Accept My Baby

You can read Accept My Baby free below.

Blurb:

A single parent, BWWM, pregnancy romance story. As a successful travel journalist, Amanda Pearson thought she had life all figured out. But then reality hits her hard when she finds her long-term boyfriend cheating on her!

When she makes a break for Italy for work, she suddenly finds herself in the arms of a captivating billionaire Rafael Imperioli… And her life will never be the same again as they both fall in love! Yet her world comes crashing down on her when she realizes she’s carrying her ex’s baby.

Will Rafael stand by her side and accept a child that isn’t his? Or will this revelation lead to another heartache for Amanda? Discover now in this interracial, single parent romance novel by J A Fielding.

Chapter 1

Prologue

Amanda Pearson sighed loudly as she pulled up in front of the house she shared with her boyfriend Brett. She was trying to figure out what the best and quickest meal would be because she was tired and at the same time, the last article she had written for her travel site Amanda Is Gulliver was way beyond the deadline. She had planned on sending it earlier that day but her two afternoon meetings took longer than she had anticipated. She unlocked the front door and slowly made her way towards the kitchen.

“There we go,” she thought as she put the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. She then put her handbag on the counter next to the two brown grocery bags. “Really? I am barely through the door,” she thought when her phone rang. She would have ignored the call if it was anyone else but it was her best friend Emilia. She could almost tell what the call was about, Emilia had been on her case for the last four months about visiting her in Italy.

“Hey there stranger,” Amanda said smiling.

“You are the stranger here. Not me,” Emilia pointed out. “What do I have to do to get you to Turin?”

“Give me a few more months to figure everything out.”

“You have been saying that forever,” Emilia said.

“Well, I just came back from a three week sting in Asia and I still have Brett to worry about, Emilia. Things are different now.”

“Oh yeah, the whole living together thing. How’s that working out?”

“Sometimes I still feel like nothing has changed. I mean he still pulls long hours and I travel a whole lot…maybe it’s time to settle down for a couple of months before I think of doing another personal travel piece. I really want to be the one to do the Italy piece so, there’s that.”

“And I will have to wait forever for that, won’t I?”

“Well, I could leave someone to handle my next assignment and then I can come over. Kill two birds with one stone.”

“Really? You are going to trust your valued site to a proxy?” Emilia laughed. “I never thought I would see the day.”

“Well, it has to work somehow,” Amanda said sighing. “I mean, my relationship with Brett is important too.”

“I am happy for you, honey, I really am. Brett seems like he has a good head on his shoulders,” Emilia said and Amanda laughed.

“That he does.”

“So, listen. Can you do a video chat?” Emilia asked and Amanda sighed.

“Not right now. I just got home and I have to make dinner and also upload some of the pictures from my last trip.” She leaned on the counter. “How is tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s great. I got this new place and I just can’t wait to show it to you.” Emilia sounded excited, more excited than she usually was. “Maybe it will inspire you to come sooner rather than later.”

“Fine. I’ll check it out tomorrow,” Amanda said. “We can do an evening chat when you get home from work. How is that?”

“Perfect.”

There was a long silence from Emilia’s end before she spoke again.

“I love you, Mandy.”

“Love you too, Millie. Talk tomorrow.”

“Kisses,” Emilia said excitedly before she hang up.

Amanda smiled as she placed her phone on the counter and then pulled her iPod out of her purse. She then scrolled through before she selected a playlist. “Perfect,” she thought when she found her rock playlist. She had played it so many times she practically knew how the songs followed each other on the playlist but she didn’t care. This was her favorite playlist.

Alternative rock.

She had a playlist of all her favorite bands in there. The best rock bands of the late nineties and early 2000s; Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy and of course her all-time favorites Bon Jovi, Green Day and The Creed. For most people, that was the kind of playlist that would be played at a party but for Amanda that was the perfect playlist to get her in the right state of mind. It was her relax mode music. Her go to music any time she felt like she needed to step out of her fast reality.

And for tonight it was her Hong Kong piece. She was almost done with the article but something didn’t quite feel right about it. And unfortunately for her, she was a perfectionist. Nothing mattered more than complete and utter perfection. As far as she knew, that was how she managed to get over five hundred thousand hits on her site on a weekly basis. She paired her iPod to her Bluetooth speakers and smiled when she heard the first song come on. She was so used to having one of the noisier metallic songs begin her playlist…maybe some Fall Out Boy or one of the funkier tunes by Linkin Park but instead, one of her favorite songs from The Creed was on.

She was slowly humming to the tune of ‘one last breath’ as she slowly began unpacking. When she was done, she defrosted a pack of shredded beef strips. She had decided she was going to make a fast dinner. Rice, ginger spiced beef and a side of vegetables.

Broccoli. Or maybe zucchini, bell peppers and leek.

A smile played on her lips.

“Definitely the mixed vegetables,” she said to no one in particular.

When she had everything on the stove, she sat down at her counter and switched on her laptop. She scrolled through the photos she had taken in Hong Kong and sighed. She did not know how she was going to decide which photo deserved to be on the site and which one didn’t. She was literally spoiled for choice.

“Just pick twenty pictures and get it over with,” she said to herself in a low voice. “Just twenty.”

Her eyes ran down her computer screen as she drummed her fingers on the counter. She was still looking at it when she heard her phone timer go off. It was time to get the beef and rice off the stove. She sighed and stood up before she walked over to the stove. After giving her mixed vegetables a quick fry, she set the table for two and then got a bottle of Merlot. She was just about to pour herself a glass when she heard the front door open and close.

“Perfect timing,” she called out from the kitchen. “I literally just finished with dinner.”

“Amanda…hey,” she heard a familiar voice behind her. She turned around and forced an uncomfortable smile when she saw her neighbor Sienna standing there holding Amanda’s casserole dish.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Amanda said smiling. “I thought you were Brett.”

“Yeah, I figured as much,” Sienna said. “And I thought you were Brett since the sedan is upfront and everything.”