Chapter One

Hadley

A little over three months ago, Cathryn Haines, my best friend and college roommate, got married. In order to attend the wedding, I had to take a day off from the law firm where I worked as a glorified secretary. I also had to switch shifts at The Pastry Hut—a place I one day hoped to own—and miss two of my culinary classes. When Cat insisted that I stay at her fiancé, Zane’s place, I accepted. It wasn’t because I wanted to, but because money was tight. I was weeks away from obtaining a culinary degree and the end was finally in sight. I would be able to quit the law firm and work full time as a pastry chef. Over the past two years I’d been saving all of my pennies in order to buy The Pastry Hut. By my count, I was nine months away from owning my dream, which meant that I shouldn’t spend the money to stay in a hotel, so I grudgingly took Cat up on her offer.

The drive from Birmingham to Charlotte took a little over five hours. Hours where I listened to music and reveled in the fact that I had two full days off; something that never, ever happened in my world. Due to rush hour traffic, I arrived in Charlotte later than expected. My breath hitched as I pulled into the circular drive of Riverbend, the apartment complex Zane owned and where he and Cat currently resided. Cat’s description of Riverbend didn’t do it justice. Exotic flowers and lush greenery surrounded the two-story, red-brick building. A building that didn’t look like any apartment complex I’d ever seen, but rather looked like something straight out of a home or gardening magazine.

I’d barely had time to take in my surroundings before the front door swung open and Cat bolted out. She looked radiant in her wedding gown. After a brief hug, she led me inside the building and into a lavish apartment filled to the gills with people; people who were notably dressed in evening attire and not the jeans, tennis shoes, and Bon Jovi T-shirt that I was currently wearing. I didn’t have time to be embarrassed before introductions were made and I was dragged upstairs to another lavish apartment, where I was given a half hour to get ready for the wedding.

Forty minutes later, I was standing in a backyard oasis, wearing a vintage peach organza halter dress and silver pumps I’d purchased just the day before. I was surrounded by people I didn’t know and would most likely never see again, while watching my best friend from college marry the love of her life. I had to give it to her, Cat had done well for herself. Not only was Zane Mitchell one fine-looking man, but from what I could tell, he was also loaded; something Cat had failed to mention.

While Cat and Zane said their vows, I took stock of the crowd. That’s when I spotted Cat’s stepbrother, Blake Moreno. This was the boy from the pictures and the face that I’d stared at every day for three years while doing my homework. Only, the boy was clearly no longer a boy, but a man. His olive skin practically glowed beneath his vivid blue button-down shirt and pale-yellow tie. They were a perfect blend with his charcoal suit, which looked exceptionally good on him. Hair as dark as night, short but not shaved like Zane’s, tapered into a masculinely attractive goatee. My eyes wandered an inch north of the goatee to his full lips, his regal nose, and...my breath caught in my throat when I noticed his eyes on me. I quickly looked away, but not before I got a good look at those eyes—golden brown and fringed with the blackest lashes I’d ever seen. A stunning woman stood next to him. I’m talking ‘straight off the runway’ beautiful, with stick-straight, shoulder-length blonde hair, a super-skinny figure, and obscenely large breasts. Next to her I looked downright dowdy.

After the wedding came the reception...a reception where I got to know Cat’s friends and family a little better, danced to wonderful music, drank a little too much, and laughed more than I’d laughed in years.

Around eleven, the older crowd called it a night. This left the die-hard partiers. Amongst them were myself, a friend of Zane’s named Hunter, some people I’d been introduced to but had already forgotten their names...and Blake. Earlier in the evening, I’d witnessed Blake telling his date goodbye and had wondered why she was leaving. Visons of her dancing the pole sloshed through my alcohol-infused brain and I snorted with humor, which earned me a golden-eyed stare straight from the man himself. The after-eleven crowd eventually mellowed out and several people took off, but I wasn’t ready to call it a night just yet. Zane’s friend, Hunter, was an incorrigible flirt. With his California surfer looks, he was an extremely good-looking man and a funny-as-hell drunk, but no matter how hard he flirted, my eyes kept wandering back to Blake. Delightfully, delectable Blake, who watched everything but rarely spoke a word.

