldn't wait to be born.”

Maxwell Phade Manson, a perfect seven pounds eight ounces, was the best wedding gift ever.

And as we drive to the hospital in silence, I know. . .

Life is perfect.

Copyright © 2017 Penny Wylder

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

1

I take a deep breath and study myself in the mirror behind the bar. Okay, so he’s 30 minutes late already. That’s not necessarily a deal-breaker. The MTA has been a shitshow lately. Maybe his train got stuck. Maybe he got held up at work. Maybe…

Maybe he’s not like every other asshole you’ve been out with this week?

I sigh and pull out my phone to scroll through his profile again.

“Rich, aka Dick,” I read, scrolling through his photos. There’s the obligatory bathroom mirror selfie, complete with chiseled abs (albeit a really bad choice since you can see the tile mold on the wall behind him from this angle), one of him and some friends, who all have the same buzz cut, so it’s honestly pretty hard to tell which one is even him, and then the usual headshot. In that one, he’s holding a pint of beer and grinning slyly at the camera, like he wants to fuck it.

The profile itself isn’t exactly a winner. Gym, tan, and pay for someone else to do my laundry, it reads, with a little winking face.

So, okay, maybe I only swiped right because of that grin. Sue me. This new app has been bringing in the same undateable guys as all the others I’ve tried—despite the fact that at least four of my coworkers raved about how different this one was, how the guys were such high quality. I figured if I had to go on another bad date, at least it could be with a hottie.

But now karma’s being a bitch, and it looks like I’m about to get stood up. Again.

I slide my drink across the bar and sigh at my reflection as the bartender refills my glass. I look smoking hot tonight. All that effort for nothing.

I review my recent candidates. There was the programmer last month who told me in great detail about how he “games the game.” In this case, what he meant was he hacked the codes behind the app and programmed it to send him pictures of only the most popular chicks. I guess I should be flattered that I was included, but I was mostly creeped