 by Kristen Ashley.jpg)
Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 33887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 169(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 169(@200wpm)___ 136(@250wpm)___ 113(@300wpm)
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
GOOD NEWS
Elsa
I messed up.
Again.
As I sat on the edge of the exam table, my legs dangling, my eyes glued to my doctor, I realized, in the haze of falling in love, getting engaged and sorting a new, and hectic, bicoastal life with my fiancé, I’d blown it.
Yes.
Again.
My doctor was studying me intently.
“Is this not good news?” she asked.
Yes.
It was good news.
It was the best news ever.
It was just that I worried Hale wouldn’t think of it the same way.
“How did this happen?” I asked. “I’m on the pill.”
“Are you taking another medication I don’t know about?”
I shook my head.
“Did you by chance miss a dose?”
I shook my head again.
“Do you abstain during fertile periods?”
I bit my lip.
She fought a smile.
Then she shared, “No birth control is foolproof, Elsa.” The intensity of her gaze grew grave. “I have to ask again, isn’t this good news?”
“It’s the best news ever,” I told her quietly. “It’s just that my fiancé told me he doesn’t want children.”
She smiled. “I’ve heard that before, and then something like this happens, and they change their mind.”
That might be true for many others.
But Hale hadn’t wanted a partner, definitely not to get married.
And here we were.
He hadn’t wanted to back off his ambitious and back-breaking goals to save the world.
Now, he shared that mission with his right-hand executive man, Javi, so the goals were still ambitious, but not back-breaking.
And although he was great with kids, and Genny and Tom taught him how to be a good parent, his own mother and father faltered (hugely) in that endeavor, and how that played out had scored marks into his soul. And when that kind of thing happened, it tended to make the child who endured that manner of being raised gun-shy about repeating his or her parent’s mistakes.
We’d imploded the last time both of us didn’t keep the finger on the pulse of where we were and what we wanted from each other and our future (Hale bore the brunt of that, but I, too, hadn’t been communicative with him).
Hale had compromised again and again in our relationship.
And this would be the biggest compromise of them all.
Because…surprise!
I was having his baby.
CHAPTER 2
DIAMONDS
Elsa
The text came in when I was panicking at the same time riding up the elevator to my doom (that doom being somehow, during that short elevator ride, figuring out how to tell Hale I was pregnant with the child he didn’t want, then getting out of the elevator and sharing that miracle).
The text was from Tom, and it came into the “family” text string.
By the way, the “family” text string included Mika, Cadence, Genny, Duncan, Sully, Gage, Chloe, Judge, Sasha, Matt, Hale and me.
And this family text string was busy.
I probably received, on average, seven texts a day from one or another member of that string. They ranged from the important, like someone was going to be in town, to the ridiculous, and these were usually hilarious gifs or links to TikToks from Gage, but Chloe was a master gif sender as well.
Sasha, on the other hand, sent Daily Moments of Zen texts with gifs of lapping waves or swimming turtles. Those were not hilarious, but that reminder to take a second to chill out every day was a smart one.
It felt good to be in this company. It felt good, when we were scattered from New York to Arizona to LA, to be in touch every day in some way.
I loved it for me, having my family expanded so exponentially by good, caring (hilarious) people.
I loved it more for Hale, that he had any family at all, and such a great one no less.
However, this text also was sent to an alternate, expanded “family” text string that added Jamie, Nora, Dru, Rix, Alex, Blake and Ned to that list.
That wasn’t unheard of, considering Jamie was Judge’s dad, Dru was his sister, Rix was his best friend and Nora was Mika’s best friend, not to mention Alex was Rix’s fiancée, and Blake was her sister, Ned her father.
Still, that string wasn’t nearly as busy. It could light up, especially if someone was coming to New York, but it didn’t include daily communication.
Though, what made this particular text from Tom highly unusual was that it also included my dad, my mom and my brother and sister.
Actually, that wasn’t unusual.
It was bizarre.
It wasn’t that my family hadn’t been adopted by that extended family. It was just, we were the newest members, so we weren’t quite fully in the fold (well, Dad was, and Oskar kind of was, but Mom and Emilie could be difficult to deal with, so they weren’t).
Tom’s text said: Important family meeting. In person. Jamie’s house. Clear your calendars for Saturday afternoon at 2:00.
“What on earth?” I whispered as the elevator doors to Hale’s and my fabulous Manhattan penthouse opened.