A little after midnight, Cat and Zane said their goodbyes. Cat and I hugged and she extracted a promise from me to visit again, one I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to keep but gave anyway. Not long after that, Hunter passed out on one of the pool lounges. That’s when Blake whipped out a bottle of Jack. I wasn’t a big drinker, and especially not a liquor drinker, but this was Blake Moreno offering; the man from my college fantasies. This was the Blake who fought for his country in foreign lands. The same guy that Cat and I spent endless nights talking about, so I wasn’t about to say no. Putting all my reservations aside, I indulged him, and when he later asked me to help him get Hunter up to bed, I didn’t think twice about it. I should have. I really, really should have.

I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just wanted to cut loose and have some fun. It had been ages since I’d had fun. To Blake, I wasn’t the stick in the mud Hadley; the responsible roomy from college who carted everyone around from party to party. I wasn’t the girl who, out of desperation, lost her virginity to a guy nicknamed “Hacky Sac Henry” her senior year or the girl who held down two jobs while helping to take care of her kid sister and attending culinary school. I was Hadley Jacobs, beloved college roommate of the bride. I was exciting, fun, and free. So exciting that when Blake kissed me, I let him. So fun that I shucked off my panties without a second’s thought. So free that in the midst of being twisted like a pretzel and pounded into next year, I drunkenly blathered on about his stripper girlfriend’s breasts, begged him to speak Spanish to me, and told him I’d been crushing on his pictures for years. Yep, in the middle of the best sex of my life, I completely and totally debased myself.

The next morning, while Blake was sleeping it off, I snuck back to the apartment that I was staying in, packed my things, and ran. Forget the walk of shame. Try the sprint of humiliation. Cathryn could visit me in Alabama, because the hell if I was ever showing my face in Charlotte again. No way. No how.

On the drive home, visions of the previous night started to filter back in. The more I remembered, the more humiliated I became.

“You want me to speak Spanish?” he’d asked as he pounded inside me.

“C’mon. Give me one word,” I drunkenly begged.

“I don’t speak Spanish, babe,” he panted between thrusts.

“You look like a conquistador and conquistadors speak Spanish,” I slurred.

“Fuck,” he murmured, with a laugh, and proceeded to rock my world. “A mi me gusta su tetas,” he growled. I had no idea what it meant, but it sure sounded sexy.

“Yesssss,” I hissed.

“Me gusta comer coños,” he panted.

“More,” I groaned, and he laughed again.

“Eres una puta loca.” His deep, sexy voice rolled over me like a warm velvet blanket. I remember screaming his name as I orgasmed. I also remember calling him my Latin lover... like fifty times.

What I learned from that weekend was that excitement was overrated, fun was fleeting, freedom was nonexistent, I apparently had a thing for Hispanic men, and I was an idiot.

Two months later, I’d all but erased that weekend from my brain when it came back to bite me. I thought I had a stomach bug—a bug that cost me my secretarial job at the law firm when I had to call in sick for two weeks in a row. A bug that would have cost me my job at the bakery, had my boss not also been one of my best friends. Regardless of the nausea, I managed to pass my culinary final. I also visited the doctor, not one, but three times. It was on time three that he discovered my ailment wasn’t a bug, but a baby.

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me. Nor was it lost on my mother or sister. I was the responsible daughter. Hadley the hard ass. Predictable to the bitter end.

“You did what?” my mother asked, her voice filled with disbelief.

“I slept with Cat’s stepbrother while I was in town for her wedding and now I’m p-p-pregnant,” I cried. She pulled me in for a hug, which only made me cry harder.

“Wow. You weren’t kidding when you said you cut loose that weekend,” my sister, Tilly, muttered. “I figured you probably drank a beer.”

“Or maybe asked a nice boy to dance,” my mom said.

“Or took a puff of someone’s cigarette,” Tilly added with a snort, and they both broke into giggles.

Not at all amused with their childish behavior, I cried, “This isn’t funny, you two! I’m pregnant—as in I have a life growing inside of me.”

