way through the crowd and stood next to Jack. “Y tú! Un juez? Qué boca tan sucia! Y por supuesto eres soltera también.”
Sarah blinked at Luci, having no clue what she’d said. “Uh…sorry?”
“Come on, Tay,” Jack said. “Time to go.”
She hesitated for a moment, her eyes gravitating toward Bennett’s remorseful face, his eyes—one of them swollen and red—pleading with her. His hair was all mussed, and his bowtie had come undone, making him look like the sexy, bad boy billionaire, in need of a good spanking, that he was.
She sighed. God he was beautiful. And even now, she could feel her heart reaching out with its little arms toward him.
No, Tay. He only pities you. He’d be kind to her because of the baby. A relief, she supposed. But she’d need to save herself a lifetime of heartbreak, and allow him to only be a part of the child’s life—if that’s what he wanted—not a part of hers. Not any more than he had to be, anyway.
She straightened her spine. “My lawyer will send you papers so you can decide on visitation. But please don’t try to contact me until after the baby’s born. Goodbye, Bennett.”
She walked away with Jack and Sarah, feeling grateful as hell she had them to lean on.
CHAPTER 21
Taylor had had the most exciting, phenomenal, monumental month of her entire existence, and things were about to get even better. She could just feel it. It was as if the world had shifted on its axis and decided it was her turn for a little happiness. Not that she’d felt unhappy before, but wandering through life trying to find your way wasn’t the same as feeling like you were alive and loving it.
Maybe her decision to stop rowing and just go with the flow might’ve had something to do with it. She didn’t know, but life was beginning to look damned good, something she didn’t think possible after Ms. Luci’s party.
It started the week following the shame fest, when she’d had her first OB-GYN appointment and listened to the baby’s sweet little heartbeat—kind of like a galloping monster, but still sweet. She couldn’t believe how big the little thing had already grown. To think, one night and two defective condoms could result in a tiny person living inside her. Yes, yes. She knew that was how babies were made, but it was an infinitely different experience to witness the event occurring inside her own body. She couldn’t wait to meet him or her in seven and a half months. She could, however, do without the whole morning sickness thing. Awful. Just awful. She constantly felt like she’d eaten a giant can of nacho cheese food-product and then topped it off with a great big vat of jalapeños. Nausea and heartburn, big time. But all worth it.
Then, out of nowhere, she’d been contacted by a headhunter from a great HR consulting firm who offered her a fantastic opportunity as a VP, heading up a project to train and re-energize the entire management staff of a big Fortune 500. They’d heard about her CEO attitude makeover course from someone at HRTech and didn’t think it was crazy at all. In fact, they’d been developing a similar concept that expanded across all levels of management. So, her idea wasn’t all that insane after all! They were so excited about getting her, they offered her a signing bonus and said she could set her own hours. Of course, she’d planned to take some time off, as much as she could afford, after the baby came, but she would figure out a way to make it work.
The third thing to happen was that Holly’s Aunt Glady had decided to retire and move to Arizona. But she wasn’t ready to sell her house until she knew for sure she’d get used to the hot weather, so Aunt Glady offered to rent the house to Taylor. It was small, but it sure beat an apartment and had a little yard. Even better, she’d only be ten minutes from Jack’s house, and would get a really nice break on the rent for keeping the place up until Aunt Glady knew what she wanted to do.
Of course, not everything was perfect. She still thought about Bennett every day, more times than she cared to admit. And every time she did, her heart made these sad little whimpers, reaching its little arms for him.
“Oh stop,” she said, folding a T-shirt from the clean pile on Jack’s dining