What was wrong with her? Bex blinked her eyes against the morning light, secretly glad that the alarm on her cell phone had rung, giving her an excuse to leave.

She wiggled out of Gabe’s arms and turned on a hot shower, her heart heavy with the lingering feeling of betrayal. Yeah, she knew it was a stupid lingerie shoot, and that there were probably six other people in the room with Gabe yesterday, but the idea of him directing some half-naked woman still cut. She remembered being half naked in the desert with him, and she knew how intimate and vulnerable the connection between a photographer and his subject could feel.

So what if Gabe’s colleagues were all being professionals? This professionally sucked. Jealousy was new for her. She didn’t like it.

Bex soaped her body, remembering Gabe’s hands making this same trail just the other night. Talk about being vulnerable. Jesus. She’d given him so much of herself, but last night she’d held back when he’d thumbed his hand down her side and wanted more. If she was honest, it felt like punishing both of them. She’d always been able to separate sex from emotion, but with her feelings hurt, she couldn’t engage. The realization made her squirm.

Oh god. The fact that she couldn’t separate her emotions showed her just how tangled up in Gabe she was. She was really, truly in deep.

Still, she hadn’t been lying to him about being wiped out. When she woke up this morning, the whole world sat on her chest like a dead weight. She didn’t know if this exhaustion was from the argument last night or the endless errands she’d been running this week. Or maybe it was just her inner introvert raising its white flag after spending so much time with someone else. Either way, her energizing body wash wasn’t living up to its advertised claims.

Bex stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body. Soft snores emanated from the bedroom, and when she padded in to get dressed, she could see Gabe’s beautiful face, slack as he dreamed.

She really, really loved him, didn’t she? So why did it feel like things were falling apart just when they were starting to get good?

She frowned and tugged a hand through her hair. She needed to calm down and stop overreacting.

Bex padded across the room to the dresser and opened the drawer to pull out one of the dresses Gabe had selected for her. She slipped on the dress and stepped back to admire herself in the mirror.

Oh.

She hadn’t expected the effect that wearing the clothes he’d bought for her would have, but a smile lit her face. She felt beautiful and completely owned. The silky shift dress felt like a wash of water over her skin, and a rush of gratitude swept through her. He was trying so hard to make space for her. She needed to do the same thing. But she also needed some space to cool off.

The dress swirled around her thighs as she walked to the bed. She leaned down to kiss Gabe on the temple. He made a sound of wordless protest and tried to pull her down for more.

“I’ve gotta go, ace,” she whispered in his ear. With a pang in her chest, she turned to make her escape.

Bex sank down into her office desk chair and blew out a breath. Maybe work could give her some distraction from her tumbling emotions. But no. She opened her email to find a meeting request from Jeremy that gave her only enough time to fix a cup of coffee before she needed to head to the conference room to Skype in. Great.

“Morning, Bex,” Jeremy said from the Skype chatroom.

“Good morning, Jeremy.” She tried to make her voice bright as she responded. Thank god that today’s meeting was speaker only and that she was alone in the conference room. Right now her face was a mask of pity, and she sported under-eye circles and a trail of stress acne on her jaw.

For the second time today, she wondered what was wrong with her.

“I’m sorry I’m not there so we could have this conversation face to face,” Jeremy began.

There was going to be a ‘but.’

Dammit.

“But I can’t let your product design submission go through.”

Her mouth fell open, and a shock of pain zinged through her chest. “Because I’m a judge?”

“Yeah.”

Her lips trembled around the words. “Then I don’t want to be one. I need this chance.”

Jeremy sighed. “Listen, Bex. This contest isn’t for you. You are so far beyond it—you’re the best toy designer we have.”

She should feel proud, but all she felt was numb.

“Even if you weren’t the judge, it still wouldn’t be fair to include you.” Her breath caught, and Jeremy continued. “This contest is a way to get our employees more invested in the company, make them stakeholders, too. But you’re here because you know what sells best. I trust your judgment, Bex.”

The air puffed out of her, and her heart sank. “Thank you for believing in me.” Her voice was watery and strained.

“Of course. Now if we’ve got that covered, let me just add Avery to the call.”

Jeremy waited until Avery was on the line to give his instructions. “I want to make sure we don’t overload anyone’s normal workload by adding this judgment process to the mix,” he said. “What I’d like to do is divide up the entries. We can each look at ten entries per day, so we’ll be done in three days. We can start the review process on Monday.”

“Sounds great,” Avery said.

Bex made her voice go bright. “Excellent.”

They finished hammering out the details, and she signed off the call, rubbing at an ache in her chest. Once she had safely stowed her laptop at her desk, she took another pass by the break room.

