The Baby Arrangement (The Daycare Chronicles 3)

“Sit.” He got the word out, then followed it with, “Please.”

He took a full breath when she quickly slid back into her seat.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He’d broken an understood rule—one was never to make the other unduly uncomfortable or bring an overabundance of emotion into their joint atmosphere.

He could blame it on her for laying something like that on him, but they were allowed to tell each other anything they wanted to share. That had actually been a spoken agreement. Reiterated more than once, by both of them, in the early days of their post-divorce relationship.

Hell, for all he remembered they’d said it to each other like a vow during the actual divorce proceedings. They’d said several things meant for their ears only when they’d sat before the judge that day, holding hands.

He shook his head and sipped his beer.

“You’re pregnant.” He got the words out and he wasn’t cut as sharply by the sound as he’d expected. Who in the hell had gotten his ex-wife pregnant?

The unwelcome words kept repeating, like an annoyingly bad rhythm, in his mind. He wouldn’t speak them. They weren’t cool.

“Not yet.” From the crease in her brow, the way she leaned toward him slightly, the hint of an upward curve on those beautiful lips, he knew she was placating him. Dammit.

And yet...she wasn’t pregnant?

Holy damn. Relief eased the sweat that had popped up all over his suited body.

“But you’ve met someone.”

The truth still loomed. She was going to have another man’s baby. Start a family separate and apart from him.

The implication he was to draw from that followed almost immediately.

She was moving on.

This was good news.

Very good news.

Exactly-what-he-wanted news.

But he wasn’t smiling anymore.

Mallory had someone else to watch her back now. She was finally over the past enough to start anew.

He was free.

Chapter Two

Braden was going to give himself a crick in the neck if he didn’t quit the exaggerated nodding.

Prior to that, he’d sipped his beer a couple of times and some expressions had flitted across his face. She wasn’t going to put herself back into near suicidal mode by trying to decipher them. Or make more of the hint of despair than was meant to be there.

Braden didn’t allow himself to acknowledge despair, nor was he all that comfortable around those who did. For all she knew, he honestly didn’t get the feeling. Not like she did.

He’d gotten the love, though, hadn’t he? Back before Tucker died. No one could deny, seeing him with their son, that he’d adored that boy.

Tears stung her eyes while welling emotion clogged her throat. She took a sip of wine, forcing her muscles to relax. She was not going to do this. She would not fall prey to feelings of inadequacy around her ex-husband—which meant she couldn’t cry in front of him.

It had been an unspoken rule between them since they’d decided to stay friends after the divorce.

And the best way to not burst into tears was to think happy thoughts.

He was wearing one of her favorite Braden ensembles. Dark grey suit with just a hint of lighter threading, the striped shirt in grey, black and white with the maroon tie. At six-two, with that lush, thick, dark hair and those baby blue eyes, Braden could easily have been voted sexiest man alive.