Tame the Beast : Small Beach Town, Single Mom Romance

But I should have checked. Damn it, I should have checked it because when that door swings open, I find the last person I expected—and that is saying something as you’d think it would be Mellie’s sperm donor…but no.

My mother. Sorry, I mean Kelly because she stopped being my mom a long while ago. Kelly Holsted is on my doorstep, wearing her favorite—and quite frankly, permanent—pinched face expression.

“Well? Are you going to let me in, or have you lost your manners completely since you moved out?” It’s only at hearing her voice I realize I’ve been just standing here, planted to the ground with only my eyes blinking as if they could somehow erase the picture in front of me.

I clear my throat and lower my eyes to the floor as I step aside and softly murmur, “Yes, of course. Sorry.”

Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds is all it takes for her to derail me. And ruin the most perfect morning.

With a little huff of annoyance, she strolls inside, and I shut the door behind us, still completely lost at what in the world she’s doing here or how she found me at all. But before I can think of asking her that, she says, “Imagine my surprise when I show up to your apartment and the new tenant says he has no clue who I am looking for.” She clicks her tongue. “How dare you move without telling me?”

The only thing I can do is blink. Kelly hasn’t bothered with me since dad packed us up and left. Sure, there was that one lunch together. As in the one after I became a doctor, and she deemed me important enough to meet me.

But that lasted all of one time, because she learned that I dedicated my life to being Dr. Joy Levine’s assistant and that, apparently, was a disgrace. So, I’ve never heard from her again. I don’t even know how she knew where I lived in Chicago.

Probably went up to a random apartment. Yep. That sounds plausible.

“Did you have to choose this middle of nowhere town? It stinks here.” She wrinkles her nose.

“Kelly, what are you doing here?” I finally brave myself to ask.

“I came to see my granddaughter, of course.”

I suck in a sharp breath. “How do you know about her?”

“I went looking for you and a very handsome doctor at your university told me you were pregnant when you quit and that I might find you in Loverly Cave town.”

Another sharp breath.

Justin. There is no one else who could have given her that information. He’s the only one who knew about my pregnancy and must’ve connected the dots between me and Joy to figure out that I was here.

“That’s just so you, to go get knocked up by some random guy and then crawl into this hole to hideout. You couldn’t even get married first,” she huffs some more.

I’m still lost for words when Matteo emerges from the hallway with Mel in his arms. The guy is still only wearing his underwear and his hair is loose because Mellie seems to enjoy pulling on it nowadays, so he leaves it down for her.

“Dear God, who is that?” Kelly asks with horror and not the usual admiration every red-blooded female gives my boyfriend. Well, I have suspected her to be a vampire a long time ago.

“Dear God, who are you?” Matteo matches her tone before I can introduce them.

“Well, I never…” Kelly huffs. “I am Zoe’s mother.”

“Oh, thank God,” he exhales dramatically. “For a second there I was afraid I was being rude to someone important.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen her at a loss for words. I guess there’s a first for everything.

Don’t smile. Don’t smile. Don’t fucking smile, Zoe. But it’s a lost battle. Especially when Matteo comes over and wraps his free hand around my waist, looking Kelly over with one eyebrow raised.

Matteo knows about my history with the woman. Over the time we’ve been together I have told him everything and it’s safe to say he hated her even more than I did.

“I wasn’t aware you were coming. Don’t you know it’s rude to show up at someone’s house at this hour without at least a call?” Matteo keeps going, stealing the words from my mouth.

Kelly seems to finally pull herself together and narrows her eyes to him. “Who do you think you are? Speaking to me this way! And I came to see my granddaughter.”

“Ha.” He makes a sardonic sound then nods to me. “She really thinks I will let her come near my daughter. Funny woman.”

Kelly turns her gaze at me. “Of course, you had a baby with this…this riffraff. That child is probably no good either. I don’t know why I even bothered coming to save her from your incapable parenting.” She looks us over. “Look at you! You didn’t even bother to get your weight under control after pregnancy. I should have never let you leave with Kevin. He always did enable your laziness.”

Matteo grows stiff beside me, his skin hot to touch and then an almost feral growl comes from him, but he doesn’t say anything.