Page 1 of Until Beckett

PROLOGUE

COREY

Work was the bane of my existence. I hated the place but what other option did I have, without it there'd be no money hitting my bank account and trust me the maternity pay Isabella, my wife received just didn’t cut it. I never thought I would become someone who would give all my spare time to my job, but times and goals changed, and being short on money was not something I could afford in times like these. I had to look at what the priority was for my family moving forward—nothing else mattered. I know in the future I could always re-evaluate everything else if I wanted to when we were in a more stable situation.

Ever since I discovered I was going to be a dad I had been snapping up every extra shift Maddox Wescott—the owner and my boss at Manderino’s Restaurant—threw at me, to try and build that nest egg of ours that little bit bigger so that my gorgeous, sexy, and very pregnant wife, Isabella, and I would be able to provide the extra luxuries that our baby daughter deserved when she arrived. I mean, she wasn’t even here yet and she had me wrapped around her little finger, but I dare to say every dad would feel the same way if you asked them.

All you wanted to do as a parent was to give your child the world.

I wanted my family to have the perfect start in life that they deserved.

You know that dream…

That white picket fence and swing set in the yard…

I imagined myself and Isabella lying on our backs in the green grass in our little cottage in the countryside among the buttercups as the two of us stared into our daughter’s eyes and tickled her underneath her chin with the soft petals, making her giggle and squeal with delight.

Double taking that moment when the first droplets of rain that we caught on our tongues before we jumped up from the ground and ended up running inside to escape the light shower of rain that would break the heat spell we’d been stuck in for the last few days.

But I never imagined life as we knew it, all changing so quickly.

The doctors told me I couldn’t have known what was around the corner… that it was just a catastrophe that was beyond anyone’s control. That they did their best…

The issue was that Isabella was my wife. The woman I loved with all my heart. She was carrying my unborn daughter, and all I’d been bothered about was those extra shifts… about the fucking money.

I should have been bothered about her health… my daughter.

If only I’d stayed home that day and ignored Maddox’s call.

If only that customer hadn’t called to place an order…

If only… I choked. If only Beckett had run a little quicker to me or we’d driven faster to the hospital, skipping the red lights…

Then my baby girl… my Mila would have a mom and I wouldn’t be a widower.

Ring, ring… ring, ring…

Would someone just deal with that phone already? I sighed.

I grabbed the cloth that I’d tucked in around my waist and took a second to breathe as I dabbed my brow clean before glancing up at the commotion happening around me in the kitchen. It was only three hours into my shift. It’s not like I should be surprised; it was a typical, manic Friday night. The number of bustling bodies as they expertly danced their way past one another, balancing multiple plates of food that I’d created with my own hands, as they made their way across the obstacle course of the kitchen and out to the restaurant itself. The timing was crucial, of course, to greet the eagerly waiting customers before they turned into starved lions and we became the targeted prey.

“Maddox, I tell you now, fucking get out of the way,” a familiar voice snarled at my boss.

I stopped what I was doing and rubbed my hands on my apron before wondering why the hell my best friend, Beckett, was outside in the restaurant causing an uproar. That wasn’t like him at all. He was the calm force of nature out of the two of us, but something had set him in such a spin that he was here in my place of work, threatening my boss. My fucking job…

Suddenly, a crash happened and the door to the kitchen slammed open, and my gaze instantly took in my disheveled, wide-eyed friend, and I instantly knew something was wrong. “Out—” he gasped out, his tears on the verge of falling down his face. “It’s Isabella, we need to go—” I instantly froze at his words as he shouted in my ear above the rest of the people in the room. “Your wife and baby, man… we need to get to the hospital. Now.”

Isabella… my wife. Mila… my daughter.

I didn’t remember the journey or how I got to the hospital, only that when I arrived, I was immediately directed to a smaller room with a box of tissues on the table. My heart started beating out of my chest as the cream-colored walls felt like they were closing in on me and my knees were going to give way on me at any moment.

Moments earlier I’d asked to see my wife. I didn’t understand why I had been guided into this small room and not taken to her. Was something wrong with our little one? I mean, it was too early for her to be here yet.

We still had a few months before we were meant to be here awaiting her arrival. The thought kept replaying in my head that Mila needed to develop longer inside her mom’s tummy; she was too little to be in this world yet. When suddenly the door opened and a solemn-looking doctor entered and asked me to take a seat.

I don’t remember how the next moments unraveled fully,apart from Beckett being my strength, guiding me forward as I collapsed, my hands covering my face as the hot,wet,angry tears drenched my face and the sorrow-filled howls left my mouth,all the while someone I didn’t know was explaining with an apologetic tone that a tragedy had happened, destroying my life as I knew it.My world was shattered into a million pieces but Beckett remained by my side being the one person I could lean on holding my hand through it all. He was my strength through my weakest point in my life.

I vaguely remember the doctor asking if he could call anyone else to come be with us at this difficult time but the shock had taken hold and I couldn’t focus on anything but myself and what I’d lost. Beckett kept squeezing my hand, reminding me that it was my minds way of trying to protect me and I had to eventually slip back into reality.

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