Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (160 page)

“I’ll have to apologize to Mack later,”
Kate said, sighing. She licked her lips, looking nervous for a moment. “I hate
to say anything bad about my daughter, but I thought that maybe she had made
you up.”

“Made me up?”

 
Kate smiled wryly. “Her father and I have been
kind of pushy about her settling down; maybe she’s mentioned it to you?” I
chuckled. Mack had mentioned her parents’ interest in her love life on a couple
of occasions, and I’d suspected that she was trying to play it down—especially
after what my sister had said about women trying not to scare men off.

“She said something about that, yes,” I
confirmed.

“Well, we kind of thought—and obviously
now we feel like idiots—but we thought that maybe she’d made up some new guy
she was dating.” Kate pressed her lips together, looking almost as mortified as
Mack had looked. “So I thought it might be a good idea to try and guarantee her
a midnight kiss.” Kate shrugged, still looking embarrassed but starting to
regain her composure. “I called one of her exes to catch up during the holidays
and found out that he was single.”

I’m not sure if staring at Mack’s mother
in shock was the best thing to do, but her level of meddling stunned me. I
couldn’t believe that even if they had assumed that their daughter had been
lying about meeting someone new, they would go so far as to invite someone
without her permission—someone who, I would think, Mack would almost certainly
not want to see.
People are always exes
for a reason,
I thought, glancing around until I saw the guy. “

That seems a little…” I couldn’t finish
the sentence in any way that wouldn’t have sounded judgmental.

“Obviously it was a mistake,” Kate said,
shrugging again and trying to smile. “But we’ve been worried about her being
single for so long.” She took a deep breath. “Of course, since you’re real, and
you’re here, I’m sure Noah will just find someone else to get his midnight kiss
from.”

“Tell us about yourself Patrick,” Mack’s
father said, walking up with a glass in either hand. “I hope you’re okay with
whiskey and coke—I ordered for you.” I shrugged and took the glass that he
offered me, taking a quick sip. I still couldn’t quite believe that Mack’s
parents had thought it would be a good idea to invite her ex to their party.

“I have a beautiful, five-year-old son
named Landon,” I said, trying to put the awkwardness of the situation behind
me.

“That’s wonderful!” Kate said, sipping a
glass of champagne. “Did something happen between you and Landon’s mother?”

“She passed away,” I said, taking another
quick sip of the cocktail Mack’s father had brought me. “Joanne found out that
she had cancer shortly after she got pregnant, and delayed treatment until
after she’d delivered Landon. She passed away when he was a few months old.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Kate said,
sighing. “It must be difficult for you, raising your son alone.”

“It’s very rewarding,” I said, starting to
relax a little bit. “I don’t get as much time with him as I want—I have to
work, after all—but every minute I have with him is precious to me.”

I managed to find a few moments to snag a
bite to eat while I chatted with Mack’s parents, answering their questions
about my work, about my lifestyle. I relaxed more and more, reminding myself
that I knew for a fact that Mack was in love with me, and that the fact that
her parents were asking so many questions meant that they were interested in
getting to know me. It was awkward for Mack’s ex to be at the party, but I
didn’t have any doubts about who she would rather be with of anyone in the room.

The doorbell rang and Mack’s parents went
off, leaving the living room to answer it and greet their new arrivals. I
looked around for Mack and realized that somewhere along the line, she’d
disappeared. I spotted the woman she’d been talking to when her parents
cornered me and made my way over to her. “Hi,” I said, smiling as warmly as I
could. “I saw you talking with Mack earlier—and you two look so much alike. I
was wondering if you’re her sister Evie?”

“I am!” The woman beamed at me, raising
her champagne glass. “I wanted to introduce myself before, but I saw you were
getting the third degree from Mom and Dad, so I hung back.”

“I came prepared,” I told her, chuckling.
“I figured that Mack’s family would want to know as much as possible about the
new boyfriend.” I looked around again and failed to find Mackenzie. “You don’t
happen to know where she went, do you?”

“I’m not sure,” Evie said, frowning
slightly. “She’ll probably turn up in a few minutes; maybe Mom wanted her to take
the next round of appetizers out of the oven or something.” Evie’s face
cleared. “Mack said you have an absolutely wonderful little boy? I have kids,
too. Mack is just amazing with them.” I settled in to talk with Evie while I
waited for Mack to reappear, reminding myself that it wasn’t like she was going
to leave the party altogether; I had a claim for a kiss with her in a few
hours, and I was sure I’d run into her again before that.

Chapter Seven - Mackenzie

When my parents took Patrick aside to start
talking to him, I found my way to Evie’s side and immediately started
venting—as quietly as possible—about how horrifying it was to show up to a
party with my new boyfriend only to find my old boyfriend attending the same
party.

“Mom invited him,” Evie told me lowly as
we stuck close to the food table.

“I can’t believe her,” I said, my stomach
twisting around in knots inside of me. I kept looking around, seeing Patrick
talking to my mom, seeing Dad join them, everyone except for me and Evie
apparently clueless that anything was wrong.

“You’d think he’d know better than to take
the invitation,” Evie had pointed out, “considering how things ended between
the two of you.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” I poured
myself a glass of champagne and knocked half of it back right away. My gaze
fell on Noah and the anger just rose up in me hotter and faster. “I’m going to
talk to him.”

“Is that a great idea?” Evie looked at me
doubtfully. “Just avoid him. Go save your new boyfriend from Mom and Dad.” We
argued about it for two or three minutes; but just as I was starting to decide
that Evie was right and that I shouldn’t even dignify Noah’s presence with any
attention from me, the subject of our conversation appeared.

