Page 19 of Strictly Pretend

“Vaguely.”

Abigail cries. Linc extricates her from her carseat to calm her down, all while keeping his eyes trained on me. Abigail snuggles against his chest and my own feels tight.

“Want to hold her?” Linc asks.

“Yeah. Okay.” He passes her over to me, placing her in my arms. She looks up at me, her wide blue eyes taking everything in. She’s got the plumpest, cutest cheeks, and when she smiles there’s a dimple there.

She snuggles against me, the way she did with Linc. I can smell the sweet powdery aroma of her baby shampoo.

Across the cafe, an old woman catches my eye and smiles.

I kiss the top of Abigail’s head, feeling the soft fuzz of her hair against my lips. They should rent babies out for people with acute anxiety. She’s like an antidepressant in human form. One minute of baby snuggling and I’m already feeling better.

She looks up at me and coos and I smile back at her.

And then that fucking voice in my head has to go and spoil it all.See, this is what you can never have.

I blink it away. I’m not going to think about that. Not when I have more important things to think over. Like how the hell I’m going to get this damn mess sorted.

“You see,” Linc says. “You can be a good guy when you want to be. And apparently your facial muscles still know how to smile.” He reaches over and tickles Abigail under the chin. “Now if you can charm this Emma the same way you charm my kid, you can stop worrying about this brownstone and everything can go back to normal.”

“How can I do that?” I ask him. “She won’t reply to my emails and she won’t take my calls.”

“The same way you did last time. Drive over and see her,” he tells me. “But this time, actually try to charm her instead of repulsing her.”

EMMA

“I thought maybe we could meet. Talk things through. I don’t want to see you again and have all this anger between us still.”

I frown at my phone. Is Will being serious right now? Thank God I didn’t pick up his call and instead let it go to voicemail. Truth be told, I had him blocked. But he’s obviously gotten a new phone number while failing to forget mine.

I hit delete and grimace because there’s no way I’m meeting up with him. I’m also not going to the wedding. Not if he’s going to be there.

And sure, in his eyes that probably means he’s won. But I’m a grown up, I can deal with it.

“Is everything okay, honey?” Granddad asks as I pretty much throw my phone on the desk.

“Everything’s fine,” I tell him, even though my blood pressure is soaring.

“Who was the message from?” He has a pile of books that he’s going through.

“Just a client.”

“Have you heard from the landlords again?” he asks, looking up. His glasses are perched on his nose. His eyes are rheumy, mostly because he refuses to have his cataracts looked at.

“Not a peep.” It’s a lie, but kind of not, too. Since I found the function to block on my phone my life has gotten a lot easier. First Will, then Salinger Estates.

Okay, Brooks.

I haven’t been able to work out how to block emails yet, but there’s something satisfying about categorizing all his emails as spam.

I paid the rent for this month. And yes, it came out of my personal account because Grandad’s latest auction purchase cleared out our business money, but either way Salinger Estates has been paid.

“That’s strange,” he says, “I really thought they’d try harder. That’s the problem with your generation, you give up too easily.”

“You dropped out of life for three years,” I tell him. “And you can’t remember any of it.”

He grins. “But I know I had a good time.” His eyes soften. “And I met your grandma. I remember that much.”

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