Everything I've Never Had by Lynetta Halat Read Free Book Online

going in the other direction. “It must have been, but it's never made me sick before. You don't feel ill do you?” I say weakly.
    “No, come on let's get you to bed.”
    We make our way into my bedroom, and he helps me ready my toothbrush. “Thank you so much, Adrian,” I tell him. “I think I've got it from here.”
    “I'll just stay for a little while and make sure you're good, all right?”
    “No, really. I'm fine now,” I insist. I would prefer to put this memory to bed as quickly as possible even though he's being so gracious.
    “What if one of the boys wakes up sick and you're too sick to help them?” he asks. “Just let me stay and make sure y'all are good.”
    He has a point. “OK, thank you,” I grimace as I feel my stomach clench painfully again. This trip to the toilet isn't nearly as long, but it's still just as humiliating.
    Making a move toward getting up, I feel myself being lifted in the air. I want to protest, but I can't muster the strength. Instead, I relish his carrying me. I bury my face in his shirt and breathe deeply and feel him shudder against me. I can't believe I just did that! I have no shame where he's concerned.
    I feel Adrian scoot onto the bed and prop himself against my headboard. Nuzzling into his lap, I promptly pass out.
     

     
     
    AFTER MONTHS OF seeing Adrian with the Buxom Blonde Brigade, you can imagine my shock at seeing him with what could be a carbon copy of a certain wavy black-haired widow.
    We're attending my favorite party of the year—the firm's annual Make-A-Wish Soiree. It’s a charity that has always been close to my heart; I've always thrown my all into making it a successful event. All of the who's who in the law field attend and we raise a ton of money.
    Enjoying myself and greeting newcomers with Farah, my second in command, I chat and direct them to the different events being hosted around the room. But when Adrian strides in with my doppelganger, the knife that is still lodged in my heart from his rejection twists. I'd gotten used to watching him with the airheaded eye-candy, but this is too much. She's class. She’s young. She's a more beautiful version of me. And I can tell from the way her eyes move from him to the people around her that she's intelligent.
    I swallow hard as they are almost upon me. Again, that unfamiliar feeling of jealousy engulfs me, and I just want to...I just want to punch her in the face. Then I want to give him a kidney shot. What the hell is wrong with me? I cannot be with him. Why can I not find peace with this and just accept it? I stiffen my resolve to see him as a friend only. But when I make eye contact with those ocean-blue eyes of his, images of kissing him, joking with him, him playing with my boys, him holding my hair back while I was sick all come rushing to the forefront. All my emotions are jumbled with these memories. Like seaweed they weave their way through my brain and tangle themselves so thoroughly with everything that I am that all I can see is love when I look at him—and it's not friendly love or familial love—it's all-encompassing, I-want-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-loving-you love.
    As this realization dawns, so does the fact that I'm holding someone's hand in a handshake. I pull myself together from my internal confession and focus on another pair of startling blue eyes that are busy taking me in. They're not Adrian-startlingly beautiful, but beautiful in their own right.
    “Hi, thank you so much for coming out—” As I start to go into my spiel, I'm interrupted by Mr. Blue Eyes.
    “Celeste Hebert?” he asks with a dimpled smile.
    “Um...yes, and you are?”
    “Bradford McKinnon,” he replies again with the dimples. I find myself smiling back. “I'm a friend of your brother. He invited me to join you in raising money for your favorite charity.” Those dimples never disappear.
    I laugh lightly. He has to be a friend of Louis’s; my other brothers don’t have a clue about me. “Oh, I