Grump's Unexpected Baby

Grump's Unexpected Baby An Age Gap Billionaire Boss Romance Sylvia Rae Copyright G rump's Unexpected Baby Copyright © 2023 by Sylvia Rae. All rights reserved. Published by Brookside Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form by any means – except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews – without written permission. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are on construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author and publisher. For more information, contact Sylvia Rae [email protected] Contents 1. Prologue 2. Chapter One 3. Chapter Two 4. Chapter Three 5. Chapter Four 6. Chapter Five 7. Chapter Six 8. Chapter Seven 9. Chapter Eight 10. Chapter Nine 11. Chapter Ten 12. Chapter Eleven 13. Chapter Twelve 14. Chapter Thirteen 15. Chapter Fourteen 16. Chapter Fifteen 17. Chapter Sixteen 18. Chapter Seventeen 19. Chapter Eighteen 20. Chapter Nineteen 21. Chapter Twenty 22. Chapter Twenty-One 23. Chapter Twenty-Two 24. Chapter Twenty-Three 25. Chapter Twenty-Four 26. Chapter Twenty-Five 27. Chapter Twenty-Six 28. Epilogue Stay In Touch About Author Prologue L ucas Two Years Earlier My leg aches. Spasms tighten up my lower back. There’s a wheelchair available and they kept a seat open on the aisle nearby but I don’t sit. My eyes burn as I stare at the simple, white column that holds the elegantly styled urn, and the ashes of my wife—and the baby she’d been carrying. I still don’t know if the child had been mine. It was a possibility. But it’s also possible it had been my partner’s—my best friend’s. The two of them had been engaged in an affair and I’d known nothing about it until a month before their deaths. Darren had been buried almost two months ago in a private ceremony. I’d still been in ICU and although Genna had been cremated as she’d wished, there had been no ceremony. I’d only been released from the rehab facility yesterday and I wanted this behind me. Felicia Appleton, my head editor and one of the few people I still trust, stands next to me, her hand on my back. The preacher giving the eulogy pauses and looks over at me, a brow slightly inclined and I look away. I’d already told him I had nothing to say. Felicia huffs out a soft laugh at the faint disapproval on the man’s face and unwittingly, my lips curve in a rueful smile. One thing about her, she can almost always make me smile. Pain shoots up my spine and I clamp my lips together to keep from swearing out loud. But I must have some sound because Felicia leans in and whispers, “Your back?” With a terse nod, I say, “I’m fine. I want this over.” The preacher drones on. I try to focus on his words—some part of me knows this whole ordeal is something I need to be aware of, and participate in, even if it’s just by being here. But I just want it over. Another stab of pain shoots up from my knee to my hip to my spine and I can’t muffle the grunt this time. Several people look my way but I focus on the urn—on Genna’s ashes. All that remains of my ex-wife. Memories of that night flashed through my mind. The music rises in the air and I close my eyes, but immediately snap them open because my balance is shit right now. The therapists and my doctors tell me it will get better. I don’t know if they are right. Mostly, I don’t care and right now, the pain in my leg and back are a welcome distraction. “It’s almost over,” Felicia tells me, sidling closer and slipping her hand into mine. Then it is over and I walk with her over to the roped-off area by the urn, flowers, and other memorial gifts forming a barricade. She undoes the rope and snaps it closed behind us the second I’m through. “Take all the time you need,” she says, brushing her fingers down my arm. “I’ll fend off the wolves.” Then she turns and moves back to stand guard between me and everybody who showed up to offer their condolences. Reaching up, I touch the gleaming, pale surface of the ivory urn. It’s cool under my fingers and I can’t help but think of the distance that had grown between Genna and me over the last year of our marriage. How much of it was my fault for pushing for a family? For kids? She’d always said she wanted the same thing I had. Had it been a lie? Had she just gone along with what I said to keep me happy? I’d never have answers. A dull headache begins to throb at the base of my skull as voices swarm closer, my name being spoken in raised tones, people clearly trying to catch my attention. A bunch of vultures, all of them. I hadn’t gone out in public since the accident—most of my time had been in the hospital, weeks in ICU, then another week in a regular room before transferring to a rehab facility to work on building up my strength after several surgeries. But it didn’t matter that I’m here at my wife’s memorial service. They want blood or tears. It doesn’t matter which. They