Mason (Carter Brothers #2) - Lisa Helen Gray Page 0,3

half months later

Different day, same shit!

That seems to be the new motto in my life ever since the day I found out Denny Smith was pregnant with my baby.

I spent months, if not more trying to push the girl away, when all along I should have been winning her over. It’s not just about the baby. I wanted her before I found out she was even pregnant, but I told myself I didn’t deserve her. I’d let my past define my present, and that is something I promised myself I wouldn’t do.

My dad cheated on my mother left, right and centre when we were kids. He also hit her constantly. Can you see where I’m going with this? What if the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree? What if I turned out just like him and destroyed Denny? She’s everything I’m not and I didn’t want to take the risk of destroying her like my dad did my mother. No way. I care for her way too much to even contemplate it.

Then the rules changed.

I found out she was pregnant five minutes after watching her drive out of my life. At the time I thought it was for good, that I’ll never see her again, until earlier this week when I overheard Harlow telling Malik, my brother, that Denny had been summoned to court. She arrives back in town tomorrow evening and I’ve been working my ass off trying to get everything together for when she returns.

I’ve tried getting Harlow to send me Denny’s new number, even asked for her address, but Harlow wouldn’t let up on the information, so I’ve spent the past two and a half months going stir crazy.

I’ve kept busy with the last bits to the renovations to the house Maverick and I were moving into. Now, he’s given Denny and I full rein to move in, and even changed it so it’s now a three bed with an en-suite instead of a four bedroom house. The only room that’s incomplete decoration wise, is the nursery. I’m not sure whether the baby is a girl or a boy, so I’ve left it blank until I find out. Then I’ll deck it out and give the baby and Denny the best nursery ever.

I scrub my hands down my face groaning. Denny probably won’t even want to speak to me, let alone move in with me. I can’t let her raise our baby miles away without me. This is karma coming back to bite me in the ass, something Harlow warned me about the day after sleeping with Denny.

Fuck! That night had been one of the best nights of my life. I’ve fucked a lot of girls in my years, but never, and I mean never, have I ever felt connected to one like I did with Denny. We were both so caught up in the moment that it had taken me until the morning to realise she was a virgin. That’s when everything went to shit. I flipped out, got scared and ruined the best thing to ever have happened to me.

When she told me she had been a virgin, I looked up into her big, vulnerable, dark green emerald eyes and froze. All I could see was this vulnerable, perfect, young, beautiful woman in my bed and I had already tainted her by taking her virginity. I didn’t romance her, buy her flowers, or take her out on a date and it made me realise just how alike my dad and I are. He would most likely have done the same. So instead of apologising and treating her the way that she should be treated by taking her out on a date, I pushed her away. I pushed and I pushed, to the point I think it may be too late for me to take it all back. I made her believe I slept with all those women that I threw in her face, when in truth, I could never keep my mind away from Denny long enough to fake it with another girl. I just wanted her, but I didn’t want to ruin her life. She’s perfect in every sense of the word and she deserves more than I’ll ever be able to give her.

Now though, the rules have changed. We have a baby on the way. If that isn’t proof enough that pushing her away was the worst thing I could ever have done, the ache in my chest since the day she