“Being with you is the right thing,” she says, pulling me into my bedroom and locking the door behind us.
She pushes me onto the bed, causing me to land with a thud on my back. I lean up to grab her, but she puts a high heel square on my chest, holding me in place.
I glide my hand up her leg. “That’s a little dangerous. You might stab me.”
She presses just a teeny bit harder, her heel digging in a little, but she doesn’t say a word.
She doesn’t really need to, since she’s unbuttoning her blouse.
“I’d like to lean up and kiss that sexy shoulder, but I’m afraid you might injure me.” I caress her foot as she sheds her blouse. “These might be the hottest shoes I’ve ever seen.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she challenges.
A challenge I will happily accept.
Asher Vineyards — Sonoma County
ARIELA
After pacing in my room for twenty minutes, I decide I need some wine and someone to talk to, so I go over to Maggie’s house.
Logan asks me a barrage of questions about Eastbrooke’s homecoming, which I politely answer. But the nagging in my head gets so strong I just blurt out, “I think Riley got a girl pregnant.”
“Why do you think that?” Maggie asks.
I give them a replay of our phone conversation and what I think I heard.
“And then he texted you and said he had business?” Maggie asks incredulously.
“Honestly, I’m surprised Riley doesn’t already have kids,” Logan says. “He definitely gets around.”
“Logan!” Maggie says, giving him the evil eye.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I know why he’s been doing what he’s been doing, and I understand it. Plus, I can’t say much since I’m married.”
“Regardless, I want to know what’s going on,” Maggie says. “I’m texting Keatyn.”
“Do you think she will know?”
Maggie squints her eyes at me. “You know how tight they were in high school. Times that by more than ten years.”
I watch as she sends out a text, and I stare at her expectantly.
“There are little dots, like she’s typing something, but then they disappear. That usually means she doesn’t know what to say.”
My phone vibrates on the table. “Oh, shit,” Logan says. “It’s Riley. Ten bucks says he’s with Keatyn and Aiden. You better answer that.”
“Yeah, I guess I should.” I hit the button and say, “Hey, Riley.”
“Yeah, so sorry about our call. Um, it’s been kind of a crazy night.”
Part of me wants to immediately ask if what I heard is what she said, but the other part of me—probably the part who has a husband she doesn’t trust—wants to test him. To see what he will tell me on his own.
He continues. “I had some personal business to take care of. I’m not sure what you heard before the call disconnected.”
Personal business. I sigh with relief.
“Are you still there?” he asks, his voice soft but stressed. I want to reach my hand through the phone and caress his face.
“It’s okay, Riley,” I say instead.
“I don’t know if you will say that once I tell you this, but Shelby—”
“The girl who was in your place that night?”
“Yes. She’s pregnant.”
“Did you date long?”
“No. We had a total of three dates—the three movie premieres—and used a condom every time. There was never any evidence of failure, but she’s pregnant. I made her do a pregnancy test and everything.”
“Are you sure it’s yours?” I ask gently.
“Keatyn tells me the timing’s right. But we’ll be doing a paternity test as soon as possible. If it is mine, I have to be a good father, Ariela.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to be anything else.”
“Can you—can we—if we decide to go forward—handle this? God, Ariela, you are the only one I ever wanted to have a baby with. When I heard you didn’t have any children, I took it as another sign. That you were waiting for us to get back together. That we were meant to be. That maybe it was fate.”
“And what do you think now, Riley?”
“I think fate is a tricky bitch.”
I laugh. “Brooklyn said that to Keatyn in the movie.”
I laugh too. “Yeah, he did. He used to say it a lot. God, I miss him.”
“You were all close?”
“He was one of my best friends. After it happened, I almost—I got on the plane and everything . . .”
“Almost what?”
“Came to find you. We were all devastated. And Aiden said something about never wasting a moment of our lives. I got on my plane and flew to Connecticut, but I had chickened out by the time I got there. I was afraid you would say you never wanted to see me again or that you were married or something, and I knew my heart couldn’t take it.”
“Oh, Riley,” I say, tears filling my eyes. “You have no idea how much that touches me. That you thought of me in that moment.”