Read Online My Stepbrother's Secret Baby: A Billionaire Stepbrother Romance by Addison Albaugh - Free Book Online

you heard.”
     
    “I did,” I said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
     
    “I was shocked that you still had the same number from eleven years ago,” she said, her brown eyes shifting nervously.
     
    “I’m surprised you kept my number,” I countered.
     
    “I left my husband,” she blurted, cutting to the chase.
     
    I kept my lips from twitching into a smile, secretly thrilled that that summer together in the Hamptons meant enough to her that she’d want to reconnect.
     
    “I never stopped thinking about you,” she continued, biting her full bottom lip with her perfect white teeth. Her lips twisted into a smile, revealing her gorgeous dimples. “That summer, Trenton.”
     
    She sighed and closed her eyes as if she were recalling vivid memories.
     
    “I know,” I said. “It was fun.”
     
    “Oh, Trenton, it was more than fun,” she said as she smiled fondly. “It was magical.”
     
    The memory of our last week together in the Hamptons and Tierney telling me her father didn’t want her seeing me anymore, that she was going off to college in a month and that it was the end of the road for us, played in a loop in my head. That memory had stayed with me for eleven years. That memory was the reason I’d never become the marrying type and had no intentions of settling down.
     
    How could something be so real? Feel so real? And then become quickly discarded as if none of it mattered?
     
    “So your father passed away and you left your husband,” I said. “And where does that put you, at this point in your life?”
     
    “Open,” she said without missing a beat. “Open for anything. I’m done living my life for other people. I married the man my father wanted me to marry and I spent my entire twenties unhappy and miserable, Trenton. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life that way.”
     
    “And that’s why you called me?” I asked. “So we could just pick up right where we left off and you could have your happily ever after?”
     
    “Well, not exactly,” she said. “I know it doesn’t work that way. I guess I just wanted to reconnect and see if anything was still there between us.”
     
    Her face winced as she studied mine, waiting for my response.
     
    “Sounds like a fairy tale,” I said dryly. “Those don’t exist in real life, you know.”
     
    “Trenton,” she said. She reached her soft hand across the table and covered mine.
     
    I glanced up into her gorgeous eyes as she looked back at me through her long, dark lashes.
     
    “We were just a couple of kids back then,” she said softly. “I know I hurt you. Please stop punishing my nineteen-year-old self, okay? I’m not her anymore.”
     
    “Would you two like to order anything?” the server walked up, pen and paper in hand, providing a break from our tense conversation.
     
    “Just my mocha for now,” she said, her eyes on me. “I don’t think I’ll be staying much longer. Actually, can I get that in a to go cup? Thank you.”
     
    “I’m good,” I replied, waving her off. I was clearly upsetting Tierney, and as much as my decade old anger and hurt boiled under my skin, I didn’t want to see her go just yet. “You’ve got somewhere to go?”
     
    “Not really,” she said. “I can just see that this conversation isn’t exactly headed in the right direction.”
     
    Her soft hand slipped off of mine as she drew it back.
     
    “Look,” I began. “My life has sort of…taken a different path in the very recent past. I’ve got something going on right now that I can’t really talk about.”
     
    “Oh?” she seemed intrigued but her good breeding forced her not to ask any questions. I could tell it killed her not to know.
     
    “If you’d have reached out to me a month ago,” I said, “maybe we could’ve entertained something.”
     
    “A month ago, huh,” she said, pursing her lips. “I never did have good timing.”
     
    Her lips quivered as she stifled tears and looked