Page 5 of Written with Regret (The Regret Duet 1)
The idea made me grin down at her, taking a peek at her cleavage.
“I’ll get it,” Ian said. “I’m heading out anyway.”
“What?” My head snapped up. “You just got here.”
“Yeah, and I’m just leaving. As very appealing as watching you get shit-faced before sneaking off to your bedroom sounds, I’d rather my ears fall off than be forced to listen to one more minute of Brandon’s bullshit investment opportunities. Heads-up, he’s waiting on you so he can pitch a dodgeball-brewery combination in Milwaukee.”
“That sounds like a legal nightmare.”
“My thoughts exactly. Now, I’m leaving, so it’s your job to break the news to him. And I swear to God, Caven, if I wake up in the morning to find logo mockups for Fast Ball Brewing in my email, I will hunt you down and—”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Maybe on second thought, you should go.” I took the champagne and passed it off to Veronica before giving him a shove toward the door. “I have six hundred million dollars to blow tonight. The last thing I need is your voice of reason in my head.”
“Half,” he grumbled. “Only half of that money is yours, asshole.”
“Right. Right. Half. I’ll try to keep that in mind while shopping for malted-barley-shaped dodgeballs.”
He glared at me over his shoulder, a lip twitch giving him away as we made our way to the door.
It was March, but the city had been hit by a cold snap including a light dusting of snow, and we were expecting more overnight. While Ian got busy doing the abominable snowman routine with his coat, scarf, and gloves, I opened the door to see who had rung the bell.
A cursory check revealed an empty hallway.
And that’s when I heard it: the sound that changed not only my entire life in the present, but my life for all future days to come.
At first, it was just a grunt, but as if that baby could feel my gaze, the minute my eyes made contact, it let out a sharp cry.
Confusion hit me like a lightning bolt, sending me back a step. I used the doorframe for balance as I took in the yellow blanket with a hole only big enough to reveal a pale-pink face.
“What the fuck?” I breathed. Glancing around the hall, I waited for someone to jump out and start laughing. When no one spoke up to issue a punchline, I took a step closer and repeated, “What the fuck?”
I was utterly unable to process the absurdity in front of me.
Of course, I knew the facts.
It was a baby.
On my doorstep.
Alone.
But the why in that equation was glaringly absent.
“Uhhh,” Ian drawled, peering over my shoulder. “Why is there a kid at your door?”
“I have no fucking idea,” I replied, staring down at the squirming and now-screaming bundle. “It was just there when I opened the door.”
Ian shoved me to the side so he could stand beside me. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“Does it look like I’m shitting you?”
He looked from me to the baby, then back again. “How did it get there?”
We were two incredibly smart men who had created a technology empire out of nothing. But, clearly, a baby was too big for either of us to wrap our minds around.
I swept an arm out and pointed to the kid. “I have no fucking clue, but I’m assuming it didn’t catch a cab.”
A light of understanding hit his eyes. He moved first, stepping over the crying baby and hurrying down the hall, searching around the corner near the elevator before returning alone.
The party continued behind me, but even with the door open, the loud chatter was no match for the ear-piecing cries happening in that hallway.
Veronica suddenly appeared beside me, her body going solid as she stammered out. “Is that…a baby?”
“Back up,” I urged, throwing my arm out to block her path as though the infant were going to suddenly morph into a rabid animal. And let’s be honest, I knew nothing about babies. Anything was possible.
Ian dropped to his knees, scooping up the wailing child. Meanwhile, I stood there like a gawking idiot, paralyzed by a weight I didn’t yet understand.
“Call the pol—” He stopped abruptly and reached into the top of the child’s blanket. “Oh shit,” he whispered, his wide, panic-filled eyes flashing to mine.
“What?” I asked, stepping toward him to get a better look at the kid. Only it wasn’t that tiny baby cradled in his arms that made my heart stop and bile rise in my throat.
There, in my best friend’s hand, was a folded piece of notebook paper that had been tucked into the child’s blanket. From the looks of it, the paper was unremarkable in every sense of the word. Blue lines, white spaces, hanging remnants from where it had been haphazardly ripped from a spiral bound notebook. Even the crease was crooked. But it was my name scrawled on the outside in messy, black ink that made it the most remarkable paper in existence.
