The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(73)

“I don’t know.” Marley starts crying.

“You’re some kind of champion,” the doctor says, and I agree: “She is.”

The one named Holley laughs. “Baby’s rooting right off.”

“I say just let him do it,” says the woman in the white coat. “Both of their oxygen saturation’s good.” I frown, confused, and someone points to something on the baby’s foot.

“Well, Mama,” the doctor says after a moment underneath the blanket that’s covering Marley. She spreads it back down. “You seem like you’re doing pretty well. I’ll get you painkillers if you think you need them.”

“No…” I look at Marley, and I realize she’s feeding our baby. She beams. “Not right now.”

The doctor laughs. “I’d say you just had the ideal birth—except the hall part. Based on labor and delivery logic, this must mean you didn’t have a birth plan.”

Marley smiles. I shake my head. “We’re not good at sticking to the plan.”

The doctor shrugs. “That’s life. Holley is our on-call pediatrician.” I blink at the woman in scrubs right beside me.

“You caught me as came back from my dinner break,” she says, smiling. “We’ll get some stats on baby boy in just a few more minutes, when he’s finished eating.”

“Okay.” Marley’s voice is soft. Her eyes are wet.

“How ya doing?” I ask softly, dropping down beside her.

“Good.” She grins. I kiss her cheek.

And then I take a take a long look at the critter in her arms: my son.

She beams down at him. “Curly hair, just like you, Gabe.”

I lift a hand to touch him, but it almost seems like sacrilege.

“Do it,” she whispers.

So I do. I stroke his wrinkled, reddish little forehead. It’s so soft. The baby opens his eyes slightly. Marley squeals. Then he closes them again, and keeps on eating.

“Graham or Everett?” she whispers.

“I don’t know.”

“I think he looks like someone else,” she murmurs. Her gaze shifts to mine. “He looks so much like you.” She blinks down at our baby boy, then back to me again. “What about Simon?”

That’s my middle name.

“I thought you didn’t like it.”

“Now I do…” She kisses his curls. “Sweet Simon. Do you mind?”

“Of course not.”

“Simon,” she whispers. And it sounds like a secret. It sounds like the secret answer I’ve been waiting for.

Later that night, when Mar and Simon are asleep, I write it down—in ink. There’s a tattoo place across the street that happens to be open at eleven. I ask for something basic. Classic, you might say.

Marley. Gabe. Geneva. Simon.

As I cross the street after, I notice a flashing sign on a small building beside the hospital. I look because at first I think it’s donuts. But when I stop to really look, I notice the sign says, “Diner.”

When I get inside, I ask for pie. As it turns out, they’ve got seven flavors.

“I’ll take one of each.” I can’t help grinning.

“Someone’s lucky.”

“Oh yes.”

As it turns out, that someone is me.





A preview of Mr. North





by Callie Hart





North is handsome and damaged--a terrible temptation--and he has his sights set on her.

Beth is out of money and struggling hard. At the rate she's going she'll never complete her law degree. When she learns of an exciting opportunity--playing chess with New York's most elusive billionaire--the offer sounds too good to be true.

On top of that, Raphael North has a... reputation. But rumors are just that.

Then she sets foot into his luxurious penthouse and sees him.

Captor.

Enigma.

Lover.

He's all this and more.

Beth should run from the devastatingly attractive blue-eyed devil, no job is worth dealing with a man who can create so much heat she forgets how to stand.

But Mr North has a talent at keeping her off her feet... and he's about to make his next move.



Available now—keep reading for your free preview!





1





Beth





If you could go back and change a single moment in your past, what would it be? The most embarrassing moment of your childhood? The second you said fine, I don’t love you anymore, let’s call it quits? Perhaps a missed opportunity. That guy you passed on the street, the one who caught your eye. Maybe he smiled. Would you use your chance to go back and talk to him? Introduce yourself? Perhaps offer to buy him a drink in a bar? Maybe you’d take back a cruel string of words. Maybe you’d say something you left unspoken.

Personally, I’d go back to the day shortly after my twenty-seventh birthday, when my best friend, Thalia Prestwick, shoved a brown manila folder into my hand, telling me she knew how I could make some easy money. I would slide that damn thing back at her across the café table as quick as you like, and I would get the hell out of there. I’d never step foot into the towering pillar of glass on Park Avenue. I’d never have the attention of an entire city focused solely on me. Things would turn out very differently for me if I could go back and change that moment in time.