Page 14 of Bren

“Did you take any time off?” he asks curiously.

“Of course,” I inform him. “I’m not really working today, but the licences have been issued, and Ellie and I want to make sure that everything is ready for us to start production on the newproducts by next month. You know me, Alec, I can’t stay still for long, and I’ve recovered quickly.”

Alec nods; he knows what I’m like. “I’ll see you both later. Drive safe.”

“I will,” I assure him, opening the door to leave.

It doesn’t take long for me to pick up Ellie. We get to the factory and speak to the staff, ensuring everyone is ready for the release day of our new product. We already have contracts in place with different spas and hotels that want to use it and will start shipping as soon as they are off the production line.

By the time we leave later that afternoon, I’m more than ready to get home, have something to eat, and snuggle with my girl before getting some sleep.

So, imagine my surprise when I walk into our wing and find a tall, muscular man in the spare room unpacking his suitcases.

“What the fuck,” I splutter as I look at Alec, who doesn’t seem worried at all by my outburst.

Closing the drawer on the dresser, he turns towards me with his hands held up.

“I’m here to help, Bren. I know you don’t need it because you’re superwoman and can do anything you set your mind to. But Lexi is mine too, and I want to be able to help. I get that you don’t trust me and that I’ll have to work to get your trust back, but please let me help with my daughter.”

My lips tighten, but I’d made a promise to myself that if he wanted to get involved in her life, I’d let him. That didn’t mean that I didn’t have ground rules, though.

“Fine,” I agree, then hold up my hand when he goes to speak. “You can help, but I have ground rules.”

Alec leans back against the dresser and crosses his arms, grimacing slightly with pain. Ignoring the twinge of sympathy that I have at the look on his face, I forge ahead.

“You can have as much or as little to do with Lexi as you want. It was never my intention to keep her from you. However, that being said, if you say you are in, then you are all the way in, for the good and the bad. I don’t want her to get confused as she gets older. If you feel like you’d be better off just being her uncle rather than being in her life full-time as her dad, you need to make that decision sooner rather than later. I’ll not have her feeling like she’s second best.

“We can do this on a trial basis so that you can see if you want to be her father full-time or not. If you decide you do, then we’ll have another discussion when she’s older on how to navigate any women you have relationships with on a case-by-case basis. I don’t want to have a revolving door of women going through her life.”

A sad look flits over Alec’s face, “You really don’t think much of me, do you?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I answer truthfully, “I made excuses for you for a long time, Alec. I understand that you never felt for me what I felt for you and that I was just another warm body for you to get lost in. But you hurt me; I at least thought we were friends; instead, you treated me like a whore.

“I take full responsibility for that because I knew what you were like, so it’s my fault that I fell for your smooth lines. It did give me Lexi, though, and I love her no matter who her father is. Can we make this work?” I shrug again, looking away to blink away the tears that threatened before continuing, “I hope so for her sake. I’d rather she had parents that were civil to each other than ones that weren’t. Our lives are too intertwined for us to be ateach other’s throats. I’d like to think that we’d be mature enough to at least be friends for her sake.”

“I’d like us to be friends, Bren. And I’ll show you that I can be trusted. I’ll put the work in to make sure that Lexi never questions how I feel about her. As for women, I’ve not been with anyone since the night we slept together, and I don’t envision that changing anytime soon.”

Disbelief shoots through me at his words. He must see the look on my face and correctly interprets it because he says, “You can ask Cash if you want.”

“It’s not my business,” I tell him, turning to leave, walking towards the room I’d set up as a nursery for Lexi.

“Bren,” Alec calls out. Turning back to look at him, I wait. “It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the same as you did; I didn’t think I was good enough for you,” he says quietly and closes the bedroom door.

I’m left bewildered at his words.‘What am I meant to do with that?’I wonder.

“Your daddy is very confusing,” I say to Lexi. Walking to the nursery, I get her ready for the night. I’m still thinking on his words later that night as I’m lying in bed, wondering what the hell it means for the two of us. Did he mean what I think he meant, or is it my stupid heart softening again?

“Ugh,” I scream into my pillow. “Bloody Alec!”

Chapter 8

ALEC

I wasn’t expecting Bren to make it easy, but‘Fuck me’unless it had to do with Lexi, she wasn’t open to any other conversations. She never brought up what I’d said about not feeling like I was good enough for her.

We’d been living in the same wing for nearly a month. Sam had moved into one of the cottages when I’d moved into the wing. In that month, Lexi had grown so much. I’d gone from being ambivalent about babies to being totally in love with my little girl. Because Bren was breastfeeding, I didn’t get to feed her unless Bren expressed. Lexi hated taking a bottle, and as we only did it for me, I felt selfish making her drink a bottle when she didn’t like it. Instead, I took over bath time and spent time one-on-one with her then.

For now, she spent the majority of her time with Bren. I was back at the garage, and it wasn’t really somewhere I could have her full-time. Although Mum did have a setup for her and Bren would sometimes drop her off when she had meetings in the village. We were both busy as fuck with work. I’d started implementing everything I’d learned in the USA, and we had appointments for custom paints booked six months in advance. Bren’s new beauty line and factory were up and running. There had been a few teething problems that had kept her late, but they’d smoothed out pretty quickly.

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