Emma looked up from the refrigerator as she entered. “Morning, lady,” she called over her shoulder, resuming her survey of the fridge.

“Good morning to you, too.”

Emma turned at the flat tone of Bex’s voice. “What’s wrong?” She frowned in concern. “You look like you got hit by a truck. And I’m not saying that in a ‘rammed by a Toyota Sequoia-sized cock’ kind of way.”

Bex made a face. “I just got kicked out of the competition.”

“What?” Emma’s mouth dropped open, mirroring the expression Bex had worn on the call.

She waved away the sympathy. “It’ll be okay. I’m just really tired and cranky right now.” And blindsided.

“PMS?”

Bex counted back the days in her head and sighed. “Yeah, probably.”

“I’ve got some chocolate if you want to share at lunchtime.”

Bex forced a smile. “I’d love to, but I’ve got some baby gear to pick up. Apparently, as much as Amazon claims to have it all, you cannot get the dual-action, all-wheel drive, off-road luxury BabyStrides stroller just anywhere.”

“Sounds nice,” Emma shrugged.

“Sounds expensive.”

Sam and Aderyn should get whatever gear they wanted, but the list Sam had given Bex the other day was overwhelming in both the cost and the size. There was so much to do in such a short time.

“Why don’t you have a baby shower?” she had asked Sam the other week when he’d sat in the living room with her and Gabe. Gabe may have stood across the room, but the scent of his skin still clung to hers. She had smiled a secret smile as her brother answered.

“The adoption is still not a sure thing,” Sam had said. “Might be bad luck.”

She had offered him an understanding look. “Kind of like seeing a bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony?”

“Something like that,” he’d said.

She knew how much energy went into the adoption process, all for the adoptive family members to be strung along, holding their breath for months while they waited for everything to be official. Birth mothers had rights, too, and there was still a period of time when everything could crash apart.

So, for now, Sam and Aderyn were footing the cost of the baby gear on their own—a lot of it, and all at once. It was a financial reach for them, and that didn’t even count the cost of the adoption itself. All the more reason Bex had wanted to win this competition. Which she now needed to judge.

She sighed and turned back to her desk to do the impossible thing.

Bex stepped out of Sugarcloud Kids, a boutique baby store in Downtown Las Vegas, pushing a fully-assembled but still-empty stroller down the street. She’d just hopped a curb to cross the street when Sam’s number appeared on the screen of her phone. She fumbled to answer the call, then held the phone to her ear while she maneuvered the stroller one-handed. The saleswoman at the shop had assured her the stroller was “the essence of urban mobility,” and Bex had to give credit for the way it glided over the bumpy sidewalk. The thing even had front-wheel suspension. Guess shelling out four hundred bucks might be worth it.

“Just got the BabyStrides stroller you requested,” she said to Sam.

“Good timing.” Her brother’s voice was bright and hopeful, and her pulse sounded loud in her ears.

“Why’s that?” She held her breath.

“Because our birth mother’s in labor.”

Bex slowed on the sidewalk, the words reaching her ears without comprehension. “Say that again.”

“My son’s on the way. Dare and I are booking last-minute tickets to New Mexico try to get there for the birth.”

“Oh my god.” Bex came to a full stop and pressed a hand to her chest. “Sam, that’s amazing.”

There were moments in her life that she knew she’d always remember—her first kiss, getting her driver’s license, the moment she heard the news about her dad. This was one of those moments, and she reached for it with both hands. She was going to be an aunt. Her brother was going to be a dad. She wanted to cry.

Sam’s voice dripped with pride, and somewhere in the background Aderyn’s voice called to him. “I know. We’re going to be gone for at least week.”

“Well, I’ll make sure everything’s ready for you when you’re home.”

“That sounds perfect. But I have one extra request.”

“Okay,” Bex said. “What’s that?”

“We’re rushing out of here, and Colton was our backup bartender for tonight, but his car got a flat on the way back from Los Angeles yesterday. He’s stuck outside Beacon Station.”

She cringed. That was a hot ride, a lonely stretch of road with not a lot around. Towing the car anywhere was going to cost Colton a fortune. She was not jealous. “So you need someone to cover closing for tonight?” she asked.

Bex wasn’t a whiz at cocktails, but she’d spent enough time helping Sam here and there when the bar launched that she could cover in a pinch.

Sam sighed with relief. “Yeah. Could you?”

“I’m on it.”

She looked down at the empty stroller, and her heart swelled with emotion. Sam and Aderyn were going to push her nephew in this stroller. He was going to gaze up at the world from this spot. How very, very lucky they all were.

“You’re a lifesaver, Bex.”

“Why are you still talking to me?” she asked instead of accepting the compliment. “Go get my nephew. I demand photo updates as often as possible.”