Conception (The Wellingtons, #4) Read online

  “Just because I didn’t plan this doesn’t mean I’m not happy,” I tell her. “It just…you know, was unplanned.”

  “Knox, you can make all the plans in the world. Doesn’t mean life won’t throw a wrench in them.”

  “No shit.” I pause then grimace. “Sorry. Guess I should, uh, get a handle on that cursing.”

  Amelia gifts me with a soft smile. “I know this is a shock to you. It was to me, too. I just had seven months to get used to it.”

  “That’s a bit of an understatement.”

  I missed it all. The excitement and probably terror of a positive pregnancy test. The first ultrasound. The first beautiful echo of the heartbeat. The thrill of learning the gender, and the beaming pride of knowing I’d be welcoming a son in the near future. I missed out on wrapping my arms around her swollen belly and playing with her tits as they changed while our son grew inside her.

  When I was missing her, I had no clue just how much I was truly missing.

  I want to bellow in fury. Rage for all the time, all the memories, all the experiences that have been stolen from me. But I can’t. Not with Amelia lying here, looking more beautiful than ever with our son on her breast.

  She bites her lower lip, and I feel like an ass, so I soften up a bit and ask the question that’s been lurking in the back of my mind since the hammer that is Branson hit me like a ton of bricks.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?”

  “Want to hold him?” she asks, purposely evading the question.

  The distraction works. For now.

  I carefully reach out for him, and when she gingerly sets him in my arms, our eyes meet. This moment feels so powerful, so right, that I’m nearly undone. It’s just the three of us, lost in our own little corner of the world.

  Our own little family.

  “Amelia,” I whisper, unsure of how to continue. Uncertain of what to even say. I don’t think I have the words. All my plans were thrown out the window with the revelation of our son. I’d intended to tell her I love her the moment I saw her, but it just doesn’t feel right doing it here.

  Except it feels exactly right.

  She looks away from me, with a small shrug of her shoulders. Her fingers toy with the blanket covering her. The ticking clock sounds off to every second she continues to ignore me. I want answers, yet I don’t want to pressure her. I glance down at Branson, whose little eyelids are fluttering shut as if this conversation isn’t one of the most important of his very short life so far. He’s a baby, I know, but I can’t help the reassuring half smile I give him. Because I know, no matter the outcome of this with Amelia, I’m his dad. Nothing will change that. We’re going to be a family even if I have to haul her off and hold her captive in the wilderness until she gets that I’ll never leave her. Never leave them. Never again.

  “Knox.”

  My head jerks up and I see Amelia’s dreamy eyes on me.

  “He looks good on you.”

  Not wanting to disturb his slumber, I let my laugh come out in the form of a breath. “Gotta say he looked much better on you a few minutes ago. Even if I had a question, seeing the way he went at that nipple tells me he’s all my boy.”

  Just like that, I’m greeted to one of my favorite signature Amelia expressions. A rush of heat colors her otherwise pale cheeks, and one corner of her mouth lifts up into a sheepish grin.

  “Like father, like son. Though I have to say it’s quite a bit different from what you like to do.”

  It’s present tense, and I don’t miss it. She hasn’t put us—me—in the past. Not yet. It gives me hope.

  Her eyes flick away. Then she pushes a strand of hair behind her eyes and lays her hands in her lap. “Nothing can prepare you for breastfeeding.”

  I know what she’s doing and I’m not going to let her use her breasts to distract me from what we need to discuss. But hell, they are distracting.

  “Melia…” It’s a gentle nudge, one that I hope works.

  She blows out a breath. “I did, you know.”

  “Did what?” I ask, eager to know everything I’ve missed.

  She lets out a cheerless laugh. “I sent you a letter. Or, well, at least I thought I sent it to you. Now…I just don’t know.”

  I want to lean forward, give her my undivided attention, but I rock Branson in my arms, willing her to continue without my prodding.

