Accept My Baby: A Billionaire BWWM Single Parent Pregnancy Romance (2 page)

“
That’s
because I moved my workspace to an office building downtown. I get
more work done there.”

“
Did
I ever mention that you have an awesome job?” Sienna asked and
Amanda shrugged.

“
You
want to be part of my awesome job by joining me for a glass of Merlot
and possibly dinner later?” Amanda asked as she waved the
bottle of wine.

“
Fine.
But just the one glass,” Sienna said and Amanda smiled.

“
You
and I both know that it is never just the one,” she said before
she poured the wine.

“
Yeah,
sometimes I think that’s how I ended up marrying a guy in the
navy,” Sienna said smiling.

Amanda handed her one
glass and frowned.

“
It
can’t be that bad. Your husband is amazing not to mention…”
she pretended to look around. “Kyle is quite the eye candy.”

“
Says
the woman married to the one man the whole neighborhood can’t
get their eyes off,” Sienna said. “I mean even the gay
Tony couple also think so.”

Amanda smiled and
then shook her head.

“
Why
do people even call them ‘the gay Tony couple’ anyway? I
never quite got that.”

“
That’s
easy. They are both called Tony,” Sienna said rolling her eyes.

“
You
are kidding me, right?” Amanda asked as Sienna took a long sip.

“
I
swear. They are both called Tony. You should have been there for the
Christmas party last year when one of the Tonys finally came out to
his parents.” She laughed. “It was hilarious!”

“
I
can only imagine,” Amanda said as they walked towards the
dining room. “I would love to be in the same house when those
two are in an argument. It would make for a good laugh.”

She took a placement
mat on the table and began setting a third place on the table.

“
You
were not kidding when you asked me to stay for dinner, were you?”
Sienna said as she looked at Amanda who was sipping on her wine.

“
Come
on. You are all alone in that big house. It must get lonely,”
Amanda pointed out. “Plus I kind of miss how we used to hang
out before you got that big important job at the bank.”

“
You
do know that I am just a branch manager, right?” Sienna asked.

“
Well,
to be fair, the bank cannot get robbed if you are not there now can
it?” Amanda asked and Sienna smiled.

“
That
is a really terrible way to determine the role I play in my place of
employment but yeah, I guess I have missed us too.”

Amanda
shrugged and smiled. Sienna was one of the first people to welcome
her and Brett to the neighborhood when they first moved in. She had
been a little reserved about moving into a neighborhood with so many
soccer moms and families. It was literally like moving into Wisteria
Lane on Desperate Housewives. She felt like she had a lot to live up
to. Like she was trying to make a positive impression on someone…or
heck, the whole neighborhood altogether.

She was
already feeling like the neighbors were judging her for moving in
with a man who was not her husband. One of the women in the
neighborhood had actually gone as far as calling her out on her sin
but Sienna had stood by her then and just like that, Amanda knew who
she had to align herself with. But since she moved her workplace
downtown, she rarely saw Sienna anymore. Even in all the neighborhood
block parties which Amanda struggled to pretend to have a good time
while Brett hung out with all his stud buddies, Sienna was almost
always never seen.

“
So,
you mentioned some help with your job?” Sienna asked and Amanda
nodded.

“
Remember
last month when I visited Hong Kong?” she asked as she led
Sienna to the counter where her laptop was. “I have already
done the whole article but the big dilemma I have right now is the
photos.”

Sienna raised an
eyebrow over the other.

“
That’s
your big dilemma? Can we switch jobs for a week or something?”

Amanda
laughed.

“
Come
on, this is serious.”

“
For
me, serious is when I have to decide to talk to a woman whose loan
application has been denied for the fourth time in a row because her
credit score is way down…and did I mention that said woman is
an old widow who is barely getting by on her pension?”

Amanda took a long
sip of her wine.

“
That
is why twenty per cent of my royalties goes to the widows and orphans
of the New York fund,” she said in a soft voice. “I guess
we all have to pitch in to help the society in one way or the other.”

Sienna rolled her
eyes.

“
How
did you manage to turn my self-righteous speech into one that made me
feel like a complete tool?”

“
What?
You guys don’t have a corporate social responsibility thing to
give back to the community or something?” Amanda asked and
Sienna shrugged.

“
We
do but most people do it because it is a company requirement. You are
actually doing it because you want to…for you it is a personal
conviction which is more than I can say for most people.”

“
Oh,
thanks,” Amanda said before she tucked a strand of hair behind
her ear. “So, anyway back to the website. I have a twenty
picture maximum and honestly I think I went overboard in Hong Kong.”

Sienna smiled and
nodded.

“
Yeah,
no kidding,” she said as she looked at all two hundred photos
on Amanda’s desktop.

“
Problem
is everything was so much fun in Hong Kong and…I really don’t
know how to choose what is what right now.”

“
Hhhmm,”
Sienna started as she put her wine down on the counter. “Your
whole idea is to take your subscribers on the ultimate journey with
you, right? To make them feel the whole experience with you, right?
Maybe that’s why you chose to be Gulliver brought to life.”

Amanda smiled.

“
Yeah.
That’s the whole idea.”

“
So,
why not pick your top twenty…like this one here,” Sienna
said as she pointed to one of the photos where Amanda was posing next
to the Big Buddha. “This one definitely looks promising and
then pick out the not so obvious ones, the stuff that would not be
easily noticed in a Google search. And then have a separate link for
the additional photos. That would be more hits for your site so I
guess that would be good news.”

