Free Unforgettable: Always 2 by Cherie M. Hudson Page A

closed abortion clinic, and some girl answered your cell and said you were busy. The international clock app on my phone told me it was one am in Sydney. I figured you’d moved on.”
    “Are you fucking kidding me?”
    The question was out before I could stop it. And with it, my anger. I rose to my feet, gaping at her. “You called to tell me I was a dad and bailed when some chick answered my phone? When was this? A week after you found out? Which was a month after I left? So, what? Five weeks of me being back in Sydney?” My brain tried to pinpoint the night she was talking about. All it could come up with was I must have been at a party. I’d tried to erase the memory of Amanda by partying. And by partying I mean getting drunk, sitting in a room full of my fellow students, hating the noise, the smell, the taste of everything. I had vague recollections of Heather looking out for me. Vaguer ones of her stopping Shelly White from giving me a blowjob on the front lawn of Mackellar House during one particularly bleak bender.
    “Jesus, you have no idea who it was who answered my phone, but you immediately leap to the conclusion I was fucking someone? What? Getting you out of my system with my dick? What kind of guy do you really think I am, Amanda?”
    She flinched.
    Guilt smashed into me. I closed my eyes, dragging my hands through my hair as I attempted another steadying breath. The first one hadn’t done its job, after all.
    “Sorry,” I said, dropping my hands and opening my eyes again. “I’m sorry. That … I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “If it helps, I didn’t think you were fucking me out of your system,” she said, a sheepish smile pulling at the edges of her lips. “I just … I just realized you’d done what I told you to do, which was to get back to your life. And even though I wanted you there with me, that realization helped me at that very second.”
    “How?”
    Her smile turned warm. Her eyes grew soft. “I started the car and drove away from the clinic and never went back. I knew then any child of yours would be all about living life to its fullest. And I wanted that in my life. I wanted your energy, your optimism, in my life. I wanted to be connected to it in the most unbreakable way imaginable.”
    Remember how I said I’d always been able to tell what Amanda was feeling? But how, since arriving this time, I couldn’t? Now there was no denying what she was feeling. Not at all. It was all there, in her eyes. Sorrow, regret. And love. I could see it. I could feel it. Oh man, could I feel it.
    “And every time I hold Tanner,” she continued in a husky whisper, “every time I kiss him, cuddle into him and breathe in his smell, I think of you and thank you.”
    A heavy lump filled my throat. “My son’s name is Tanner?”
    Amanda nodded. “Tanner Fitzgerald Sinclair.”
    I let out a wry laugh. “Fitzgerald? Oh, Mandy, no.”
    Fitzgerald is my middle name. Don’t ask.
    Amanda raised her shoulder in a little shrug. “Sorry?”
    I chuckled again. The fact I did surprised me. Honestly, I hadn’t expected to. “When was the second time you called?” I asked. I don’t know if I wanted to feel angry again, if that was the reason for asking, or if I needed to know when a future I could have had had been denied me. If I needed to be able to identify the moment fate had fucked me – us – over.
    “About a year ago. I saw you on YouTube, beating up some royal bodyguard.”
    With a moan, I dropped back to the sofa. “Crap.”
    “I called to see if you were okay. And then I realized I couldn’t talk to you without telling you about Tanner, and that made me realize how much I’d completely messed up, how long it had been since we’d spoken, and so I hung up before the connection was even made.”
    I watched her lean against the door. Watched her let out a soft sigh. Watched her waiting for me to say something.
    “Did you want me in your life, Amanda?” I finally asked.
    She curled