Noah looked good in the suit he’d worn,
even if it was a little on the rumpled side. When he popped up at my elbow,
smiling and looking just as confident as ever, I wanted to slap him right away;
but I took a deep breath.

“I knew you’d be surprised to see me,”
Noah said, snagging one of the bacon-wrapped dates from the platter in front of
us.

“Surprised isn’t the word,” I told him
lowly.

“Don’t get tetchy, Mack,” Noah said,
reaching out and touching my arm. “I just wanted to catch up a little bit.” I
looked around; Patrick was still talking to my parents.

“What do you need to catch up on? We
aren’t even friends anymore.”

“Can’t a guy change?”

Noah gave me a sleek, charming smile. My
cheeks burned and I could feel the anger rising up inside of me again.
Don’t make a scene. Just because he decided
to be an asshole doesn’t mean you should humiliate yourself any more.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing at his arm and
pulling him along with me as I hurried out of the room. I brought him into the
kitchen where we’d at least have a little bit of privacy.

“Oooh, I was hoping I’d get a kiss at
midnight, but if you want a little preview…”

“No Noah,” I said, my whole body going hot
with anger and embarrassment. “I came in here to ask what the hell you were
thinking coming to this party!”

“Your mom said you hadn’t been dating
anyone for a while, and I thought it might be a good time to revisit what we
had together,” Noah said with a shrug.

“I am obviously dating someone right now,”
I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “And how could you think that in a
million years I’d want to see you again?” Noah and I had broken up five years
before; it had taken me months and months to finally get over him.

“I’d hoped you might remember the good
times,” Noah said, giving me that charming smile again. “Yeah, sure—things
ended poorly. But that was five years ago, Mackie.”

“Which makes it even weirder that you
would come here,” I said, my arms tightening across my chest.

“Hey—all I wanted was to reconnect, maybe
talk about the way things were, and have a good night with one of the most
beautiful women I’ve ever known,” Noah said. He took my glass from me and found
one of the stray bottles of champagne hanging around to fill it. “You have to
admit that we had some good times, right?”

“That’s in the past Noah.” I sighed. I
took a sip of my champagne and shook my head. “I haven’t even thought about you
for years.”

“You do realize that just makes you even
hotter,” Noah told me, grinning again. “Not that you don’t already look
stunning tonight.”

“It’s not going to work, Noah. I’m in love
with Patrick.”

“Your mom didn’t even know for sure if he
was a real person; you can’t have been dating him for that long.” Noah reached
out and touched my arm. “You can at least hear me out, can’t you?”

I took a deep breath and another sip of champagne.
“You have fifteen minutes,” I told him.

“I’ve been doing really well—really well,”
Noah said, pouring himself a glass of champagne as well. “You’d be proud of me,
Mack.”

“I’m glad you’re doing well,” I said,
without any real enthusiasm.

“You remember how I wanted to start my own
business? I managed to save up and I’ve got a really great app I’m developing.”

“That’s great.” I said, and smiled as
brightly I could manage, hoping that I could get out of the conversation as
soon as possible.

But in spite of the obvious signs, Noah
didn’t seem to care; he started chatting about his life, asking about mine, and
as I drank more of the champagne I began to relax. “I’ve really missed you, you
know,” Noah told me at one point. “Come on, Mack—you have to admit that you and
I had some good times together.”

“We did,” I said.

“Like that time that we found the hot
spring at the campground? Oh man, I was thinking about that just the other
day.”

I shivered, remembering that night with
Noah. He started to remind me of other times we’d spent together, and I had to
admit that before everything had gone so horrifically wrong between me and
Noah, we’d actually had some very good memories. It had made it that much
harder for me to break things off with him, even when I’d known that things
weren’t ever going to be the way they’d been at the beginning of our
relationship.

Noah had been a good guy at first; he’d
been charming and sweet, thoughtful and funny, and I’d been blown away at the
fact that he’d actually wanted to date me. Every weekend we’d gone out, and
even a few times during the week—and I’d loved the fact that I was dating a guy
who could party it up all night and then go to class the next day without
missing a beat, even if I couldn’t always match him.

I kept to the champagne, but Noah switched
to whiskey, sipping from a half-full glass with a little ice in it while we
talked. I started to think to myself that at least if my mom had been enough of
an idiot to invite a long-time ex-boyfriend of mine, it was nice that we could
just talk like this. Obviously enough time had gone past that we could maybe
even consider being friends, though when I thought about Patrick in the next
room with my parents, I decided I should probably ask his feelings about that
first.

“Oh god—it’s been ages since I thought
about Tracy and Ken,” I said, when Noah mentioned he’d spoken to the couple
we’d gone on so many double dates with. “Did they ever get married or
anything?”

“They have a kid together,” Noah said,
chuckling. “Still not married though. They say that they’re waiting for baby
number two, so they can have both a ring bearer and a flower girl.” I laughed
and rolled my eyes; it was exactly what I would have expected of the couple.

Noah started really knocking back his
drink, and I started to feel uneasy again. It was too easy to remember just how
things had started to go wrong between us; Noah’s partying had gone out of
control so many times towards the end of our relationship together that I’d
gone from fearing for his safety to fearing for my own.

“Just as a friend,” I said, gesturing to
the glass in his hands as he added more whiskey to it, “you should probably
slow down.”

“I’ve got a great tolerance,” Noah said,
shrugging. “And since I’m obviously not going to get you in bed tonight, it’s
not like I have to worry about whiskey-dick, right?” He smirked at me, his eyes
bleary.

“I’m sure that I’m not the only single
girl in this house right now,” I said; while we’d been talking, I’d seen more
and more people coming through, going into the living room to mingle with the
rest of the party. “Come on, Noah. Switch to water for a little while so you
can make it to midnight, how about that?”