Kelvin Junior was a crybaby. He cried more than his elderly siblings but Leila loved her last child the same way she loved the twins. Asides from his crying, he could be a sweetheart. She watched with a smile as he crawled from one end of his playroom to the other. Camilla and Calvin were out there with Kelvin. Kelvin Jr stopped to pick up a toy, then he flung it in her direction. Leila picked it up and the waterworks began.
“KJ, the crybaby,” she teased.
At first, it felt like a joke to Leila until she realised he wasn’t stopping anytime soon. Lifting him off the ground, she bopped his back and moved from one end of the room to the other but he wouldn’t stop crying. She sang a baby tune, cooed but he cried harder.
The door to the playroom opened, Kelvin’s head poked inside and the door widened to reveal the twins. She groaned at the stains on their shirts, they hobbled inside in their mismatched shoes and hugged t
Hello everyone, thank you for the support so far. I've decided to make the book into a series. The next story is about their first son: Calvin Kyle McKenna, and it's titled HIS RUNAWAY ANGEL. I'm in the process of signing a contract for the book. But here's an excerpt of chapter one and two. * * * Someone was watching Hana. No, not one. Three men were watching her. She quickly finished her tea, shoved her notebooks into her purse, and stood. The men didn’t move, and her shoulders sagged in relief. It must have been her overactive imagination. Her mother would tease her about having a mind too active for her age, but it was the price she had to pay for being a writer. An upcoming writer. She wasn’t at the point she wanted to be just yet. The coffee shop was almost empty except for the four of them and the staff on duty. Leah, an old friend, was behind the counter when Hana went to pay. Taking out money from her wallet, she pouted when her friend refus
Hana hurried her steps, but the men behind her seemed to do the same. From the corner of her eyes, she saw one of them slip a hand into his pocket, and her heart sank to her stomach. Her blue eyes scanned the alley for the nearest escape, but there was none. If she could get to the other end of the alley, she might get help or an Uber. Her arm shook as she tried to remove her phone from her purse. Their footsteps closed in on her. She turned to them briefly to yell, “Fuck off! Leave me alone.” They laughed but didn’t stop walking. Hana hadn’t expected them to stop, given how shaky her voice had sounded, but she had hoped that for once something would work in her favour. “We will leave you once we get a taste,” one of them said. The voice was louder above the rain. Fear tattooed a sharp line in her chest, and she almost missed a step. “What do you think about that, Arnold?” Arnold, or whoever it was, answered, “I concur.” The rain was pouring harder, making navigating in the
12: 45 pm.Where was Carlson?Leilani May Collins hated tardiness. They agreed to meet by 12:30 pm but she was here fifteen minutes earlier. Her phone vibrated and she snatched it off the table before it could ring out. It was Carlson.“Hey,” she said into the phone.“Hey, Leila.” His voice sounded the same as it did on their previous calls. Freya, her best friend, might have put the idea that he might be a catfish into her head. “Sorry, I’m running late.”Leila stopped tapping the silk covered table and refolded the napkin. If Carlson wasn’t so handsome and probably a potential man in her life, she might have left the diner. She sipped from her glass of water that had gone warm. He was one point down in her book.“Alright. How long until you get here?”“Ten minutes top,” he replied.“Fine. I’ll be waiting.”Setting the glass down, Leila played a game of candy crush on her phone until her phone pinged with a text from Freya. She groaned almost immediately at the content of the text. I
Leila was floored. She pinched her thighs to wake herself up from this nightmare but the man didn’t disappear.“Hi,” he murmured. “I’m Carlson.”“Hi,” she replied. Pulling out her phone, she tapped on Carlson’s Tinder profile and zoomed in. “Um, I don’t mean to be rude but I’m waiting for this person.”Leila slid the phone to him so he could see the man on her screen. A tall, handsome man with blue eyes that saw into her soul, not this short man over here with brown eyes and a scalp that was almost balding. He didn’t even have a beard.The fake Carlson laughed. Was his name even Carlson? It could be but he wasn’t her Carlson?“Yeah, that’s me, Leila.” Her heart rolled to her feet. The urge to slap off the smirk on his face grew and she clenched her hands under the table. No, this was a prank. “You work an eight to five job. Your friend owns the pet you used as your profile picture.”Right. “I don’t believe you.” He laughed again. Her misery must be funny because why the hell was he la
Tempted to reply immediately, Leila opened the candy crush app instead. She didn’t want to give off the impression of being desperate.Someone laughed in the crowd. The garden had filled up now and they were raising a toast to the couple. Leila reached for the glass of wine on her table and cheered to the air.Where was her best friend?Nearly everyone in this garden was paired except her. One more reason she hated attending weddings.Another message came in from this Kelvin guy and she didn’t take her time to reply to this one.Kelvin: Are you busy?Leila: Kind of. I’m at this wedding my best friend forced me to attend.Force was not the best word to describe the true story. But Leila could bet her left ankle that Freya would have dragged her out of her house if she went there instead of coming to this wedding.Kelvin: same. In my case, I lost a bet so I had to come. I’m bored out of my mind. Weddings are not my thing but a single man has no say in such matters. My sister is trying t
A normal person would have said no but Leila stopped considering herself normal the moment she signed the contract with Kelvin McKenna. They only went on two dates for God’s sake. Her best friend didn’t even know because he convinced her to do it before telling Freya. And she agreed.She said yes.Did she make a mistake?Leila was still thinking about this as she entered her work building, she pulled the door to her office open and paused.Everyone was here.She stole a peek at her wristwatch, she wasn’t late. It was only five minutes past eight. She walked briskly to her table and set her bag and files down.Her head raised when someone sat on her desk. Lily. They were not best of friends but she preferred her to that witch staring at her from across the room. Samantha’s mission in this office was to make her life miserable but Leila was bent on avoiding her as best as she could. Already, it was working. Last month, she received the best staff of the month award for the third time in
The department was louder than before as male and female staff discussed her husband. Leila was mortified as Susie broke down into a commentary about his looks.Bile rose to her throat and she forced herself to take a sip of water from her flask. One of the rules of their firm was this: No inter-staff relationship. It was forbidden and highly frowned upon, so most of what they were saying would only happen in their dreams.Still, their thoughts nauseated her. She wasn’t breaking the rules by being married to the boss but she felt like a criminal as she listened to them ogle and try to picture Kelvin without a shirt. He was her husband and she hadn’t even seen him shirtless yet.Susie was the loudest of the gossipers, her comment about Kelvin’s lips between her legs bothered Leila and she scowled at their backs when they laughed at her remark. Her cheeks warmed when she remembered their near kiss from this morning.Kelvin was perfect as he was.Lily dragged a seat close to Leila’s tabl
“Carlson,” Leila breathed out.“Leilani.” He smiled. Those familiar emotions of anger that she had buried since their failed date bubbled inside her. “I didn’t think I would be seeing you anytime soon.” Neither did she, she should have looked first before hopping into his car like a rabbit. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”“Oh.” What was the kindest way to tell someone she blocked him? Her fake smile became faker. “I changed numbers. Might be why you couldn’t reach me.”“Sweet. Can I have your new number?”“What?” she squeaked out.“Your new number. I’ll give you a call later.”Today he was wearing a beanie so she was spared the sight of his thinning hair. When his head tilted to get a fuller view of her, she froze.“Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I apologise.”“It’s okay. Can we just go?” she asked.“Where to?”“Straight ahead. I’ll let you know when to stop.”Carlson burst into a string of apologies as their ride began. Leila cursed her fate over and over again. She should have