Free The Gate to Everything (Once Upon a Dare Book 1) by Ava Miles Page A

 
    She forced herself to pull away before the touch could mean anything, because if she lingered for much longer, she’d start wondering if she’d misjudged him. If maybe he’d planned on a future with her after all.  
    “Come on,” he said after a tense moment. “I need to let you get back to work.”
    Jordan made a joke of trying to pull her out of her chair even though he could easily lift her with one arm. When they got to the door, he put his hand to her back. Feeling his gaze, she looked up at him, trying to hold herself together.  
    “Thank you, Grace.”
    “For what?” she asked.
    “For agreeing to live in that house and be my neighbor.” He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left her standing there as its warmth faded from her skin.

Chapter 6

    After agreeing to Jordan’s plan, Grace quickly fell into a pattern with him that was working for her. Mostly.
    Jordan had taken her on a tour of the house not long after their talk at the restaurant. She’d blamed her spontaneous tears on her pregnancy at seeing the embodiment of all her dreams right in front of her—and the cold truth that she would have to make new ones here. His reply—that he’d read about that—had almost physically tripped her. Jordan had read about pregnancy? He’d walked off quickly, but not before she’d seen him swipe at his eyes too.
    But while the house he’d built for her was everything she could have wanted, the sounds of construction across the way had been enough to crack her heart in two again. He would be living next to her, not with her. They wouldn’t be a traditional family. When the discussion had switched to which room she wanted to use for the nursery, she’d had to work hard to breathe. But if they were really going to do this, she needed to stop thinking that way.  
    Grace started to break her life down into weeks—how much of the pregnancy she’d already experienced, how much she had left. She checked out a prenatal Pilates class, but had quickly decided it wasn’t for her. It was one thing for the women to constantly eye her bare wedding ring finger, but one of the women—a stranger—had recognized her and asked how Jordan Dean was handling his impending fatherhood. Grace spent enough time avoiding the stacks of tabloids that infected every grocery store, not to mention the click-bait headlines on the Internet. Worse, every now and then there would be a reporter waiting for her outside her apartment or the restaurant, hoping for a photo of Jordan’s “baby mama.” She didn’t say anything to Jordan, hoping to keep the fragile peace between them.  
    A part of Grace wanted to share more of the pregnancy with Jordan, but if they were together and the baby moved, she did her level best not to show it on her face. She couldn’t bear to have him touch her—even like that—afraid her resolve would weaken. All she needed to do was see a random photo of him at a local party to remind her of why she’d made her decision.  
    He hadn’t asked her again about wanting to be with her during the delivery, and she was glad. Part of her felt bad about not wanting to include him, but she didn’t think she could handle the emotions or the intimacy. It was hard enough to live in the “friends bubble” he was weaving around them. It was like artificial sweetener. It didn’t taste like the real thing, but it made her want it.
    So, Grace signed up for birthing classes and asked Tony to be the “stand-in” for her mom, who had happily agreed to be present at the birth. Her parents were still a bit wary about this whole neighbors scheme, but she’d told them she could always revisit it if it didn’t work for her and the baby. Of course, she hadn’t told Jordan that.  
    Jordan kept up a steady stream of presents, nothing too lavish to get her back up. One day a gift package arrived that included saltines and gourmet chicken broth. Even though she was in her second trimester and felt