Page 6 of Moonstruck Kiss

Or ever.

Because I hate being attracted to someone I can’t stand.

Chapter

Two

BRAX

I stirfrom my deep sleep. Did a sound wake me up or was I dreaming?

“Kwahh kahk kahh kahh kahh!”

I sit up and, realising that Ollie is not in the specially ordered Spiderman-themed single bed next to my king-sized one, I hurry out to look for him.

He’s in the living room of our one-bedroom cabin in Moonstruck Lodge, standing on an ottoman with his nose and palms pressed against the window.

“Kwahh kahh kahh kahh kahh!” he calls out to whatever he’s looking at.

“Hey, bud. What’s out there?” I walk to him and kiss his head.

This is my child.Mychild. Fuck, I still can’t believe it. And I can’t get over how much I love him despite not being aware of his existence until seven months ago.

The last two months that he’s lived with me full-time—after all the paternity tests and paperwork had been completed, and after a period of transition from his carers to me—have been very challenging. My comfort zone has been—and is still being—stretched to the max. But I’ve also never felt such strong protective and loving instincts towards anyone like I do for Ollie.

“Look, Dad! It’s a bird! It was making a sound, like this. Kwahh kahh kahh kahh!”

Dad.My heart swells every time he calls me that. I thank his mother and her partner for having raised him exceptionally well.

I kneel next to him so I can give him a proper cuddle. “Do you know what that bird is called?”

Ollie shakes his head.

“It’s called a laughing kookaburra.”

He chortles. “A laughing kookak… A what?”

“Kook-a-burra,” I say slowly, grinning at the way he saidlaughingin an Australian accent, copying me.

“Kook-a-burra,” he repeats.

I ruffle his hair. The kid is so smart and so inquisitive, and his brain is like a sponge. I’d like to think he takes after me. He is definitely the spitting image of me when I was his age. “Why are you up already” I ask.

“That bird woke me up.”

“Did you sleep well?”

Ollie nods, then he joins the kookaburra as it bursts into another song.

I peer at him closely. He looks bright as a button and the cutest boy I know.

I’m still kind of haunted by his sobbing last month on our first day here at Moonstruck Cove. While we were attempting to climb Lover’s Hill at my parents’ insistence, he suddenly started crying for his mother—the lovely woman I met only once in my life and with whom I’d had a one-night stand. Fuck, I was such a fish out of water with those tears streaming down his face.

Thankfully, it didn’t take him long to calm down. I suspected that the large full-moon-week crowd might have contributed to his distress, considering the crazy attention we were getting in New York when our story broke out.

I guess Ollie’s mother dying in a car accident along with her well-known billionaire fiancé was shocking enough that the media couldn’t resist covering it every chance they got, especially when the billionaire’s estranged parents decided to do a paternity test on Ollie.

It was quite the scandal when it was reported that the billionaire wasn’t Ollie’s real dad. And, to the relief of the billionaire’s parents, the private detective they’d hired somehow found me. They became free of Ollie, and the billionaire’s assets became theirs due to stipulations in his will that only blood relatives could inherit his wealth.

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