“You’re right, it’s not funny. I expected this of Tilly, but not you. How many times have I drilled into you girl’s heads to use protection? What were you thinking?” my mother scolded.

“Obviously not about protection, and thanks for the vote of confidence,” Tilly huffed.

Mom held out her hand. “Hush Matilda. Give me a moment to gather my thoughts.”

My parents divorced when Tilly was three and I was eight. As far as divorces went, theirs wasn’t bad. They simply decided they were better apart than together. Dad moved to Florida, where he met and married our stepmother, Laura. Mom dated...as in a lot. She even moved a few of her men in with us, but she never remarried. For as long as I could remember, it had been us girls.

“Only you could get pregnant after having sex one time,” my sister dryly stated.

“Three,” I corrected. Both sets of eyes shot to me and both jaws dropped in surprise.

“Hadley!” my mother gasped. “You let that boy inside you three times without using protection!”

“He’s a man, mother, and I was drunk.” It was the lamest excuse in the world, but it was true. I remembered the sex. God, who wouldn’t? It was mind blowing. I could recall the masculine scent of his cologne. His lips all over my body. How good he felt inside me. What I couldn’t remember, was whether or not he’d used protection, which was clearly a moot point, as I was now pregnant.

“Does Cathryn know?” Tilly asked.

“Hello? I just found out today,” I snapped.

Mom sighed at the two of us, before asking, “How far along are you?”

“The doctor said eight weeks.”

“Okay, here’s what I think. I think that you, not me or your sister, but you, need to decide whether or not you want to keep this baby.”

“Mom‚—” I started to interrupt, but she stopped me. Of course, I was going to keep the baby. Wasn’t I? In truth, I hadn’t really thought that far.

“I’m not talking abortion, honey. I’m talking adoption,” she continued.

“Don’t you think the guy who knocked her up has a right to know before she gives his kid away? I mean, what if he wants it?” Tilly chimed in. This was too much and I jerked my hand in the air. Sensing that I was a second away from snatching the hair from her head, she wisely shut her mouth.

In a much calmer tone than I was feeling, I said, “I just found out I’m pregnant. I’m not giving anything away. I just need to think for a second.”

“What you need is to tell the baby daddy,” Tilly muttered.

“Matilda,” Mom warned.

“Seriously. Do you disagree? If you’re not going to tell him, then at least tell your best friend that her brother knocked you up.”

“Matilda!” we both shouted.

“Okay, okay, Jeesh!” she exclaimed.

As we watched her storm from the room in a Tilly-tizzy, Mom quietly murmured, “She’s not wrong.”

“I know.”

Two weeks passed—fourteen days, of which I slept a lot, ate very little, and felt like utter hell—before I finally made a decision. I wasn’t ready to tell Blake. We’d spent one drunken night together. I didn’t even know the man. How was I supposed to tell him that I was having his child? I could, however, tell Cathryn. At the very least, she could help me come to terms with it. That’s if she didn’t hate me.

As it turned out, Cat wasn’t angry. In fact, she was right the opposite. One minute I was confessing how I’d kind of sort of slept with her brother and was now carrying his child, and the next she was offering me a job as a chef in a bar her husband had just opened. Not only that, but she also offered me a free place to live. All of this...in Charlotte, no less.

“Cat, that’s too much,” I whispered into the phone.

“I agree the situation isn’t ideal, but Blake deserves to know. Plus, I think you two are perfect together, so I’m going to help make that happen.” Her upbeat tone made me wary.

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

“The catch is that you’re carrying my brother’s baby. This makes me that child’s aunt and you family. I want you here, Hadley, and I want you to give Blake a chance.” This brought up a very important point.

“God, Cat. How am I supposed to tell him?”

“I think we should get you here and settled first. Then we’ll work on breaking the news to Blake.” Her veiled response was not lost on me. Blake Moreno was a player. I knew it the moment I saw him standing next to the stripper. I knew it when I followed him up to that apartment and let him kiss me. Yet, I still let him play me. If I was being honest, I would admit that I’d played him right back, but this wasn’t about me or him. This was about an innocent child. A child who deserved a chance to know both parents.

With that thought in mind, I swallowed what little pride I had left and agreed to move to North Carolina.