Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I was ashamed to admit how much I cried over the course of that first month. Part of it was, I knew, the hormones. But I was pretty sure that I would’ve been crying that much anyway, pregnant or not. I had been so close to my dream that I could taste it. My dream restaurant, my dream menu, my dream job, and my dream man. And then it had all been snatched away from me by that fucking critic and a stupid twist of fate.
Now there was nothing to do but move forward and try to forget.
Brooke kept texting me, trying to find out why I moved away so quickly. I should’ve known that she would be suspicious, that she wouldn’t take my simple explanation at face value. I’d told her that I was quitting because my one-month trial was up with her father and I hadn’t turned his restaurant around the way that I’d promised. Quite the opposite, I’d signed its death warrant. Now I was taking a new opportunity, starting smaller as a sous chef, the way that I should have in the first place. I had to move quickly to take the position before it was given to someone else.
Personally, I thought it was a plausible explanation, but I think that I underestimated just how well Brooke knew me. She knew that I was someone who thought through everything carefully and didn’t make rash decisions. So far her working theory was that I’d broken up with Cameron.
Ugh. Cameron. I’d honestly forgotten about him, and about what I had let Brooke assume about my relationship with him, in all the kerfluffle. Now that was coming back to severely bite me in the ass.
Brooke told me I’d never run out because of a boy before, but that since he was my first real relationship, she understood. She also said that boys were stupid all the time and asked me to come back home. She even said that she’d spoken to him, and that sure as hell gave me a fucking heart attack, but then she told me that Cameron hadn’t said anything about me.
It’s since he thinks that I’m going to run and tell Dad on him. You know how protective he is of the women who work for him. He’s very strict about dating and all that. And he’s extra protective of you.
That text was like a stab to the lung, taking all the breath out of me in the most painful way possible. It was stupid false hope, to think that Michael might be extra protective of me because of romantic reasons. It was really just because he knew me best, and probably remembered me from when I was a kid. That was all I would ever be to him - a stupid kid.
I replied, of course, just telling her that I’d wanted a change and that everything was fine, and no, my heart wasn’t broken or anything. That last part was a lie but the last thing I wanted was Brooke thinking I’d been bawling my eyes out over an idiot like Cameron. The guy was handsome and could be charming but he was an outrageous flirt who didn’t appreciate professional boundaries and spent more time schmoozing than doing his job. No, thanks. Not for me. I preferred people with depth.
Brooke seemed to accept my answer, but I knew that it was only a matter of time until she stepped up her interrogation, and what was I supposed to do then?
Tuesday was my day off, and I savored it, trying to ignore the calendar. It had been exactly a month and a day since I’d moved to Sacramento. I had stayed with Dora for the first two weeks while I’d searched for a place, and then gotten my own little studio apartment. It wasn’t much, and I had yet to find the time to really decorate, but it was home.
And it did have one lovely thing about it.
I had done my research the moment I’d gotten to Dora’s and could take a few hours to look up pregnancy. Normally I would’ve asked my mother but I hadn’t been able to find a way to tell my parents about the whole baby thing just yet. I figured I’d give myself another month to figure it out and had been quietly pushing back my panic attack over that ever since.
After my research, I had known that there was one thing I definitely needed in my apartment, and that was a gigantic tub to soak in. And dammit, I’d gotten it.
I drew a warm bath, warm as I could stand, and then climbed in. Oh, God, it felt so fucking good for my aching muscles. The baby was barely developing and already my body was acting like I had to carry ten gallons of cement on my shoulders. I couldn’t even imagine how crazy it would be in the ninth month.