  “I thought to myself, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some way to easily look up someone’s information without having to hire some private investigator to track someone down?’ But I didn’t need to. As soon as I told Grams about the baby, who the father was, she knew the Wellingtons of Nashville.” She shakes her head, a smile playing at her lips. “Duh, right? I mean, I guess I could’ve started with looking for a Wellington-named company. I never imagined it’d be that easy. Nashville isn’t that big.”

  It’s a struggle to maintain my composure. To think that she might have reached out, when all this time I thought she was content with us having gone our separate ways. When, instead, she was carrying my child, alone.

  A sudden desperation to reassure her washes over me. I can’t imagine how she must feel if she thinks I ignored her. If she thinks I didn’t care. I will find every damn person from her postal carrier to mine and make them pay if she thought for one second I didn’t want her or our son. Starting with Sunny Mayfield.

  “What are you talking about? I know you wanted a clean break. That you thought it’d be easier for us both to go our separate ways if we had no means of communication. But I couldn’t forget the night that you promised to send me a photo of the two of us one night when we’d been drinking. I’d hoped that you’d remember it eventually and give in, even if you had to send it without a return address.”

  Her green eyes widen slightly, and I wonder if she actually forgot that. Hell, I almost did, and our hangovers were brutal the next day. I’ve tried not to hold it against her. Too much.

  “So I gave Sunny my address just in case you ever asked for it. I checked my goddamn mail every single day from the second I got home, but I got nothing. Not a postcard. Not a letter. Not an unsigned photo, even though I stupidly thought you’d send one like you promised.”

  She swallows hard. “I meant to… It’s just, in the beginning, it was too hard. I wasn’t ready.”

  Does that mean what I think it means? Because all this time, I thought I left that summer, just like she wanted me to, and while all I’ve done for the past eight months is look back, I figured she’d moved far the fuck on.

  “Did you ever even ask Sunny? Did you mention me at all? Think about me at all before you knew you were pregnant?”

  “Of course!” she cries then quickly lowers her voice “Of course I did, Knox. I thought about you every day damn, even before I knew.”

  Overwhelming relief washes over me.

  “That doesn’t matter right now. It doesn’t matter anymore. I did break down. I did ask Sunny for your information. But she’s an asshole and told me I had to wait a month before she’d give it to me. A month to determine if I was really hurting or if I”—she pauses, pink filling her cheeks—“or if I just missed all the really great sex.”

  I kinda love and hate Sunny Mayfield right now. “And after that month, what? It was all the…what’d you call it? ‘Really great sex’?”

  “After that month, I cursed sex while curled up beside the toilet, waiting for the subsequent wave of morning sickness to hit me.”

  Right. Just another reminder of everything I missed. “I wish I could have been there,” I reply, my voice soft. “I would’ve been if I’d known.”

  “It didn’t last long. The morning sickness, I mean. Once I felt okay, Sunny couldn’t find your address,” she informs me, sadness filling her eyes. “I chalked it up to serendipity. The universe didn’t want you to know. That’s what I told myself.”

  “The universe is a bitch. And I know she’s your best friend, but so is Sunny.”

  “Yeah, I might’ve c
ursed her out a time or two. But that was that. I didn’t have a way to contact you. So it didn’t matter.”

  I blow out a breath. “Amelia, it mattered. Trust me. It fucking mattered.”

  “I know that now. God, I’ve imagined this moment going so many ways, but I don’t think I ever actually thought it would happen. It felt like roadblock after roadblock when it came to finding you.”

  I frown. “I thought you said your grandmother figured it out.”

  She rests her head against her pillow, yawning. I should let her get some rest. But should went out the window the second I stepped into this room.

  “She did. Or, well, she thought she did anyways. Grams knew of your family. Of course she did. But she couldn’t find any listing information for your home, so we assumed your family was unlisted. She eventually found the mailing address for your dad’s company. It didn’t even cross my mind that there were two of you, even though she had told me. Pregnancy brain or something. Anyway, I was about six months along when I finally wrote to you….” She trails off, and if it weren’t for the bundle in my arms, I’d reach across and take her hand.

