“I’m kind of terrified to know which one it is,” I admitted in a whisper. “I don’t know any of them, besides knowing they were amazing in bed.”
“Amazing,” Kara emphasized, raising one eyebrow. “Andfine as fuck.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, my blood heating. “But that doesn’t mean any of them would be good fathers. And…I don’t know. I’m afraid of their reactions being bad.” Or too good. “As it stands, they think they’re just here for an annulment. They don’t even know I’m a mom, much less that one of them is a dad.”
“I get it,” Kara nodded sagely. “You’ve done everything on your own for our girl, and it’s terrifying to think about letting someone else in. But…what if one of them actually wants to be there for her?”
“Daphne is mine,” I said immediately, a little coarser than I intended. Kara squeezed my hand.
“She is, hon. That’s always going to be true. But other people can love her too. Like…maybe her father.” She took a second to think it over, then her face lit with mischief. “Hey, maybe all three of them will want to step up, genes or not. If you get to hook up with all three of them again, you’ll be doubly my hero.”
I bit my lip, the half-joking suggestion unraveling something inside me. For a moment, I let my mind wander to a ridiculous, impossible fantasy. Me, Daphne, and the three men who had unknowingly altered the course of my life, all together in a big, chaotic, unconventional family. Daphne with three doting fathers who adored her. And in this fantasy, all three of them loved me too—enough to give me repeats of the hottest night of my life again and again. It was absurd. It was perfect.
And it would never happen.
I forced the thought away. “I’ll get a paternity test,” I said finally. “But no matter what, Daphne is mine.”
Kara gave me a sad smile, another squeeze on my hand. “I know. And the bright side? I bet you’ll have amazing drama to share at our next girls’ night plus Brandon.”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I squeezed her hand in return, then the two of us headed back to the living room, where Daphne was still destroying everyone at Candy Land. And as I watched her giggle in victory, I found myself searching for traces of Luca, Cade, or Gavin in her face, trying to see who she might belong to besides me.
6
CADE
My pencil wasn’t cooperating. Or maybe it was my hand. My brain even. My sketchbook was usually a place of order and peace for me, but right now, I could have chucked it over the balcony of our beach rental and straight into the ocean.
The design I was working on just wasn’t getting anywhere. Each line I attempted to sketch failed to execute my vision for this upcoming woodworking project. It was supposed to be a rocking chair, but it was looking more like a pile of useless kindling, and the drawing was supposed to be the easy part. Nothing was easy with my mind so full of delusional romantic nonsense.
I couldn’t help it. My head wasn’t on straight ever since we’d learned about this whole maybe-married bullshit with Allie Tate. It had been almost a week, and while Gavin’s con artist private investigator was supposedly trying to track down the records of the marriage that may or may not have happened, I was coming to terms with the fact that I’d somehow, stupidly, never quite gotten over that night in all the years since it happened.
I always told myself, told Gavin and Luca, that Allie had been my perfect rebound. Just what I’d needed to get past my Jordyn-induced broken heart. They’d always told me that I wasn’t a “rebound” kind of guy. That I was too much of a “fucking sap,” in Gavin’s words, to ever see any woman as just a rebound.
I continued to prove myself as a serial monogamist.
Despite only spending a single night with her, Allie had wedged herself into the part of my brain that refused to let go of things. One night should have been plenty. If she was really just a rebound, I shouldn’t have spent the past five years comparing every woman I met, every woman I considered dating, to her without even realizing I was doing it.
I dropped the pencil and raked a hand through my hair. The smart thing to do would be to let this go. The past was the past. If I kept thinking about that night, it was only because my sentimental heart insisted on rewriting history, romanticizing every detail. Like the way she’d laughed at something stupid I’d said in that tiny Vegas chapel, or how glorious it had been to sink deep inside her after Gavin, Luca, and I had already made her come apart at least once.
Shaking my head, I reached for my phone. Maybe I just needed to put things in perspective. A little dose of reality. Before I could think too hard about it, I typed her name into the search bar.
A handful of results popped up, mostly old social media profiles that hadn’t been updated in years. But then, a YouTube channel. Allie Tate. No fancy username, just her name, plain and simple.
I clicked on it before I could stop myself.
The thumbnails were low quality, the kind of grainy video you’d expect from an old phone. But there she was—Allie, younger, softer, sitting on a ratty couch with a guitar in her lap. My chest tightened. I didn’t play, but I was an artist, and I’dalways loved music, always admired people who could take a few chords and turn them into something that made youfeel. It was what I tried to do with my own art, my wood carvings. And now, staring at the screen, I had the overwhelming urge to hear her play.
I hovered my thumb over the video, then stopped.
No.
This was exactly what Iwasn’tsupposed to be doing. I was here to figure out if this marriage thing was real, get my ring back, and move the hell on with my life.
Because life wasn’t a rom-com. In real life, people didn’t reconnect with the girl they’d maybe accidentally married five years ago and fall into some kind of fairy-tale romance. In real life, romance led to hurt, just like it had with Jordyn. I’d learned my lesson. The only thing I could count on was my work, and I had no intention of letting my future get derailed by a girl I barely knew.
I grabbed the link to Allie’s YouTube channel, saving it for later so I could share it with Gavin, with his useless PI if necessary. Then I locked my phone and stood, setting my sketchbook aside. I had a business to build.
My custom woodworking pieces were doing well, but the goal wasn’t to keep selling them in other people’s stores forever. I wanted my own shop, my own space. A place I could pass down someday, when—if—I had a family. But first, I needed that ring. It was the most expensive thing I’d ever bought, and if Allie still had it, it could be the key to getting my business off the ground. Surely I could sell it, get a good chunk of cash together that could go toward opening my own shop.
