Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
There was no way in hell I was waking up someone as tired as her, so I crept back out of the room and down the stairs.
The dining table was empty, so I went ahead and laid everything out for her there to browse when she’d gotten some sleep.
But from that angle, I got a good view right into the kitchen. And that overflowing sink.
It was wrong.
Borderline creepy as hell, even. To move around someone’s space when they weren’t aware, to touch their things without permission.
That didn’t stop me from walking over to unload and restack the dishwasher, from putting in the packet of cleaner and setting it to run.
Maybe she’d be mad.
Maybe she’d even fire me.
But at least she’d have a dish when she reached for one.
With that, I found myself doing a quick sweep—making sure the burners were off and the fridge was closed, things a scatterbrained, exhausted new mom might miss—and made my way to the door, making sure it was locked before I closed it.
Then I went ahead and didn’t analyze the way some part of me wanted to go back into that house and take care of the two girls inside.
Because what the hell was that about?
CHAPTER THREE
Willa
I woke up completely disoriented.
I had no idea where I was, what day it was, or what time it was.
Adelaide.
My stomach swooped; my heart fluttered.
But there was a little coo that had me pushing up from where I’d fallen, curled up on my side in a tight, protective ball, on my own bed. Then there she was, just eight inches away from me, big eyes looking up at the ceiling fan as it circled, content as a clam.
The whooshing in my ears didn’t lessen, and it took an absurd amount of time to realize it wasn’t my own blood rushing through my head; it was the fans.
The fans Owen had brought and left.
Owen!
I was supposed to be looking at samples.
But I knew from the weight in my breasts and the wetness soaking through that more time had passed than should have.
I turned, glancing at my nightstand to see my alarm clock.
It was one.
One in the afternoon.
I’d been asleep for hours.
Perhaps even more shockingly, Adelaide had been either asleep or calm for hours.
“Hey, sweet girl,” I said, stripping off my wet shirt and reaching for her. “You have to be starving.”
And I was aching from fullness.
If you’d have told me a few months ago that I would be tits-out on my bed while a repairman was possibly still roaming around my house, I would have laughed. But it was amazing what survival mode and motherhood did to your thoughts on modesty.
But, well, when you’d been spread-eagle on a bed in front of strangers while you delivered, then had someone ice your sore lady bits and walk you to the bathroom in your diaper, yeah, your body didn’t quite feel your own the way it used to.
I figured it would come back. Once this hard first stage was over. Once I was done being poked and prodded and wasn’t strapping myself to a machine that milked me in between nursing because I was something my lactation nurse called a ‘hyperlactator.’
“It’s great!” she’d insisted when I replaced yet another soaked pad from my nursing bra. “You can freeze the milk. Some hyperlactators even donate their breast milk to milk banks who supply it to hospitals for preemies.”
I supposed I should be thankful that I produced enough. But in my overtired mind and sore body, all I could focus on was that when I didn’t have a baby attached to me, I often had a machine. It was exhausting.
“It won’t be like this for long,” my mom’s voice said in my head. “I know that’s not a huge comfort when you’re in the trenches and so tired that you can’t think, or see, straight. But it won’t last. It’s just a few weeks, maybe a few months. Then you’re going to look back and wish you’d soaked up more of this time.”
It was why I’d refused not to take my maternity leave, even though my very male-dominated office had some glances to shoot in my direction.
I wanted to be present.
I wanted to enjoy it.
Lord knew there was a lot about my daughter’s conception and my pregnancy that had not been good or easy. But I’d endured. So I’d earned this protective little bubble I was living in.
Even if I knew myself. And by that I mean, the second Adelaide slept through the night, I would probably start working remotely. If for no other reason than not to allow the men who’d been nipping at my heels for years to get my job the chance to sneak in while I was busy being a mom.
Because, yes, motherhood was part of my new identity. But I’d worked so hard to get to where I was in life. My career was important to me. It was the only reason I was able to make the decision I’d made to be able to do this motherhood thing without a partner. It was how I was going to be able to give my daughter the life I wanted her to have.