  “I never got get a letter from you,” I repeat. “I swear it. I would’ve been here in a heartbeat if I’d known. I never would have left you to go through this alone.”

  I never should have left in the first place. Not that I tell her that. Not yet.

  She exhales, sending a loose tendril flying up. Then it settles onto her cheek. “Well. That’s a bummer. I kind of poured my heart out in that letter. When I never heard from you, I figured…”

  “You figured I didn’t care. That I wanted nothing to do with either of you.” The words are a knife to my gut. How could she think that? After everything we shared last summer, even if it was supposed to be purely physical, I thought she knew me. How could she think I’d be the guy to abandon her, to not accept responsibility?

  Her eyes fill with pain. That same pain burns deep at the thought of her doing this on her own. That she thought I’d gotten her pregnant then abandoned her when she needed me the most. I’m fucking sick to my stomach thinking about it. The acid burning in my belly seeps into my blood, and that sickness twists into fury. For about the tenth time tonight, I want to slam my fists into something until they bleed, hurting on the outside as much as I do in my core.

  “We had a plan and we stuck to it. Leave it up to fate.”

  I scoff. “It was a dumb plan and you know it. We both do. We were more than friends when I left here last summer, Amelia.”

  She turns her watery attention to Branson. “I know. It was a stupid plan. But it doesn’t matter anymore. This little guy just had different plans for us. It’s not your fault, Knox, any more than it’s mine.”

  Not my fault? Of course it’s not my fucking fault. I want to rail, yet I know I can’t. If we’re going to get past this (which I really fucking want to) and move on (again, really fucking want to), then I have to maintain my composure and deal with the fact that I wasn’t here, but I also have to make sure I’m never away from either of them again.

  Instead of following that train of thought, I wonder what the hell happened with her mysterious letter. If she sent it to the company, there’s no way it should’ve gotten lost. I mean, sure, the interns in the mailroom might be slow at their jobs, but missing mail has never been a thing. If it’s addressed to Knox Wellington, it comes across one of two desks. Mine or…

  Oh. Shit.

  When it dawns on me, I nearly burst into laughter. Confusion crosses Amelia’s face though. I don’t know how this story turned into a mix of both Shakespearean tragedy and comedy, but I hope beyond measure we haven’t screwed up the possibility of happily ever after.

  “You said three months ago, right?”

  She nods, and I trace back, doing the math in my head.

  “God fucking dammit.”

  Her lips quirk up into a smile. “What was that you said about watching that mouth?”

  The fact that she’s joking with me is a damn good sign. I glance down at my son then look back to her with a grin. “Hey, it’s not like he can repeat the words any time soon. I have some time to tame my tongue.”

  “That’s true. Although, with your filthy mouth, you might want to start practicing as soon as possible.”

  I wink. “And you would know all about my filthy mouth, wouldn’t you?”

  “Would we be here if I didn’t?”

  Touché. I’m not exactly sure how to respond to that. She sounds like she’s teasing, yet there’s a hint of resignation in her tone. So, instead of trying to decipher her words, I continue.

  “Anyways, the letter. I think I know what happened. You’re going to laugh…” I trail off when she pushes herself up on the bed, wincing in the process. “You okay? Fuck…I mean, hell. I mean, dang, I didn’t think about the actual delivery. Fu—freaking selfish of me. How are you feeling?”

  I can’t believe I haven’t even asked her that. In the whirlwind of the last ten or so minutes, it didn’t even cross my mind to ask about the delivery, let alone the pregnancy. Was everything okay? Were there any complications? When the hell is his birthday?

  Amelia must see the wheels turning in my brain. “Knox, calm down. We can talk about the delivery and everything else later. Tell me about why you think you didn’t receive the letter and why you think I’ll laugh. Because trust me, the last thing I wanted to do the last few months was laugh.”

  Fuck. I want to apologize again, even if I’ve done nothing wrong. Instead, I sit back, gently bouncing Branson, and tell Amelia all about the hell that nearly broke loose in my house a few months ago.

