who was speaking to a woman with shoulder-length blond hair. I couldn’t see her face as she had her back to me, but I figured that might be her sister.
Julia. That was her name.
My cock twitched as thoughts of a very different Julia popped into my head. I regretted not going back to find her at the Jingle Balls Ball, but James said that Rock insisted we come back to The Blue Spot to meet with a potential investor.
The way James made it out to be, you’d think Rock wound up in the hospital. I missed out on the woman of my dreams for an investor for someone else’s company.
As much as I thought about the mysterious Julia from December, I knew I’d never see her again. I should have taken James’s advice and date, get my mind off her. It was a one-night stand over nine months ago. And it concerned me that I couldn’t get her out of my head.
Rock strolled up to me and slapped me on my back. “Have you met Laura’s sister?”
I threw my thumb over my shoulder. “I met Jami.”
“Ahh, Jami . . . yes. She’s interesting. Speaks plainly. I like that.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Very matter of fact. Is that rooster a pet?”
“It’s one of those assistance pets. I think she has anxiety or something. I’m not sure.”
That’s why she was rubbing it with her thumb. I had been reading about that lately, mainly children with special needs and disabilities. Some children with neurological and developmental issues soothe themselves with repetitive movement. I had been researching that because I wanted to create Virtual Reality, or VR, glasses, something to help children with special needs navigate and learn from the world around them.
“I haven’t met Julia yet.” It was as if she heard me.
Right at that moment, Julia turned from Laura and stared right at me.
My heart seized for a second, and I sucked in a breath. Sweat broke out on my brow. It was her. The Julia. The one from the Jingle Balls Ball. I had found her.
She gave me a small smile and then turned back to her sister. No recognition on her face. The grin was pleasant, welcoming, but never told me she knew who I was.
I blinked. Had she not recognized me?
I slapped my forehead. No, she hadn’t. Julia never saw what I looked like.
I was just another guy at her son’s birthday party.
“Are you all right, Monty? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
In a way, I had. But that wasn’t the part where I felt I was about to kiss the floor with my face.
It was the fact that Julia was the mother of a baby. A one-month-old baby.
I lifted my fingers and started counting. I worked on complex computer programing, and my brain was malfunctioning so badly right now that I had to resort to finger counting.
“What are you doing?” Rock turned toward me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I’m genuinely concerned.”
“When did Julia give birth?”
He tilted his head. “Well, it was one month ago, so August fifth.”
I shook my head. “No, it couldn’t be. That would make it less than forty weeks.”
“Huh?”
“So, she got pregnant what? In November? Maybe even late October?”
Before I slept with her in early December. I was fine. It wasn’t my baby. If I had impregnated Julia, that baby would be born in September, not early August.
Rock tapped his chin. “I’m not sure. I didn’t know Laura back then. But I know the baby was born a month early. Had to spend five days in the NICU. Laura was very concerned for a while. She refused to leave Julia’s side then.”
I winced. “A month early.”
I glanced back over at Julia, who was now talking to someone I didn’t recognize.
I wasn’t there for her. I wasn’t there for our baby. I was a dirtbag.
Chapter 8
Julia
“WHO’S THE HOTTIE TALKING with Rock?” I asked my sister.
Since giving birth to Nathan, I discovered whatever filter I had—or as my sister puts it, decorum—got pushed out with the placenta. I won’t even hide the fact that I was staring at him.
But he was staring at me too. It wasn’t the usual I’d like to fuck that MILF type of stare I had received a few times over the past month. His dark brown eyes, framed perfectly by his glasses, locked on me like a frightened animal on a dark road with headlights careening toward it.
I smirked and turned back to my sister. He was wise to be