Baby Buddies: A BWWM Pregnancy Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

an argument with you that we’ve already had. The point is, you don’t respect me. You don’t respect my career and the way you’ve behaved tonight shows you have no respect for my time or my feelings. Just leave.”
    Jakob audibly scoffed. “Your career?” he mocked. “Working as a receptionist is not a career. Having a hundred pictures of dresses under your bed is not a career. Making pretty dresses so that people notice you is not a career. Don’t take it out on me just because I have a job worth working late for.”
    “Get out!” Anaya yelled. She didn’t care if her voice was raised. Jakob had touched a nerve and she just wanted him out of her apartment. Once again she felt the frustration and hurt of loving an impossible man. Owen was right. She could do better than Jakob. She picked up Jakob’s briefcase and threw it into the hall, slamming the door behind him as he followed it there. Finally, he was gone.
    Anaya was furious and shaking. She strode across the room and picked up the phone. As much as she didn’t want to tell Owen that he was right yet again, she needed to hear the voice of someone who was on her side. No matter how many times Anaya phoned Owen to tell him the same story, he always had a new way of making her feel better. If she wasn’t too late, perhaps he would still come by with that movie and wine and they could celebrate together another year of bad choices.
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter3
     
    Owen’s feet pounded against the turning rubber of the treadmill and he pushed himself onwards. He went to the gym several times a week to keep in shape and to help him relax. The gentle whirring of the treadmill and background bustle of people running and cycling allowed his mind to wander and for his stress to disappear.
    Owen was a veterinarian who loved his job and all the different people he got to meet and the animals that he worked with, but it came with a lot of pressure. People loved their pets and they put the lives of these animals in his hands daily. When a rabbit died on his watch, Owen wouldn’t be wracked with guilt because these animals had short lives and sometimes nothing could be done, but he still hated to see a little girl cry because Flopsy had gone to a better place. That afternoon a little old lady’s cat of fourteen years had been brought in to be put down and Owen had struggled to shrug off how sad he felt to know that a senior’s companion had gone.
    It wasn’t all bad; far more often than losing an animal, Owen was able to return a pet to its family in full health and then, for a brief moment, he would be a part of a family’s joy and he lived for that feeling. His own apartment complex didn’t allow pets, so the social and animal-loving young man lived alone in an empty apartment.
    He’d had girlfriends over the years, but none had stuck. It was partially because he worked so hard and partially because he struggled to find a woman that he clicked with. Most women he met seemed to be looking for a confident, sports-loving captain of the football team kind of guy and Owen was more of the quiet, sensitive type. From time-to-time, he’d meet a girl that was cute and they’d have a few good months, but they’d always seem to grow bored with him in the end. Owen had been told that he wasn’t spontaneous enough and that he was too safe. Owen wasn’t quite sure what that meant.
    James, Owen’s friend from school, came over to him dripping sweat and with a towel around his neck. He was a very tall man with shoulder-length black hair and a sort-of beard that he had been trying to grow ever since his daughter had been born. It was an attempt to look more like a father figure than a baby-faced school boy. He and Owen often arranged to come together to work out and then, if they had time, they’d go out and get a drink together, but Owen had seen less of him since he’d become a father. Owen slowed down his pace on the treadmill and then stepped off to talk to