“
Yeah,”
Amanda said nodding. “Wow, that is amazing insight…I
can’t believe I have never thought of that before.”

Sienna shrugged and
took a sip of her wine.

“
Well,
I have my moments.”

Amanda
smiled and picked out her best photos before she uploaded the post
that had been eating at her for most of the day. She set an upload
for the rest of the photos before she turned to look at Sienna.

“
That
will take a while. So this is the perfect time to listen to what you
have been up to lately,” she said as she began rummaging
through the dish rack for a rice mold. “I mean, work can’t
be the only thing that has you all hidden.”

Sienna smiled and she
was just about to answer when Amanda heard the front door open and
close.

“
Saved
by the bell,” she said in a soft voice.

“
Technically,
the doorbell didn’t really ring,” Amanda pointed out and
Sienna shrugged.

“
Still,
you get what I mean.”

“
Okay,
now I am only more intrigued,” Amanda said.

Sienna smiled and
Amanda began serving the food onto the three plates on the counter.

“
Hey
babe, would you mind if I just took a nap before dinner and…”
Amanda heard Brett’s voice as he walked into the kitchen. His
voice trailed off when he saw Sienna. “I’m sorry I didn’t
know we had company.”

“
Sienna
swung by to drop off my casserole dish and I insisted on her joining
us for dinner.” Amanda walked up to where Brett was and kissed
him lightly. “Hard day at work?”

“
Back
breaking,” he said. He looked at Sienna for a second and smiled
reluctantly. “Sienna…hi.”

Amanda thought he was
acting a little strange.

“
Hi,
Brett,” Sienna said, smiling.

“
Are
you okay?” Amanda asked and he nodded.

“
Yeah,
I just need to freshen up,” he said and she gently patted his
shoulder.

“
You
do that. I'll have a glass of wine and some food waiting.”
Amanda held his chin and turned his face to look into his eyes. “Hey,
are you sure you are okay?” she asked and he nodded.

“
Don’t
worry about me. I’m just fine,” he said before he walked
out of the kitchen.

“
Did
he look a little off to you?” Amanda asked when she walked back
to the kitchen and Sienna shrugged.

“
He
did say he was tired,” she said as she pushed a strand of her
hair behind her ear.

“
I
guess.” Amanda walked back to the kitchen.

“
This
looks…incredible,” Sienna said smiling. “I cannot
tell you the last time I had something that didn’t come out of
a box.”

Amanda smiled.

“
Well,
I am happy to host you, Mrs. Sienna Phillips.”

*****

The next
day was busier for Amanda than she had hoped. The Hong Kong piece had
brought more hits to her site than ever before. It was even bigger
than the African safari piece she had done and that took her two
whole months, her busiest most engaging piece yet. She’d been
contacted by two travel blogs and one of the world’s leading
travel agencies, Travelocity, looking to partner with her on her
site. She loved the sound of that.

Endorsements.

With all the meetings
she had scheduled for that day, Amanda knew that she would not make
her lunch date with Brett, something they had been talking about
doing for the last week.

“
I
hate canceling babe, but this is a big deal,” she had said as
the two went to bed that evening.

“
You
know you will have to make this up to me, right?” he asked and
she nodded.

“
Anything,”
she said in a whisper. “Maybe we could go to that French place
you like so much and then later come back here and…” she
never got to finish her sentence before he was kissing her and his
hands were all over her. Caressing and fondling.

“
Let’s
just stick to dinner tomorrow but I want my dessert right now,”
he said in a whisper as he pushed the pajama shirt she was wearing
upwards to expose her breasts.

Thanks
to the active evening Brett had given her, she was a little groggy
that morning but she somehow managed to power through her meetings
and somehow, she was done with her meetings way earlier than she
expected.

It was almost midday
when she drove back to the house. She frowned when she saw Brett’s
sedan in the driveway. She could not think of any reason why he would
have been home at that time. And it was not like he had mentioned
anything either. She opened the door and walked into the living room.
She frowned when she saw a near empty bottle of wine and two glasses.

“
Brett,”
she said in a voice lower than she had expected it to be. She gasped
silently when she saw a high heeled shoe at the bottom of the stairs.
She looked up the stairs and for a moment, she wanted to scream.
There were pieces of clothing, a sure proof that two people could not
have waited long enough to undress each other.

Against her better
judgment, she walked up the stairs and the closer she got to her
bedroom, the clearer it all was. She could hear two people in what
was unmistakably the tangles of passion. Her heart was racing as she
walked up to the door that was not even closed. When she pushed it
open, she regretted it almost immediately. She was looking at Brett
and Sienna so caught up in their own passion that they didn’t
even realize she was standing there. She wanted to look away but she
couldn’t. She wanted to move, get away from there but she was
somehow rooted to the spot.

“
Fuck
you Brett,” she suddenly said before she ran down the stairs
and back into her car. She knew that she should not have been driving
but she could not stop. She didn’t want to stop. All she wanted
to do was get away from everything. Get away from Brett. Get away
from the lie that had been her reality for a long time.

Amanda
didn’t know just how long she had been driving before she
finally pulled up in front of The Three Towers hotel in New York
City. Considering her long history with Brett, she would have wanted
to forgive him. To give him another chance but all that went out the
window when she finally got the courage to confront Brett. She
already had an idea of what she wanted to hear.