  “I don’t know everything, just the little bit Clay was able to get out of my mom. Long story short, a letter came across my father’s desk. His secretary, Lynn, generally screens his mail. Since she’s more loyal to my mom than my dad, she called Mom about this particular one…”

  Amelia leans forward, listening intently as I recall the story as Clay told it. Mom didn’t even question the validity of the letter. She didn’t have to. She and Dad have been happily married for decades, and there’s no chance he’d step out on her. What she wanted to get to the bottom of was who was trying to extort my dad and what exactly did she want. Unfortunately, there was no return address, and they decided just to wait it out. To see if anything else came of it. Apparently, none of them even thought for a second that it could’ve been their son to knock a girl up and not come up to scratch.

  When I get to the part about Mom saying that even though she’s old enough to be a grandma, the only person having my dad’s babies is her, Amelia cracks up.

  “Stop, stop! I shouldn’t be laughing at this. I should be outraged. That letter was for your eyes only! Oh my god. If your mother ever finds out that the ‘hussy’ is me, I’ll never live it down!”

  “Trust me, Amelia,” I say, lifting up the bundle of joy in my arms, “when she finds out who you are and the gift you’ve given her, she’ll be overwhelmed with joy.”

  She doesn’t look convinced, but when she does meet Mom, it’ll take two seconds tops for her to realize that Kate Wellington is a force to be reckoned with and she loves freaking hard. Fuck, I can’t imagine the conversation I’m going to have with her about this. The question is: Do I call or drive home to spill the news? Call. Definitely call. I’m not leaving Amelia for a single second until we have this all worked out.

  “So, since your dad received my letter, do you know what happened to it? Did they throw it out? Please tell me they threw it out.”

  “Wish I could. I’m pretty sure Mom tucked it away into the safe at home in case he got another one. If a pattern was established, she wanted all the evidence. Hell, I’m going to have to call Mom. This is going to blow her mind. And now I’m definitely curious what you wrote.”

  She nibbles on her lower lip. “It was pretty cut and dried. I wrote about seventeen drafts before I decided to keep it short and sweet. I didn’t want to seem like I needed you. I didn’t
want to be seen as an obligation. Just…a quick ‘Hey, remember all those times we banged? Yeah, ya knocked me up.’”

  “Cold,” I mutter, half joking, half not. “Thought you said you poured your heart out?”

  She winces as her cheeks flush a deeper pink. “I know, I know. So maybe I embellished. But I did throw in an ‘I miss you.’ I’m sure I did.” She taps her forefinger on the edge of her chin. “And then I ended it with ‘If you want, you know where to find me,’” she says. “I suppose that wouldn’t have clued them on to this having anything to do with you. Oh god, what are they going to think of me?”

  Even if I hadn’t told mom about Amelia before I left, I still know how she’ll be received. “They’re going to love you. They’re going to love Branson.”

  Something crosses her face. “Even if he isn’t a Knox?” she asks quietly.

  “It’s not even part of the equation, babe. It’s just a name. I promise. And when you’re feeling up to it, I can’t wait to hear how his name came to be.”

  “We have a lot to discuss, don’t we?”

  “Yeah, babe. I’d say we do. Good thing is we have all the time in the world.”

  Where this sudden patience is coming from, I have no idea. Probably from the baby sleeping in the crook of my arm, and I send up a prayer of thanks that I had the best example of a father a guy could have.

  She yawns, takes a glance at the sleeping baby in my arms, then settles in against her pillow. As much as I don’t want this conversation to end, I can tell she needs her sleep.

  “Why don’t you get some rest? I can handle this little guy for a while,” I offer. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a few moments alone with him and my thoughts to process it all.

  “I should call the nurse. They can take him to the nursery. Get one last night of peace, quiet, and undisturbed sleep while I can. As much as I love her, there’s no way I can live with Sunny watching over my shoulder the way she’s tried to do for the last few months. The first thing I’m doing when I get home is kick her out.”